Re: Paper tape readers for micros. (Re: I feel 31337!111!!)

[pino+comp_sys_cbm@dohd.org (Martijn van Buul)]

It occurred to me that peter karlsson wrote in comp.sys.cbm:
> c64@fiberia.com:
> >Luckily the internet became popular and we can download all
> >those wonderfull programs in a blink!
> 
> It's withed mixed feelings I see this happen; it's nice not having to
> type things in, but, on the other hand, you don't get the same direct
> contact with source code any more. 

I see your point. I learned most of my BASIC programming skills from typing
in programs. Not that I recall finishing one, that is.. Most of the time,
I lost interest halfway down. 

I had a couple of type-in-game books, which had an explanation of the 
source code alongside with it. I learned quite a bit of it (still do,
actually, but not with BASIC anymore).

However, this doesn't stand with these HEX dumps, unless you know the
opcodes by heart. I still don't (and I don't really feel myself inclined
to learning them). In that case, the hex code (or even worse: the decimal
BASIC-loaders!) doesn't make much sense - it's just a bunch of seemingly
random numbers, then. This gets even worse with a more 'advanced' encoding
of data using half the ASCII set. I don't think many people have learned
anything from that.

Oh, the blissful days when I thought that writing a nice game only 
required one to enter "10 sys 2051". The satisfaction I got when this
actually worked once, after I had just pressed reset.

Sadly, this includes the disgrace that my newly-found programming knowledge
didn't quite work out on my friends C64..

-- 
    Martijn van Buul -  Pino@dohd.org - http://www.stack.nl/~martijnb/
	 Geek code: G--  - Visit OuterSpace: mud.stack.nl 3333
   Kees J. Bot: The sum of CPU power and user brain power is a constant.