The future in the 1980's!!!

My programming days started and ended on this machine.  A ZX Spectrum 64.

The Spectrum came with about 2 games, which took roughly 10 minutes to load on a tape deck.  Children had patience in the good old days.  However the Spectrum came with a rainforest of text books to get you started on programming, as well as glasses, v-neck sweater and cords!  You then could set to task to create your own game, we had visions of Tron (the film) and hacking in to the Pentagon in America, alas I had to settle for creating a slot machine, and an  incredibly basic space invaders.  This is not a feet to be dismissed, to create this programme it took hours and hours and hours, and if you let off one bracket, Caps Lock, Full Stop,  you were left sullen and frustrated.  You then had to proceed to go through the whole programme and find the petite mistake, only to be rewarded with a mediocre animated game.  Although the really frustrating thing was, you couldn't save it!  Once you pressed escape or end, that was it gone and if you wanted to gamble on the slot machine again, you then had to start programming from the very beginning, which was similar to the feeling you got watching Blockbusters when the team you loved finished the 5th gold run and you had to get to know a new bunch of spotty kids!

I am referring to the spectrum today, due to a lesson in University where we discussed the fact that England are scrapping ICT lessons and Wales apparently are not, although they are beginning to go back to basics and bring programming more in to the forefront.  They hope that, instead of us being lazy consumers, learners  would gain knowledge on programming and perhaps inspire them, not to hack the Pentagon but may NASA (joke), and how difficult it actually is to do, maybe then would gain an appreciation for what they play and how amazing these machines are.  When I was young, it was more respecable to have a spectrum because it was a computer, a machine that you could comput on, almost space age.  The Atara which was its rival was purely a games machine, tut tut.  I think this is an excellent idea, however I hope for the children's sanity that once they type in their programming code and create their masterpiece, they can then save it and show the world, just how amazing they can be!