Tag: Commodore PET

• The dismal state of computing education in English schools

  I didn’t get my enthusiasm for computing from school – it was almost something latent: I remember being very excited to see a “microcomputer” for the first time in Brent Cross shopping centre in 1979. But the first one I used – hopelessly – was in school, a Commodore Pet, in 1980. It turned up…

  Adrian McMenamin

  December 14, 2011

  Uncategorized

  BASIC, Brent Cross, Commodore PET, computing education, English schools, ICT, Microsoft, OFSTED, School

• What ever happened to “Comp Shop”?

  My brother and I were lucky in one respect in that, after December 1978 (when we moved) anyway, we were living on the doorstep, more or less, of the UK’s most important computer emporium, Comp Shop Ltd, of Station Road, New Barnet. Of course we didn’t know this at the time – we didn’t get…

  Adrian McMenamin

  May 2, 2011

  Uncategorized

  Apple II, Commodore PET, Comp Shop, Compukit UK101, computing nostalgia, Finchley Catholic High School, John Shutler, New Barnet

• More computing nostalgia

  I stumbled across this collection of covers of “Practical Computing” – or as they styled it Practical Compting – a really great magazine from the early days of “microcomputers” in the UK. It used to have articles which were a bit more scientific and investigatory than others – I particularly remember one talking about how…

  Adrian McMenamin

  April 17, 2011

  Uncategorized

  BASIC, Commodore PET, cover art, Fast Fourier transform, Kenneth Baker Baron Baker of Dorking, nostalgia, Practical Computing magazine, zx80