I don’t think Pascal is clunky! I think it represents a point on the evolution of programming languages and is still well loved by a LOT of people! Just google Free Pascal or Lazarus Pascal.

I love how much modern computing culture has its roots in the good old Amiga, and folks who didn’t own one are totally clueless about it.

One could, but I would argue that this idea pre-supposed a very ascetic class of programmer, and that depending on one’s goals in learning how to program, recursion can be a useful concept but saying it should be the one litmus test for any learning platforms seems highly questionable to me.

Are there any off the shelf available 68K based computers these days? I wasn’t aware of one but that would be cool :)

AMIGA 2023!!! :)

Or maybe there are people who find working in low powered environments that behave a certain way, more like computers did in the 80s enjoyable.

It’s not about boomers or what’s powerful and what’s not. Some things are just for fun and that’s all the justification they need IMO.

Also, how would that ‘weirdness’ impact using the device in a teaching context?

What would you like to see instead? Z80? Something else?

Remember Compute! magazine? :) I Lived for that thing :)

So much this!

I remember having to order tech books from Waldenbooks, and getting blank stares from the clerk, who’d basically tell me they were never going to actually receive it after I’d waited WEEKS.

Then I finally got to visit QuantumBooks, a technical bookstore in Kendall Square Cambridge, and it was like going to heaven :)

Oh MAN those magazine listings!

I remember my mom, bless her, reading them to me so I could type the bloody things in becauase, being partially blind, I couldn’t get the bloody page close enough to my face to properly read the infinite lines of DATA statements :)

And then, years later, they finally came out with checksum programs so you could see a number at the end of each line and compare it with what was in the magazine.

Crazy to think back, innit? :)

For me as a kid growing up in the 80s, it’s absolutely walking into Radio Shack (my favorite place in the mall next to the arcade!) and seeing a TRE-80 Model II set up for demo.

Kind of intresting as I think about it that I ended up not going for a Tandy computer and instead bought an Atari ;) No regrets. I still adore my 800XL!

I had absolutely never heard of this. Super cool! I unfortunately don’t own any of the supported platforms but this is awesome regardless.

No problem! You don’t need to own the hardware. You can use the pre-built fujinet-pc if your platform is supported, or just run Altirra (works fine from WINE if you’re not on Windows) and install the fujinet SIO adapter.

It’s pretty cool stuff getting on the internet with an emulated atari running an emulated fujinet IMO :)

Not just Amiga either :) The Internet Archive has a VAST collection of Retro magazines. I know there are a ton for the Atari 8 bit as well.