9 Mar
2000
9 Mar
'00
10:12 a.m.
1) The Acorn BBC micro. Reasons : It's got an
excellent structured BASIC
(which is easy to learn and get to do _something_ but also it's easy to
learn good programming habits in). It's got a lot of standard interfaces
(ADC, User port, RS423 (~=RS232), Centronics, 6502 Bus) to link to those
science ezperiments you mentioned. _Excellent_ manuals as well.
Actually, I think the BBC micro may well be the top
educational computer
of all time, for all I encountered it after I'd learnt a considerable
amount about computing.
The downside (at least in the States) is that
they're not easy to find
over there (UK ones, with PAL/625 line video outputs are very common over
here). I don't think there was ever a US machine with the above features,
though. The Apple ][ comes closest, probably, but the BASIC is not as
good, and you have to find/build plug-in cards for the interfaces.
I have to support Tonys recomendation, well, within the US the A][
may be a better solution due the imense amount of available books
and software, but it never reached the _constant_ quality of the
BBCs documentation. PAL and 220V shouldn't be a real problem. if
your using a RGB or Composite CRT, it will synchronise well - and
if you realy want to use a TV set, any somewhat actual unit will
switch automaticly - and the quality may be as good as an average
Computer-CRT.
I still belive the best learning documentation ever was done for
the east German machines - designed to give you every skill and
knowledge needed around computers - maybe not very fancy and not
realy colorfull, but understandable, detailed and without any
doubt the most complete. Well, just you need also a German course
before reading - so I vote for the BBC or Apple.
Gruss
H.
--
VCF Europa am 29./30. April 2000 in Muenchen
http://www.vintage.org/vcfe
http://www.homecomputer.de/vcfe