What were computer classes like in the 1980s??

Post Reply New Topic

I put this thread here because it's related to a story I've currently started, and the CST section isn't very active so I probably wouldn't get any replies.

My story is going to be about a computer teacher at a school in the 1980s, but I know nothing about old computers, as I wasn't even alive in the 1980s. But I've been watching a British TV series that was set in the 1980s and there were some scenes where adolescents were using computers. But back then the computers didn't do half the things they do today.

I tried googling but as usual it didn't give me the answers I was looking for. If anyone here was alive in the 1980s and used a computer, I would appreciate some insight of what students did in computer classes, as I want my story to be realistic.

Thanks.

I took a computer class in 1982. Computers were big huge machines, and there were only a few in the classroom. We didn't have our own and there wasn't a keyboard. We learned how to write flowcharts of instructions or programs to feed into the computer. I know I used a pen and not a keyboard. I can't remember if the instructions were freehand. I think we had to colour in bubbles on a diagram. Then we fed them into the computer through a hole of some sort.

I don't remember what the programs were about.

The paper that came out was perforated and attached together like this:



We weren't allowed to touch the paper either. Everything was off-limits.

I hated it. I mostly flirted with a boy named Dave and whispered to him about music.

One of my first computer classes involved learning how to use a Teletype, a tape reader, a PDP-11/8e, and FORTRAN.

I learned more about computing with a TRS-80, a daisy-wheel printer, a Z80 compiler, and BASIC.

The best classes I ever took were Typewriting. We had manual typewriters and learned to touch type.

I always say they were the single most useful classes I ever took, because I've used the skill daily my whole life.

The only comparable skill in terms of daily relevance, was learning how to read, when I was little.

We had the Commodore Pets and the new BBC Micros which had colour and as I wasn't popular, I had to use the elderly Pets. They had green letters on their screens. This was in 1986 to 1988. We used floop discs which really were floppy! They were also new out in those days and were much quicker then casette tapes!
We still have some of that printer paper! The printers were dot matrix so they printed everything using dots.
We had to program everything we did. There were no preset programs like we have now days. I liked using basic but when I was in collage in 1988 to 1990 we programmed in binary and hexadecimaland we also on other subjects used the new in CAD CAM system, but to be honest,the technical drawing I did at school was MUCH quicker and easier! CAD CAM seemed a lot of effort for nothing in my view, except that one could then use it to run a computerized lathe or other machines. But I much preferred technical drawing (CDT (D+C)).

When I was going to school in the 1970s, there were very few "personal computers."

Computers were usually very large, and were used by companies, rather than individual people.

Like Isabella said, we had "typing class." Old manual Olivettis and Royals. But I didn't learn anything in school. I sort of taught myself to type when I was 11, with some help from my mother.

In about 1985, I had rented an IBM Selectric. I felt like I was on top of the world because you could correct typing errors right away with the Selectric without using WhiteOut!

When I was at secondary school (ages between 11 and 16 in the UK)
They were just phasing in Computers. I think they didn't get a syllabus until 1989 or 1990.
Just too late to learn.

I was really interested, as had a ZX Spectrum at home, following a ZX81.
Which we used for early computer games which were almost as good as the arcade games!

I remember there was a new teacher called Mr Bassford, who used to go on about his Acorn Archimedes, which no one was allowed to touch, which was followed later on by a room full of BBC micro's and a few early Atari's.

We were allowed to play with the computers but no lessons.

Think the early lessons were simple enough, although I know that one or two nerdy kids got into programming at an early age. One guy I know, who is a little older than me, he started when he was 14 and is now a really experienced programmer who gets paid several hundred dollars per hour and flown around the world to work. He spent several months working in Barbados, programming on his laptop off the beach.

Another guy, got into writing early computer game music. In those days it was all simple 8 bit music which was composed using maths mostly, all programmed literally with programming. Before even Cubase and Protools got going.
I believe he made millions and is likely still working in some capacity with computers.

I guess the revenge of the nerds paid off for him.

I haven't mentioned that I am not very tech savvy even with modern computers, so a lot of the replies here are like a foreign language to me (but I don't mean that in a mean or ungrateful way, as I do appreciate the replies here).

The character in my story is actually supposed to be a really attractive and non-nerdy woman, and women who were highly into computers in the 1980s were seen as nerds. The point of my story is my character becoming misinterpreted by the kids and the other staff, and staff asking her on dates. Sort of like a drama.

Main thing is that it was all character based. No graphics.
And that the teachers were math techers who really didn't know much about computers.
And that there were mainframes to which terminals were connected, not pcs.
Some terminals didn't have screens, what you typed was printed on paper, teletype or printer terminals.

At home, we had commodore 64s and Spectrums that could do graphics and there were magazines listing machine code that we typed into them to create programs.

Contrary to what many believes, we had internet, but it was nothing like how it is now. Again all character based. No browsers. It was kind of like a forum called usenet, and there was talk, kind of like a one to one chat, and email.
But you needed a school or company to be on the internet, nobody had it at home.
There was a program/service that would download the internet and you could work with it off line and then upload it. Since connections were via modems on telephone lines it was expensive to be connected.

/Mats

Computers were basic. There was a keyboard on a box with a computer monitor that looked like an old TV, but only white or green text on a black background. My high-school computer could not show images (I graduated in 1982). All we did with a computer was program with it. We used a computer language called Basic, but I also learnt Pascal and Fortran. There is a great image of print out paper above. All output was text with either a dot-matrix printer or a daisy-wheel printer. The daisy wheel was great as you could swap out the wheel for different fonts!

It college I used a Vax mainframe. But it was the same thing. I took one of the first digital imaging courses. We would write programs to manipulate an image, turn in the program, the teach would take the program to a lab run by Kodak and look at the results, then report back to say if it worked. I never saw an image for the entire course.