The Beginner's Guide to Computers

The Beginner's Guide to Computers is a book about microcomputers and general computing. It was published in 1982 as an accompaniment to the BBC Computer Literacy Project[1] and The Computer Programme.[2]

The Beginner's Guide to Computers
US edition cover
Author
  • Robin Bradbeer
  • Peter De Bono
  • Peter Laurie
CountryUnited Kingdom
LanguageEnglish
Publisher
Publication date
1982
Media typePrint
ISBN0201112086
OCLC9016145

Its content covers the basics of the history of computing, programming languages, debugging, logic programming, semiconductor memory, printing, ADCs/DACs, flowcharts, as well as some technologies only found in Britain (such as Prestel, Ceefax, ORACLE).[1][2] The possibilities of networks, robotics, electronic offices and publishing are also considered, with particular reference to the BBC Micro.[2]

Reception

The book's square shape was described in The New York Times as "clumsy", although this does not stop it from being a "quite decent introduction" which is "easy to read". Those interested in actually using personal computers to "do something" were advised to look elsewhere.[1] The World Yearbook of Education 1982/83: Computers and Education described it as "lucidly written and well laid out with profuse illustrations", noting the use of "appealing cartoons".[2]

gollark: osmarksßstring: a hashmap of index in string→character, where each character can be encoded as UTF-8/16/32 individually, but the characters are all just encoded in floats either way, and the array of buckets backing the hashmap is actually a linked list, the indices are arbitrary ordinals represented as lists of floats or something, and the linked list is actually just a general purpose graph data structure abused as a list.
gollark: Diversity of nulls for, what, multiple error signal purposes.
gollark: Which is a great* benefit.
gollark: All is floats none are safe.
gollark: Backward compatibility requires that some octachoron make it START that way.

References
  1. Personal computers; primers-in old fashioned printers, The New York Times, 16 November 1982
  2. World Yearbook of Education 1982/83: Computers and Education. 1983. p. 250.
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