
Usborne 1980s computer programming books for kids become free downloads - erickhill
http://www.usborne.com/catalogue/feature-page/computer-and-coding-books.aspx
======
nvader
I learned to program in BASIC from a copy of "The Beginner's Programming
Handbook" that my father gave to me. Like many other commenters on this
thread, I didn't have a computer, but the illustrations in the book itself
made it clear that programs were always written on notepads (just look at the
cover
[http://www.computinghistory.org.uk/userdata/images/medium/PR...](http://www.computinghistory.org.uk/userdata/images/medium/PRODTHM-9483.jpg)).
As soon as I found a sufficiently yellow notepad I knew I had everything
required to code.)

This book showed me how to code simple car crash games, in-memory databases,
Eliza, bubble and shell sort.

I loved this book so much I've carried it with me over an accumulated
22,800km, in the hopes that one day, my kids too will have their imaginations
full of gaudy little robots who run to interpret code on yellow spiral-bound
notepads.

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dcw303
In the early 80s, when I was 5 or 6, I got Basic for Beginners and Programming
Tricks and Skills (along with a couple of other Usborne books which were about
video games) from my local K-Mart in rural Australia.

These books kicked off my love affair with programming, and like many of you I
was writing out code without even owning a computer! I remember trying to make
a computer out of cardboard and graph paper, and was disappointed that it
didn't work. The fact that I could comprehend a for loop before the laws of
electricity is kind of trippy.

Anyway, these books were my introduction to a lifelong love affair with
programming, and I owe my entire career to them.

At the risk of sounding like a greybeard, things were very different then. If
you grew up in the Internet age, it may be difficult to grok that there was a
time when information was scarce, and that just carrying around books like
these gave you immense understanding and potential.

~~~
hanezz
information was scarce indeed, till this day i still feel a little sorry i was
not born 10 years later. Since when i learned (gw-)basic from the 3 books our
public library had to offer i was full of enthusiasm, but after that my
development practically stalled due to lack of information. Until the internet
came around, but that was 10 years later and i was already in my early 20s :|

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Retr0spectrum
Wow. "Introduction to Computer Programming" was quite literally my first
intruduction to programming. I didn't have access to a computer until several
years later, so I just wrote programs on a piece of paper.

~~~
ry_ry
Computer Battlegames was my first introduction to programming after finding a
dog-eared copy in the local library in the late 80s.

I spent many happy minutes carefully retyping all the code into quickbasic and
then spending endless hours trying to frig the c64/zx81 syntax to work.

Good times. After lunch i'm going to go back and finally get the missile game
to work!

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andretti1977
These books were beautiful. They gathered your attention and fantasy even
before playing and they were inspiring. I obviously admire the technical
quality of today's games, but remember what the power of imagination was able
to do when i was playing 8bit games in the '80s!

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bencollier49
From the website: "These books were written for 1980s computers such as the ZX
Spectrum and BBC Micro. The programs will not run on modern computers."

Not true! They'll all run perfectly on RISC OS on the Raspberry Pi, especially
easily on RISC OS Pico.

I remember several of these books very fondly, it's great to see them made
available like this. Usborne Books in general are brilliant.

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sqldba
I can't tell you how much I loved these books growing up. I also own the
collections of their puzzle books and wish they'd reprint their ghost puzzle
collections.

~~~
endgame
I think you can. These books resonate with many of us. I remember checking
them out from the school library again, and again, and again, and again...

Trying to port them to my MS-DOS machine running QuickBasic was a bit hit-and-
miss.

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lowlevel
Oh wow! I remember borrowing these from the library when I was a kid! Awesome!

~~~
timthorn
And going back every second Saturday to renew the same book, again & again...

~~~
ysr23
it was you!! - sleep with one eye open, timthorn

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ratfacemcgee
I used to take these books with me when I went on holidays to the country in
Australia. There wasn't a computer there, so I would write down the code on
sheets of paper so I could type them into my MicroBee when I got home.

These books are directly responsible for me being a programmer today!

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erickhill
The free downloads (PDF) are on the right-side of the page. Some classics
include:

    
    
      - Machine Code for Beginners
      - Introduction to Computer Programming, BASIC for beginners
      - Write your own Fantasy/Adventure Games on your microcomputer

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vidarh
It's great enough that they've released them, but I love how they've used them
as a draw to the page where they present their new/current computing books by
presenting both on the same page instead of hiding them away somewhere.

~~~
timthorn
I got the Computers and Coding flap book for my 6 year old this Christmas, and
got second-hand copies of many of the original books for myself. It's striking
how closely the new publication's content matches that of the older books,
despite the changes in the industry.

There are several other books from the Usborne 80's catalogue not shown on
that page but worth having: Understanding the Micro, Usborne Guide to
Computers, How to Make Computer Controlled Robots & How to Make Computer Model
Controllers

~~~
argimenes
It took me several passes at the Lifeline Book Fair and an occasional trip to
Ebay but I think I have the entire range now.

The Usborne books were great fun at the time and still a model, I think, for
teaching programming concepts to kids of all ages.

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kenshi
Brilliant books, and like many of the commenters here, they were my real
introduction to programming. The way they visualized the abstract concepts was
fantastic.

The biggest downer back in those heady 8-bit home computer days, was the
plethora of platforms and the differences in the BASIC dialects. Made getting
those code listings working a bit of a pain.

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shangxiao
I'm fairly certain that the book "Practical things to do with a Microcomputer"
I had when I was a small child was partly responsible for my career in
Software Engineering, even though as a teenager I hated computers and just
wanted to become a mechanic.

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thorin
That's incredible. Usbourne books including some of those filled my shelves as
a kid along with Steve Jackson and Ian Livingston's fighting fantasy series.
Nostalgia is cheap these days. I'll be buying some Usbourne for my children
soon...

~~~
thorin
And I'm not finding the source code any easier to read. Thank God we moved on
from one char variable names.

------
nicky0
The "Computer Fun" book is what first taught me about programming, on the C64.

I remember typing in the program that tells you how old you will be in the
year 2000. At the time it seemed unimaginable that I could ever be 21 years
old!

Feeling very nostalgic looking through this.

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rcraggs
I've created a github repo where we can rewrite all of the games in the "type
it yourself" books in many different languages:
[https://github.com/rcraggs/Usborne-1980-Programming-
Polyglot](https://github.com/rcraggs/Usborne-1980-Programming-Polyglot)

Please go ahead and start to rewrite them in your favourite language or one
that you want to learn.

The one I rewrote in python was surprisingly fun to play.

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Rabidgremlin
Awesome.... I have a bunch of these sitting on my bookshelf :)

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harel
I might actually try these on an emulator. Relive the past for an hour. On a
side note, the fact that coding is part of the curriculum in the UK makes me
very happy. I went to my son's open day at secondary and some kids were at the
computer lab learning Python. They are learning at 14 what I make my living
on.

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amelius
What would a modern programming book for kids look like? Would it use
javascript?

~~~
ry_ry
If it did, I like to think it'd feature 100 pages of setting up and debugging
your module loader, preprocessors, dependency resolution, mvc framework,
polyfills, unit tests and build scripts. ;)

~~~
ry_ry
Full disclosure: I basically write JavaScript for a living. I quite like it,
and the above comment was supposed to be humerous rather than an attack on
thin-skinned js aficionados as the downvotes would suggest.

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claystu
They feel like the Head First series...only more fun.

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douche
These are fantastic. Just browsed through the fantasy game book, and the
illustrations are lovely. Especially like the comments done as goblins with
speech bubbles beside the listings :-)

I missed the days of BASIC that required line numbers, but this reminds me
fondly of my first programming class, in QBASIC on old 386 DOS clones

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gaius
I have a real Beeb, C64, VIC20 and Atari 800 right here, going to enjoy these
for a second time 'round :-)

