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jops | 5 years ago

I learnt to program on the ZXSpectrum with "Write Your Own Adventure Programs for Your Microcomputer" [0]

The RPi400 with Pico-8 seems to tick the same boxes, so I got one for my 10yr old. He's loving it. Perfect use case.

[0] https://colorcomputerarchive.com/repo/Documents/Books/Write%...

discuss

abraxas|5 years ago

I wish there was a bare metal option that boots RPI 400 into a BASIC or Python interpreter the way the 8 bit machines used to

UncleSlacky|5 years ago

RISC OS Pico boots straight into BBC Basic:

https://web.archive.org/web/20181109020203/https://www.risco...

(IA link as it's been removed from the site, but the installer is still available via IA).

notpygame|5 years ago

There's a python/pygame/pygame_gui OS that does exactly this called snakeware. https://github.com/joshiemoore/snakeware Grab the rpi4 image and go.

simonh|5 years ago

The Pi OS comes with Python installed, the pygame libraries, a bunch of games written in Python and of course the source code so you can modify them and create your own.

https://www.raspberrypi.org/documentation/usage/python/READM...

https://www.raspberrypi.org/documentation/usage/python-games...

0-_-0|5 years ago

Check out this thread:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18228740

drcode|5 years ago

Pick up a pocket chip for $40 on eBay- you have to click a single button after boot and then can start coding a game with pico-8 in lua.

mlyle|5 years ago

It's not bare metal, but Python on Pi400 is great for kids.

Especially with side-by-side with a Minecraft window and the Minecraft Pi Edition python integration.

Also, there's a whole lot of little boards that support Micropython, and boot straight to it, including ESP32 etc. I use them in the classes I teach.

lixtra|5 years ago

What do you mean by bare metal? Booting into python (or basic) would probably take less than 1h for someone who knows what they are doing.

zozbot234|5 years ago

RISC OS for RPi can do this. Not sure if RPi400 is supported just yet.

antod|5 years ago

I got my start with a Spectrum and that book too. Far less luck interesting my kids in computers though.

fmakunbound|5 years ago

These Usborne (and other) books were fantastic!

butlersean|5 years ago

one of my colleagues uses that as an assignment for his students, they have to port one of the listings to c++