[Coco] CoCo Development

[Richard Goedeken]

I really like Logo; it was the first computer language that I ever learned, in 
about 1985.  I will search for this Monopoly game in Rainbow magazine; I don't 
remember seeing that back in the day.  I have the cartridge Logo for the Coco 
but not Dale's OS-9 version. I'll have to go look for that as well.

In case anyone out there has a few spare hours and also loves to play with 
Logo, a few years ago I wrote a Logo compiler called TurboTurtle which uses 
OpenGL and can make Logo code run ridiculously fast on a modern PC. All of the 
source code (Python, C++, and Logo) is available on Github. Here's the project 
page:

http://www.fascinationsoftware.com/FS/html/TurboTurtle.html

Richard

On 5/8/20 10:29 AM, Andrew wrote:
> 
> I recall a listing in the Rainbow for a game of "monopoly" written in Logo - 
> had sound effects and some other features (many people think of Logo as only 
> for "turtle graphics" - but a good implementation allows for so much more).
> 
> IIRC - the Logo was for OS-9 (?) - I know there was a version of Logo for OS-9 
> (or at least, I think I recall such a thing?) - I always wanted to type that 
> code in, but didn't have the language available, so never did...
> 
> As a kid, my parents had signed me up for one of Radio Shack's "computer camp" 
> things and we all gathered upstairs at one of the stores in our small city 
> that was located "downtown", and learned Logo (but I recall that it was one of 
> the cartridge versions - but which one, I don't know).
> 
> So - between that experience, and others since, I have a small part in my 
> heart that loves Logo (though not as much as BASIC). Then again, Logo has it's 
> own "specialness" that I've only learned to really appreciate after reading 
> Papert's Mindstorms...
> 
> So - other than that Monopoly game listing, I don't know of any other games 
> ever published that were written in Logo. I'm sure there were a few, maybe not 
> for the CoCo (likely for the Apple - and more likely for the Terrapin 
> implementation for that platform).
> 
> Warning - personal rant ahead...
> 
> Logo is one of those languages that became really underrated, I think mostly 
> because educators got "stuck" on the graphics part, and never really explored 
> the whole language. I also think they didn't really understand what Papert was 
> trying to express and push for with the language, despite there being a book 
> and other material from Papert (and his mentor in Piaget) detailing the 
> underlying concepts.
> 
> I have this feeling that educators didn't read and/or comprehend the material 
> in that book, and of those that did, few understood the simple message that 
> Papert was conveying on how to properly integrate the computer into education. 
> And so, to this day, we keep bumbling around with integrating it, failing in 
> many ways, while more than a few of us yell "computational thinking" and "read 
> Mindstorms", which falls on deaf ears, because after all, if it was so great, 
> why didn't it catch on?
> 
> I also have a feeling that it didn't catch on because (maybe) those educators 
> who did understand it, probably realized that such self-directed education 
> might leave them out of the loop, maybe out of a job, and maybe the kids might 
> also "learn how to learn" (something not explicitly taught in school) and also 
> how to question adults, skepticism, and cats lying with dogs and all that. 
> Can't allow society to be upset like that, of course. We can't have a 
> rational, yet skeptical and educated population who understands computational 
> thinking and it's application - the powers that be will not accept that, 
> because such a population might start asking some tough questions, and demand 
> real answers.
> 
> Sigh...too bad we didn't go down that road, we'd probably be in a better place 
> today.
>