When I was 7, I started to familiarize myself with the world of programming with the help of a ZX Spectrum clone computer that had a built in BASIC. I think what I did back then gave me solid understanding about the principles of programming, logic and how computers function in general.
Unfortunately, when I looked for something simple to teach my kid of the same age, the most popular solution was Scratch, and I didn’t like it that much. It’s very visual, I think it’s pure logic and far from the world of programming when you type something and then watch it come to life.
That’s why I tried to bring the ZX Spectrum-ish BASIC back to life via Randomize USR… (probably there are some people who still remember what that title means :))
This platform is an experiment, not a final product. But I kinda like how it turned out, and even ported two of my games – Hoppy Hobby and Barely Massive – on it.
It has a simple BASIC dialect that is a bit more advanced than the ZX BASIC, but of course nowhere near the modern languages.
However I think it’s great for learning purposes: it’s very verbal, and you can do simple things and see the results immediately. Press one button, and you see your program run in something similar to 80-ish computer. It is inspired by ZX Spectrum, but doesn’t use any architecture, logic, assets, etc. – all done from scratch, I even drew the pixel font resembling the original in Aseprite for it.
So if by any chance you are reading this text, get interested in Randomize USR, and get interested enough to play with it for a while, I’ll be more than happy.
Here’s the latest version available, and here’s the github repository (yes it’s open source)