Survey posted 2006-04-16 20:08 by Jon.

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Survey idea by gondorf.

I think the third choice should be "Yes, but I'm not a member"....

i guess they just assume if there's one, ya gotta be in it :) read what i said lower down on the page (or maybe on a different page depending on how many posts there are)

Thing is, you have to look at the question and the answer =P

Question: Does your school have a calculator club?
Answer: No, but my school has a calculator club.

My response: ......?!?!

it could be "yes, but im not in it"

yeah, that's what he said...

we have computer club though. Im one of the organizers.

How long has your club been around? We just started ours this year...

Whoa, Adil, I didn't know our school had a calculator club! Where is it?

Whoops, i didn't read it correctly, it said computer club... which would be on the third floor in the computer lab obviously, haha.

Haha, you ought to start a calculator club, Nigel. Also, the computer club is on the first floor :) .

My high school sort of had a computer club for about 1 semester until eventually no one showed up. I guess it is hard to find enough geeks with only 600 students at the school, about 3/7 of whom are under the age of 15. I later tried to start a math club (in which more people were interested) but the administrators got annoyed because I did not okay it with them first.

Of course, now I am in college & there are clubs for just about everything...though I have not yet seen a calculator club here. I have probably just not looked hard enough.

almost 2 years. The gamerz are in one room playing counterstrike and all the real nerds are in the other room playing around on hackthissite.com and building computers.

Not bad, not bad...our club has 6 'real' members plus three or four random ones.

we usually get 20 gamerz, 3 true hackers (not criminal hacking....), and 5ish other techies who fall in the middle

Sounds like not a bad idea. But than again there isnt enough interested in my school, besides, I am the only person in the school with a 68k calculator (89T) and that is what I specialize in.

there aren't even enough people in any school (maybe a college) that know any calculator language. I know about 5 people that know basic, and im the only person in my school that knows z80 assembly, or any kind of assembly. no one knows that, though. Also, dont you guys think there might be smmaalll chance that you would be made fun of if you joined a caclulator group?

I know at least 10 people who go to my school who can claim to be good basic programmers. More, if you count any language, and probably over a hundred if you count those who aren't good programmers but still know the language.

> there aren't even enough people in any school (maybe a college) that know any calculator language. I know about 5 people that know basic, and im the only person in my school that knows z80 assembly, or any kind of assembly.

I know the feeling. I'm shocked at times when my friends exclaim over a small BASIC program I wrote on the fly to solve some problem. And when I try to say anything about ASM, I just get blank looks all around... (LD A, 6? EX HL, DE? PUSH BC? what language is that?) Basically (no pun intended), calculator programming is a very small niche which not many people even know about, and even fewer can claim to belong to.

As for being made fun of, I would bet that most of the people frequenting ticalc.org are much more immune to teasing and criticism than your average student.

My friends give me blank stares when i try to explain basic, and when i try to explain assembly, they act as if i were speaking another language (no pun intended)
we once got a homework assignemt to convert a gridded picture into binary, and everyone was complaining, and i said, "at least were not converting it into hexidecimal"

You should have seen their faces. priceless. the problem with people is that they think they are smart if they know things the school teaches them, but my grades are anything but good, and i know more about programming, machine language, and calculators than even my math teachers. also, my school doesnt offer programming classes till 11th grade, and im in 8th right now, so by the time im in 11th, ill already know the language they are teaching, so what do i do? go to a college every day to learn?

Got off topic. that happens to me a lot.
anyway, my dream job is to become a full-fledged professional programmer for nintendo, simply because i would like to learn the language that the video game system's proccesor understands. maybe c++, i dunno.

Got off topic, again!<joking> i just slapped myself </joking>

Oh yeah... I've had the "blank stare" thing happen too many times when I'm trying to teach people assembly, even C!

Well, put it this way: IF people can't understand a simple IF...THEN statement, THEN there is no hope for them at all...

Then they are mindless robots that only learn what is required in school. I don't get the blank stares though because most of the people I know have more than one brain cell. But still, I think the school curriculum is totally soft. I've been going to the library and checking out books on calculus because we are not getting ANYWHERE in Algebra 2. Unfortunately that's not where the smart people are, but I'm getting off topic!
Anyways, I don't think you would be made fun of by joining a computer club. Most people actually have lives and don't feel like bothering people over nothing. Additionally, most of the people I know think it's pretty cool how I know computer programming. They say things like, "Wow this is amazing," or something like, "This should be easy for you to program," or something like, "Cool!" People get made fun of for joining all kinds of clubs. Just find people that are interested and forget about the losers.

>But still, I think the school curriculum is totally soft.

How true...I was horribly bored in kindergarten, and I've been homeschooled since then.

>Additionally, most of the people I know think it's pretty cool how I know computer programming.

Actually, that happens to me too. Friends have talked about making games, my sister has joked about cracking Pentagon computers, etc.

>my sister has joked about cracking Pentagon computers
She was supposed to keep that a secret! (j/k)

Haha, good one!

i wouldn't say NO hope... where do you think fast food workers come from?

No, that's where people who unfortunately can't afford a good education end up, not the ones who are just stupid.

Yeah, the people who are just stupid end up in marketing and management.

And PR (ugh).

"so what do i do? go to a college every day to learn?"

That's what I do. See link. Simon's Rock College is for people who are ready for college early. We're a bit limited in computer science because we only have one professor in that department (just 350 students in the whole college), but the mathematics department is excellent. Actually, almost everything here is excellent.

There are LOTS of kids in my school with 83s and 84s, but most just know how to do the basics (+-*/), not anywhere near programing! My best friend knows a bit of z80 and C, but he is the only one I know of. We sort of have a two person club. :)

I want to learn ASM for the 84+.
I tried before and got compleatly lost.
I NEED HELP. Read my bio for why.

email me and ill help you learn. im not joking.
Besides, with some real help, you should quickly, since I am only 14, and I know the language.

Age isn't really a factor in learning a computer language. Prior knowledge and a propensity for learning affects a person's aptitude for programming more than age.

Age isn't really a factor in learning a programming language. Prior knowledge and a propensity for learning affects a person's aptitude for programming more than age.

i had no prior knowledge of any computor language.
I knew basic well, and html(which is sooo easy) decently.
That is, when i learned assembly.

you do have a point, though. It wasn't easy learning assembly, until i read a very helpful tutorial by Geoff Mackey. It was the kind that a caveman could understand. It went over the basics, and i built from that.

Age does make a difference, whether you think so or not. Try teaching the simplest of the languages to a 7 yr old.

And also, more years of education can mean more understanding of concepts, such as binary, hex, etc.
Bottom line: you're about 25% correct

<weak, unsincere laugh> haha, ya, forgot i knew a computor language, html. </weak, unsincere laugh>
that wasnt the point, though

>> Try teaching the simplest of the languages to a 7 yr old.

Actually, my second grade class learned how to program in Super Logo (the little turtle) {also a flash program for ti 83+} but I was one of the few who understood it, and none of us realized we were 'programming'

anyone else remember LOGO?

ME!! We learned it in 5th and 6th grade though. And only about 5-10 people.

Prior knowledge is a greater factor than age. A seven year old will understand if you teach them in an understandable way too. Binary and hexadecimal aren't difficult concepts and can be taught in a short time. Boolean logic can be easily taught. Loops can be learned very easily. Input and output are also easy. I can safely bet anyone can teach a seven year old how to program TI BASIC in just under a month, and have that seven year old making quality games in less than six. It just takes time, patience, and hard work from teacher and student.

When I was 7 I wrote programs in QBASIC. :) Right after that I learned TRS-80 COLOR BASIC. Shortly thereafter I attempted to learn 6809 assembly language (for the TRS-80), but I got bored with that. I did read some of the source for the assembler (itself written in assembler), though, in hopes of getting the general feel of it.

I think I learned Z80 machine language (yes, machine language, as in the on-calculator hex codes - I was too lazy to download an assembler) in 8th grade, & I wrote (during 8th & 9th grade, IIRC) a memory viewer for the TI-86 that supports several different view modes (including viewing the VAT), page switching, & a 4x4-pixel font for a custom 32x16 text mode...but I never uploaded it here.

I guess I was an atypical child, though. My teachers always thought I was too smart or that I should be in a higher grade, but I always related better with the younger grades, because I basically lived in my imagination. The only difference now is that people just think I am weird or crazy instead of teasing me. :)

>I think I learned Z80 machine language (yes, machine language, as in the on-calculator hex codes - I was too lazy to download an assembler) in 8th grade, & I wrote (during 8th & 9th grade, IIRC) a memory viewer for the TI-86 that supports several different view modes (including viewing the VAT), page switching, & a 4x4-pixel font for a custom 32x16 text mode...but I never uploaded it here.

Wow...that's just...amazing...

I learned QBASIC when I was ~7 too and wrote a couple small PIC asm programs when I was ~10, but never did anything like that.

WOW! Learning machine language itself is truly amazing.

Mr Z learned it, not me - that was a quote from his post. ;-)

Thanx. I must say though, I only know BASIC, no other computer language whatsoever. I will be soooooooooooo greatful if you can teach me and I learn it because it is much better than BASIC. I feel constricted.

Poor guy, you should learn Python or C or something so you can do some *real* programming.

i hope you dont quit basic. i still program in basic, since its not just a bunch of crashing and debugging.
And you shouldnt feel constrained with basic, as basic has enough functions to make quality programs/games.
Although i know asm has more functions, the only problem i have with basic is its speed. i dont care that much about the size either. Asm is always good to know.

Oh yea. i emailed you your first "lesson" ill call it E-lessons. oh yea, and i want some credit in all the readmes of asm games you make. that's not that much to ask, is it?

>Asm is always good to know, *anyways*

Knowing how the actual gates & flip-flops & whatnot work is even better. (It is very different & thus provides a different way of looking at problems, & more perspectives usually lead to better coding.) Then again, one must also have a sense of perspective - I have seen code that does nasty bit-level tricks on high-level structures that would be quite hard to modify if it had a bug.

That's definitely true! I had a pretty easy time learning assembly, and I think it's because I knew a lot about digital logic before, so I could know (at least in general) how the processor worked internally and understand registers and addressing and stuff. If you don't know anything about hardware, though, none if it would really make any sense at first and it seems like it would take longer to get used to it.

PersonDude, just rememeber you can email me w/ any questions. thats what im there for (not really ;)
But seriously, i recently learned assembly and i know how it feels when everyone knows it and wont help you. So there. i said it.

You should probably learn C or C++ (I only know C, so I cannot comment on C++), since a lot of stuff is written in C/C++, but if you really want a fun challenge try learning Scheme some time. It has lots of crazy things that make some things trivial that are complicated elsewhere (& probably the reverse also, but that is why we have different languages).

Scheme's call-with-current-continuation is likely nothing like anything of which you have ever heard (especially if you only know BASIC). It is one of the few things that took me quite a while to understand even with a good description.

I hear Python, Perl, Ruby, & Eiffel are also good languages for actually doing things (though not necessarily just for their education value). I have not used any of them, though, so your mileage may vary.

C++ is awesome.

oh, you have just mispelled "C". ;)

#include<iostream.h>

/*a proof of why there was nothing spelled incorrectly in my last post*/

int main(){
for(int c=0;c<=5;c++){
cout<<"this for loop would be a syntax error in C\n";
}
return(0);
}

sorry the indentations didn't appear in the post. I did type them in though.

it would still compile and run. even if it was all on one line it would work. that's how C++ is.

Yeah, I know. I just meant that my style isn't that bad.

I have to agree that it is easier to follow then.

Eww... K&R, who uses that?

Actually, it would compile fine if you used C99 mode with GCC.