Dr. Papert’s 1980 book Mindstorms: Children, Computers, and Powerful Ideas introduces his vision for using computers in education. This vision drove the design of the Logo programming environment and remains relevant. I highly recommend reading Mindstorms, and it has recently become available online at no charge.
Here’s a poor photograph showing an Apple IIe running Sprite Logo for the first time. The left monitor connects to the Apple II’s normal video out, and the Apple CRT connects to the sprite card. The normal video out is useless while running Sprite Logo, which makes sense because most users wouldn’t have two monitors. …
Byte dedicated the August 1982 issue to the Logo language. This issue is an excellent cross-platform snapshot of Logo and its applications.
This excellent TEDx Talk introduces Dr. Papert and his ideas. I recommend this if you’re interested in Logo or computers in education.
Continuing my exploration of LCSI’s “Sprite Logo”, let’s break the shrink wrap and open the box. These photographs preserve the original packing order. Despite dirt and water damage to the exterior, the box contents appear pristine.
LCSI “Sprite Logo” comes in a large cardboard box with similar design to the “Apple Logo” box. Compared to “Apple Logo”, the “Sprite Logo” box is larger, more colorful, and displays patterns that suggest interconnections between multiple turtles. Notice the turtles taking on different shapes, such as an airplane, flower, dog, cat, or truck. The …
In the 1980s, there was a lot of enthusiasm and press surrounding the Logo programming language. Logo and the underlying pedagogy promised a revolution in education using the new personal computer. Unsurprisingly, there were versions of Logo for most personal computers of the era, and, in many cases, multiple versions of Logo for each computer. …
Continue reading ‘Overview of Logo for the Apple II in 1984’ »
I’d like to share this thought-provoking interview from The Daily Papert with Dr. Cynthia Solomon and Dr. Wally Feurzeig, two of the creators of the Logo programming language. I appreciate how this interview describes the educational and technological environment in which Logo developed. Logo history Interview from Gary Stager on Vimeo.
I gave two presentations at KansasFest 2011, the first an introduction to the Logo programming language and the second a survey of small turtle robots contemporary with the Apple II. Ken Gagne recorded the presentations and has kindly made the videos available. Turtle Robots LOGO: History and Programming
KansasFest 2011 is over, and it was awesome. My HackFest theme this year was “learn new stuff.” I used an enhanced Apple IIe that I didn’t own until the first day of KansasFest. I used an RC System’s DoubleTalk speech synthesizer for the first time. I used and learned Terrapin Logo 1.0 for the first time, …