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If you have a look at the BBC charter, and the Agreement[^] which effectively says what it can and cannot do, you will see in the section entitled THE BBC’S PUBLIC PURPOSES the following:
7. Promoting education and learning
In developing (and reviewing) the purpose remit for promoting education and learning,
the Trust must, amongst other things, seek to ensure that the BBC—
(a) stimulates interest in, and knowledge of, a full range of subjects and issues through
content that is accessible and can encourage either formal or informal learning; and
(b) provides specialist educational content and accompanying material to facilitate
learning at all levels and for all ages.
As far as I can see, the promotion of programming skills would fall under this.
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I'm an optoholic - my glass is always half full of vodka.
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modified 13-Mar-15 6:45am.
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I remember the good old OU educational programmes on BBC2 and the thousands of documentary and science programmes I've watched that have been produced by the BBC, these were all great.
But that's in the past, the modern "education" (nu-education?) is highly questionably and unbelievably biased. The BBC has (again, in my opinion) been bent all out of shape.
The millions it receives every year from the EU alone (read: foreign nations) should be ringing alarm bells.
Now that's fine if it wants to take foreign money to push a certain agenda, but in that case I shouldn't be legally forced to pay for them as well. The BBC should be forced to choose who it serves and be funded appropriately.
How do you know so much about swallows? Well, you have to know these things when you're a king, you know.
modified 31-Aug-21 21:01pm.
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"specialist educational content and accompanying material" does not mean distributing millions of pounds' worth of computer equipment.
- "specialist educational content" means audio/visual content of TV/radio shows, which it hardly provides, any more, compared to what it used to provide.
- "accompanying material" means printed/printable matter to go with the content of the TV/radio shows.
Don't play the shyster, looking for loopholes that they can use to do whatever the **** they like. Their remit is very, very clear, and it does not include setting up computer-hardware or child-grooming empires.
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
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Can I hear an axe being ground?
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I'm an optoholic - my glass is always half full of vodka.
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Against shysters? sure. A planeload at the bottom of the ocean isn't a good enough start.
Against the BBC? No. They've proven their worth, over the past few years. I just give credit where it's due.
Plus, they did bad things with their previous foray into the computer-hardware world, and they don't belong there.
If they want to get involved, they should make shows that teach kids what they need to know. That's their job, not glory-hunting at the taxpayers' expense.
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
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Mark_Wallace wrote: "accompanying material" means printed/printable matter to go with the content of the TV/radio shows.
what - so they shouldn't have an internet presence either, I suppose?
PooperPig - Coming Soon
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I'm not here to give lessons on how to print web pages that contain "accompanying material".
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
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Quite apart from the fact that it is my license money they are spending is that even their Red Button pages describe it as being like a Raspberry Pi. So why create another item when the RPi is sufficiently similar and part of the RPi philosophy was to excite young people in the same way that the BBC Micro did in the 1980s? In summary, the BBC seem to be creating a device that emulates a device that emulates a device that they originally were responsible for.
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And the BBC Micro was also completely unnecessary; there were plenty of companies making microcomputers that the kids (i.e. me, at the time) could use.
All they did with the BBC Micro was spend taxpayers' money to take profit away from companies like Sinclair and Amstrad, give all the resultant money away to celebs and in bonuses for BBC execs, then drop the whole thing.
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
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Mark_Wallace wrote: there were plenty of companies making microcomputers that the kids (i.e. me, at the time) could use
Not when the Beeb was being created, there weren't. And each computer was different, so adding programming about all the different computers coming onto the market (and at the time the Beeb was being produced, they were all crap)_ would have been too hard - having a 'standard' machine to talk about was important because the Beeb could then talk about that machine in particular - because they could never have made a show about computing on (e.g.) the Amstrad or Spectrum because their coverage would have to be balanced (and, again, they didn't exist at teh time the Beeb was being produced)
PooperPig - Coming Soon
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What on Earth are you talking about?
Have you been Googling wikipedia pages, again?
The Spectrum ZX80 was discontinued before the BBC Micro was even released! And the ZX81 was released almost a year before the BBC, AIRI (I got my ZX81 in July, for my birthday, a few months after it had been released, and the BBC wasn't available until the following Christmas).
The technology wasn't waiting for the BBC to come along and be the hero!
They were not needed; all they did was take money from everyone but Acorn (which it vastly underpaid), and give large amounts of it to people who had nothing to do with computing.
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
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Ah! The famous spectrum zx80!
Sinclair and acorn both tendered for making the BBC.
The spectrum would have been the BBC but it was a sh*t toy, not an expandable computer
I am trolling o. The sh*t toy front - just taste of your own medicine stuff
PooperPig - Coming Soon
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_Maxxx_ wrote: Sinclair and acorn both tendered for making the BBC.
Yes, and Acorn lost... their business because they won the contract.
I like to think that Clive Sinclair -- a genuine man of genius and vision -- saw the people he would have to work with for what they were, and just let it go. I recall reading news stories to that effect, back in the day, so this opinion may not be wrong.
It was absolutely a bad idea, because what motivates employees of the BBC is absolutely not what is needed by the computer industry.
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
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Mark_Wallace wrote: Acorn lost
So, while a subsidiary of Acorn - ARM - dominate the mobile processor market, Sinclair erm, what exactly are Sinclair doing now?
Mark_Wallace wrote: genuine man of genius and vision
Yes the tricycle was inspired - see how many there are on the roads, now! still, the folding bike is a real seller.
Mark_Wallace wrote: saw the people he would have to work with for what they were, and just let it go
What happened behind closed doors is not possible to say, and what has been said since is not verifiable; at the time, Sinclair was furious and petitioned the BBC to change their minds - not something you wold expect him to do if he had "just let it go"
PooperPig - Coming Soon
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_Maxxx_ wrote: a subsidiary of Acorn - ARM - dominate the mobile processor market
Er, it's Qualcomm who are dominating the mobile processor market, still, but the Atom, the Tegra, etc, are looking to break that domination.
Acorn's ARM? More or less dead for a couple of years, now. Hell, they couldn't even take the ARM octacore, so Samsung had to do it, instead.
You've really gotta stop using wikipedia as a source.
But as to what Sinclair is doing now: whatever the Hell Clive Sinclair wants to do. That's what great men do -- as opposed to boring, one-track-minded, business-men.
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
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Mark_Wallace wrote: it's Qualcomm who are dominating the mobile processor market
is that the Qualcomm licensed from ARM you are talking about, or some other innovative company I haven't heard of?
Mark_Wallace wrote: More or less dead for a couple of years, now. Hell, they couldn't even take the ARM octacore, so Samsung had to do it, instead.
If I may quote from your scorn]-laden Wikipaedia
Quote: Unlike most traditional microprocessor suppliers, such as Intel, Freescale (the former semiconductor division of Motorola) and Renesas (a former joint venture between Hitachi and Mitsubishi Electric),[48] ARM only creates and licenses its technology as intellectual property (IP), rather than manufacturing and selling its own physical CPUs, GPUs, SoCs or microcontrollers.
so we're talking a design company that doesn't manufacture. And the discussion was not about that, but about their success or otherwise. You seem to think that if someone doesn't actually build a thing they're not successful!
http://www.pcworld.com/article/228969/article.html[^]
Obviously not successful if they only aim for 50% of the market!
Mark_Wallace wrote: You've really gotta stop using wikipedia as a source.
Well, a publicly edited source is, I feel, better than the sources you've put forward which are, wait while I look back on the conversation - oh! your "feelings" Hmmm. Let me think about that for a nanosecond.
Mark_Wallace wrote: But as to what Sinclair is doing now: whatever the Hell Clive Sinclair wants to do. That's what great men do -- as opposed to boring, one-track-minded, business-men.
hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!
OMG Seriously. Go sober up & I will speak to you when you have gotten over your hangover!
PooperPig - Coming Soon
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_Maxxx_ wrote: hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!
Yes, fools often look at geniuses and laugh. That doesn't make them less the fool.
Bored with this, now. Really bored.
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
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Hmm.
It will certainly be interesting to see what money they make out of it in the long run.
Give 1,000,000 away this year - I wonder if the schools will buy their own next year? And will there be software to support it, games, add-one etc.
So perhaps it will be of financial benefit to the license payers in the long run?
PooperPig - Coming Soon
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If history is any indicator, they will carry on with it for as long as it can give air time to a few celebs and kudos to a few producers, and drop it as soon as the celebs and producers say they're not getting enough adoration out of it.
Education? That doesn't enter into it.
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
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You evidently weren't around for the BBC Micro, then
PooperPig - Coming Soon
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Er, yes I was. I went with the Speccy, first, then moved on to the Amstrad PCP, and then I got a Speccy 128 really cheap.
The BBC Micro was the least popular of the available machines, partly because its BASIC was a bit too lame.
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
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Well, the speccy in total sold about 3-4 times as many units as the BBC (although that is worldwide sales, you pretty much had to be in the UK to get a Beeb) so it was certainly more popular - but I don't think spectacularly so - especially as it was far cheaper.
But I cannot comprehend you saying it was because its BASIC was "a bit to lame"!
Compared to what? Spectrum BASIC?
I rather feel the difference in sales could have had more to do with the sales difference - 125 vs 335 - than anything else!
PooperPig - Coming Soon
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Hey, how long have you been a CP member?
You ought to know by now that if someone says "language A is naff" it's more productive to bang your head against a wall than debate the point!
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
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When someone says "X" is crap where "X" is manufacturer language or whatever, I treat it with the contempt it generally deserves.
but when someone says "Y happened because X is crap", with the supporting evidence being 'cuz I said so' I fart in their general direction.
PooperPig - Coming Soon
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Yeah, but BBC BASIC was cr@p!
You can probably download all the BASICs of the time, and make your own comparisons.
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
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