Tom Barbalet perusing his book shelf. I think I also read some of those same books in the 1980s - definitely the Space games one, and possibly also the fantasy games book. Those books were quite well written and certainly conveyed the impression of the computer as a kind of window into a universe of unlimited creativity, which as a kid and even as an adult is quite exciting. The user manuals which came with the BBC Micro were also quite useful for learning the BASIC programming language, and contained fairly clear descriptions of the syntax.
What's less easy to convey though is just how rare books about computer programming were in the 1980s - certainly to a kid of unremarkable means. Getting any information on computer software or hardware more advanced than the beginners books was either hard or impossible. Typically libraries contained only a handfull of computer related books, usually of the "gee wiz"/coffee table variety rather than technical manuals. So for most kids of my generation technical discoveries were made largely by a combination of experiment and social networking. Detailed information could be acquired through the British Library - if you knew what you were looking for - and this was a protracted and moderately costly process which could take anywhere from several weeks to several months. Imagine typing a query into Google and only getting an answer back three months later!
By contrast it's much easier for anyone of any age to learn programming today, with the information being mostly freely available online and truly gigantic in volume. Within my lifetime there has been a complete reversal from a situation of information poverty to one of information ubiquity.
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I had a good selection of super-nerd friends whose parents did search out these kind of books. That merits an Ape Reality in-and-of itself. Thanks for the review!
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