Time To Resurrect The Byte Brothers?
By @edent
· byte brothers coding NaBloPoMo python Python Pals scratch · 6 comments · 400 words · read ~317 times.
I'm currently getting involved in the Coding For Kids scene. I'm setting up a workshop in my local library to teach kids programming - specifically, the MIT language Scratch.
I've been left slightly dissatisfied with the unstructured nature of the Scratch teaching materials. While it's quite fun to teach a cat to dance - it doesn't seem to be building up to anything.
I'm also working with AppsForGood - it's a project run in secondary schools which aims to get students to research, design, and build a mobile application which will be useful to them or their community.
One of the things I love about it is the students are often trying to solve their own real-world issues. There's a definite sense that they have identified a problem and are working towards a goal.
That's when I remembered The Byte Brothers! In the mid-eighties I somehow chanced upon the mysterious sounding The Byte Brothers Go To A Getaway by Lois & Floyd McCoy.
"The Byte Brothers" were a series of "solve it yourself" adventures. You read the story, and had to attempt to solve the mystery using BASIC. A typical puzzle involved working out average speed, learning how to use loops to generate "I must not cheat in class" lines for detention, and decoding Morse code.
They stepped through the code as they went - explaining how it all worked and what you could do to change the program. You coded as you went along, until you completed the task.
I loved them. I was a sucker for adventure books, and I adored the thrill of being able to solve a crime using my trusty BBC Micro.
The books, sadly, seem out of print. There is virtually no information on the web about the Byte Brothers, nor Lois McCoy. Even Wikipedia is silent on the subject.
I think it's time to resurrect the spirit of the Byte Brothers! Is it possible to create a series of mystery short stories which can solved using, say, Python?
I think so! I'll try to write a few solve-it-yourself adventure stories and publish them on here. If you want to write a story - go ahead. If we get enough momentum behind this, I think it could really engage kids (and adults) into learning to code.
So, stay tuned for tomorrow's exciting story "The Python Pals Program A Problem"!
Sounds very interesting. I'm 18 and work as a software developer after teaching myself programming a few years ago, and I'm sure I would've really enjoyed books like those to help me at an early age. It's great to see a much more concerted effort to get kids programming, good luck!
Al_B says:
Don't forget the Bytes Brothers stories also had a twist in the story - something that could be spotted if you paid attention to the text. They were great as a kid and much kudos for trying to reproduce the original spirit.
Really interesting, thanks for sharing. My boys are coding but learning scratch using tutorial. They passed the cat dancing stage long ago. But they need structure to be challenged, i.e. using only online tutorial can be a little bit of a laissez faire or unstructured approach. I am looking at Coding for kids scheme hoping it would address my problem, i.e. provide structure and some challenge. But it seems, reading you experience, that it's not quite the case? Would love a quick chat about it to get more detailed perspective on what's in Coding for kids and whether it's really worth it for kids who've been doing it for a few months already.
Take a look at http://codeclub.org.uk/ - they've got a couple of terms' worth of projects on there.
Paul valentine says:
The pictures on the front of there's books were taken of myself and my brother can't believe I've just found there's many thanks
Brent McCoy (Brent Bytes) says:
I wrote all the programs for the first two books myself at around age 14. My mom asked me to tell her seriously if I can write the programs to run on every computer, at that time, otherwise the book was a no go. I said ya no problem. The book went to print with the first program written wrong because at the time the adults couldn't read code. Some a=b/c mixed up to b=a/c. For the 3rd book I got an assistant and it was like just have him do the programs. Lois rich mccoy became Lois r Cowan, mom died Nov 2013, she became a helicopter certified paramedic. She had a will she recorded before her death in some county in Florida or Maine, until I find it(and I've looked well, makes no sense) I live nearly homeless, and my step-dad took all the money. We had an Atari 400,Timex Sinclair,trs-80, and a vic 20 all at home, definitely. When it came to the British edition I said if it's basic language the programs will work just fine. I believe like trs-80 the first line number needs to be 1000 or higher? I'm not the picture on front tho, hi Paul.