Comments on: In memory of CESIL

By: Yorick Phoenix

Yorick Phoenix — Sun, 13 Nov 2011 06:57:09 +0000

I think – and have always felt – that it is important for programmers to understand how computers work and what better way than to start at the machine level with an assembler or a simple simulator like CESIL. I cut my teeth with it in 1975 then went on to Basic, Fortran, PL/1, Z80, Lisp, etc. When I needed to learn 6502, 68000 and work in PowerPC assembly for some interrupt routines I wasn’t phased because I had started at this level. Start at C++ or Java and Assembly or Hardware Interrupts will scare you. You can go higher-level but it is harder to go lower-level if you haven’t already been there.

By: Janette Lloyd

Janette Lloyd — Tue, 07 Jun 2011 22:21:44 +0000

I too have a couple of listings and little coils of punch tape from the CESIL days lurking in the token computing history box in my loft.
In 1972 ish, my school had a teletype and a link to Preston poly’s computer, I went to Computer Club at the age of 12 with no idea that it would start me on a path to 30 years in the IT industry.

By: closingbraces

closingbraces — Tue, 08 Mar 2011 02:45:50 +0000

Alf, you’re very welcome. It’s nice to know there are a few people with fond memories of this!

By: Alf Cooper

Alf Cooper — Mon, 07 Mar 2011 21:03:54 +0000

This is fantastic!! – CESIL (or at least the memory of it) lives on!

Like several respondees I started Compuer Studies in 1973 – it was a CSE course – as ‘O’ Level Computer studies wasn’t invented then.

I’ve seen disparaging reviews about CESIL elsewhere on the web – but personally think it had to be the perfect introduction into logical thinking – and flowcharts! You got a real feel how this new magic box was put together and how to make it work for you.

CESIL, for me, was written on special coding sheets, sent of to Oxford university and received back 1 or 2 weeks later – so that you could fix the bugs.

Once CESIL had been mastered?? we moved on to BASIC again written on coding sheets which inevitably came back 1 or 2 weeks later with “syntax error line 10″ (forgot the REM before the programme title again)

A few of us finished the CSE Curriculum early and were given the opportunity to learn FORTRAN IV which was a pain – not because of the language but because we had to punch out our own punched cards to be sent off. The possibilities for mistakes in doing this were alsmost endless (trust me I found most of them)

But I still remember the excitement (as a 15yr old) of seeing envelopes on ‘sirs’ desk in the Computer Studies room (portacabin!!) which meant that maybe one of my programmes had come back.

Although I don’t exactly work in computing the love of it has always stayed with me. I went to college with BT and learned to work with an 8085 breadboard – never could quite get my “mastermind” (remember the game) programme to fit into the 256 bytes available – did get it down to 257 though!

From there it was a ZX80 (still hate RPN) and ZX81 (still have both) where I learned to use the Zilog Z80. Followed by a TI99/4A where I got into the TMS9800 instructional language.

Have definately started to regress these days as having looked a both the PIC and the PICAXE chips, I’m definately going back to BASIC(s) (sic) with the PICAXE.

However (for those of you still awake) it all started with CESIL and I still have on tape somwhere my CESIL interpreter for the Texas with extended instruction set for printer outputs.

Thank you for reviving some very fond memories.

Alf

By: closingbraces

closingbraces — Sat, 23 Oct 2010 18:14:10 +0000

So, that’s “CESIL The Next Generation” sorted out then!

And I’d forgotten about the paper tape! I seem to remember keeping one as a souvenir… must still have that buried away somewhere.