These Books Will Make You Nostalgic For the Early Days of Computer Programming

Want to take a nostalgic look back at coding in the pre-Web era? Now you can, because educational publisher Usborne has released several books on computer programming from the 80s for free on its website.

You might remember Usborne from your childhood: Like Scholastic, Dorling-Kindersley and National Geographic, Usborne published hundreds of children's books on various educational subjects and were a mainstay of school libraries.

The four titles available for download (all originally published in the UK) include Programming Tricks and Skills, Machine Code for Beginners, Introduction to Computer Programming, and Practical Things to Do With a Microcomputer. These throwback titles were aimed at young coders just starting out with the BASIC coding language and so on, and the illustrations feature a helpful cast of retro-looking robots and the aliens from Space Invaders.

The volumes cover how to use programming to solve math equations, make pixel graphics, and draw graphs. There's even a section in Introduction to Computer Programmingon "how to make the computer look clever," where you program a very rudimentary SmarterChild-type bot.

Unfortunately, the books are pretty much obsolete (though Usborne has since published more contemporary books on the topic). As Usborne notes, "These books were written for 1980s computers such as the ZX Spectrum and BBC Micro. The programs will not run on modern computers." But it's an endearing look back, and a reminder of how far programming has come in the past thirty years.