Wild Romance is a tale about computers in the 1980s. It discusses how [1] early home computers of the 1980s had colorful graphics, low-fi sound, cheap storage, and booted directly into the BASIC programming language, which allowed children to easily program. [2] It explores how BASIC allowed users to combine words and pictures to express ideas. [3] The document notes that while computers were not yet for professionals, the 1980s was the time when they truly belonged to children and helped spark their creativity and interest in technology.

1. Wild Romance
A Tale of Digital Passion

2. prologue
pre-1981 computers were for technicians
post-1990 computers were for professionals
but in the 1980s they belonged to children

3. i. in the beginning

8. colourful graphics

9. low-fi sound

10. cheap offline storage

11. system in ROM

12. booted into BASIC

13. ii. words & pictures

14. Elric sent his mind into twisting tunnels of logic, across
endless plains of ideas, through mountains of symbolism
and endless universes of alternate truths; he sent his
mind out further and further and as it went he sent with
it the words [...] words that few of his contemporaries
would understand...
- Elric of Melniboné, Michael Moorcock

15. I love BASIC

16. simple but powerful

17. looks a bit like English

18. easy to think about

19. not an operating system

20. but fakes it well

21. easy to think about

22. iii. let’s get serious

25. iii. hackers & gamers

29. iv. teach the children

34. v. hackety hack hack

37. vi. a slice of raspberrypi