https://twobithistory.org/2019/03/31/bbc-micro.html In an audacious move, the BBC, a public service broadcaster funded by the government, decided that it would solve Britain’s national competitiveness problems by helping Britons everywhere overcome their aversion to computers. It launched the Computer Literacy Project, a multi-pronged educational effort that involved several TV series, a few books, a network of support groups, and a specially built microcomputer known as the BBC Micro. The project was so successful that, by 1983, an editor for BYTE Magazine wrote, “compared to the US, proportionally more of Britain’s population is interested in microcomputers.” The editor marveled that there were more people at the Fifth Personal Computer World Show in the UK than had been to that year’s West Coast Computer Faire. Over a sixth of Great Britain watched an episode in the first series produced for the Computer Literacy Project and 1.5 million BBC Micros were ultimately sold. [...] If you google “learn to code,” the first result you see is a link to Codecademy’s website. If there is a modern equivalent to the Computer Literacy Project, something with the same reach and similar aims, then it is Codecademy. “Learn to code” is Codecademy’s tagline. I don’t think I’m the first person to point this out—in fact, I probably read this somewhere and I’m now ripping it off—but there’s something revealing about using the word “code” instead of “program.”