Flash Card

My little ZX81 was not doing well in its competition with our Atari 2600 VCS. Even though I had a great Space Invaders and a real fine Road Race, it just could not hold the attention of my eight-year-old for very long. I decided to try a different approach.

I felt the only advantage that the ZX81 possessed was its ability to evaluate changing inputs and its ability to respond to the user in terms he could appreciate. Also, I noticed that the kids would sit at the Atari for hours with their eyes glued to the score. Why not use these features and teach more than just “eye-hand” coordination?

When I taught elementary school, I found that students love games and even enjoy boring, rote material when it is presented as a game. The spelling bee is a good example of the game-type teaching method. It will work when everything else fails.

My first opportunity came when my third grader announced that he was learning his multiplication tables and had to have my help in studying. I wasted no time in preparing a little program to help. The result was better than I expected.

Listing 1 shows a program that responds to the learner and gives him immediate feedback on his answers. Its greatest advantage is that it keeps score. I found that if a friend is working with him, my son works for long periods just to make sure his score is the highest when the practice set ends. The “game” ends after every ten problems. Each correct answer racks up ten points and an incorrect answer scores zero.

The program lets the learner select his own table and generates a random problem between 0 and 9. The program is set up for single place but could be expanded to two or three place multiplication by changing the 10 in line 110 to either 100 or 1000 respectively.

The unexpanded T/S1000,ZX81 will handle this program, but it can easily be expanded on a unit using the 16K RAM pack. I’ve found that students appreciate comments on their scores. A list of computer responses based on the score could easily be incorporated between lines 230 and 250.

Use of the ZX81 is gaining rapidly at our house.

Listing 1. Flash Card Program (T/S1000,ZX81 2K)

 10 REM — MULTIPLICATION
    TABLES — AGES 6-9
 20 PRINT "HELLO — WHAT IS
    YOUR NAME?"
 30 INPUT N$
 40 LET T = 0
 50 PRINT "YOUR TOTAL IS "; T
 60 PRINT "WHAT TABLE WOULD
    YOU LIKE,"; N$; "?"
 70 LET S = 0
 80 LET N = 0
 90 INPUT X
100 CLS
110 LET Y = INT (RND*10)
120 PRINT X; "X"; Y
130 INPUT Z
140 LET N = N + 1
150 PRINT Z;
160 IF Z = Y*X THEN PRINT
    "CORRECT"
170 IF Z = Y*X THEN LET S = S + 10
180 IF Z = Y*Y THEN PRINT " NO,
    THE ANSWER IS ";Y*X
190 IF N = 10 THEN GOTO 210
200 GOTO 110
210 CLS
220 PRINT "YOUR SCORE FOR
    THIS TABLE "; N$ ; "IS "; S
230 LET T = T + S
240 PRINT "YOUR TOTAL IS ";T;"
    DO YOU WANT TO CONTINUE?
    Y-N"
250 INPUT A$
260 IF A$ = "N" THEN GOTO 280
270 GOTO 60
280 PRINT "ENTER RUN TO START
    AGAIN"
290 STOP