A language for exploration
The first version of Logo was created at Bolt, Beranek and Newman in 1967. The team included Wallace “Wally” Feurzeig, Seymour Papert, and Cynthia Solomon. Designed as a learning language, Logo gave beginners a way to express ideas in instructions, try them, and revise them.
Source: Logo Foundation, “Logo History”.
Meet the turtle
Early turtles were physical robots that moved across the floor. Screen-based turtles brought that movement into computer graphics. Tell a turtle to move forward or turn, and its trail can become a drawing.
Logo is more than Turtle Graphics: it also supports work with language, music, mathematics, and other ideas. But a few movement commands made programming unusually visible.
Sources: Logo Foundation history and Logo programming.
REPEAT 4 [FORWARD 100 RIGHT 90]Move forward. Turn a quarter-turn. Do it four times. A short instruction becomes a shape.
From research labs to school labs
Logo research continued through the 1970s. Personal computers helped it reach a much wider audience, and Seymour Papert’s 1980 book Mindstorms brought its learning ideas to more educators.
The important experience was active: make something, see what your instructions produce, and refine your thinking.
Source: Logo Foundation, “Logo History”.
That feeling still has somewhere to go.
Our game follows a related pleasure: imagine a path, express it as a routine, and watch the result. The stage is three-dimensional, the robot has places to be, and the next idea is yours.
As for the old terminals scattered through the game… some history is best discovered first-hand.
Return to the game