Directed by Stuart Beecroft Voices of Fred Napoli | Starring Luba Goy
Billy Van Country of origin Canada | |
Written by Denise Boiteau
David Stansfield Theme music composer Harry Forbes
George Axon | ||
Bits and Bytes was the name of two Canadian educational television series that taught the basics of how to use a personal computer. The first series, made in 1983, starred Luba Goy as the Instructor and Billy Van as the Student. Bits and Bytes 2 was produced in 1991 and starred Billy Van on his own.
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The intro sequence featured a montage of common computer terms such as "ERROR", "LOGO" and "ROM", as well as various snippets of simple computer graphics and video effects, accompanied by a theme song that very heavily borrows from the 1978 song Neon Lights by Kraftwerk. The series were produced by TVOntario. The Writer-Producers of both Bits and Bytes and Bits and Bytes 2 were Denise Boiteau & David Stansfield.
The first series featured an unusual presentation format whereby Luba Goy as the instructor would address Billy Van through a remote video link. The video link would appear to Luba who was seated in an office on a projection screen in front of her. She was then able to direct Billy, who appeared on a soundstage with various desktop computer setups of the era. Popular systems emphasized included the Atari 800, Commodore PET, Tandy TRS-80, and Apple II. Each episode also included short animated vignettes to explain key concepts, as well as videotaped segments on various developments in computing.
In 1983 TVOntario included the show's episodes as part of a correspondence course.
In the second series, produced almost a decade later, Billy Van assumed the role of instructor and taught a new female student. The new series focused primarily on IBM PC compatibles (i.e. Intel-based 286 or 386 computers) running DOS and early versions of Windows, as well as the newer and updated technologies of that era.