Logo

Overview

Logo is a programming language created by Seymour Papert and others at MIT in 1967, designed to be accessible to children while remaining powerful enough for serious programming. Its most famous feature - turtle graphics - let users draw by commanding a cursor (the “turtle”) to move and turn.

Logo introduced millions of children to programming concepts through the immediate, visual feedback of drawing. The phrase “FORWARD 100, RIGHT 90” became many programmers’ first code.

Fast Facts

Created: 1967 at MIT
Designers: Seymour Papert, Wally Feurzeig, Cynthia Solomon
Philosophy: Constructionism - learning by making
Famous feature: Turtle graphics
Platforms: Nearly every educational computer

Core Concepts

Logo was designed around principles:

Low floor - Easy to begin (move the turtle)
High ceiling - Capable of complex programs
Wide walls - Many directions to explore
Procedures - Define new commands
Recursion - Natural introduction to the concept

Turtle Graphics

The turtle was a cursor that could:

FORWARD 100    ; Move forward 100 units
RIGHT 90       ; Turn right 90 degrees
PENDOWN        ; Start drawing
PENUP          ; Stop drawing

This simple model taught:

Sequencing
Loops (REPEAT)
Procedures (TO…END)
Variables
Geometry

Educational Use

Logo appeared in schools worldwide:

UK: BBC Micro with floor turtle robots
USA: Apple II in computer labs
Australia: Various platforms
Worldwide: Translated into many languages

Physical Turtles

Some implementations used robot turtles:

Floor robots responding to Logo commands
Physical drawing on paper
Concrete connection to abstract code

Legacy

Logo’s influence continues:

Scratch - MIT’s visual programming, direct descendant
Python Turtle - Logo-style graphics in Python
Many educational languages - Low floor/high ceiling concept
Computational thinking - Logo helped establish the field

The turtle that taught programming