Ask HN: Whats the modern day equivalent of 80s computer for kids to explore?

Tangentially, check out GNU Radio.... you can do a lot of cool audio stuff with it, and a cheap USB based receiver is only $25 or so. They could "build" an FM radio, etc.

I had this experience with Texas Instruments graphing calculators in the 00s. They have a language, TI-BASIC that was my first introduction to programming. You can even make small games with ASCII characters on the screen (ex: I made one where a “Y” you controlled with the arrow keys fell through “floors with holes” made of dashes and spaces). Obviously super helpful for science and math classes, which was the only way I used it at first. You can program with just the calculator itself; you don’t even need a computer. I think TI-83/TI-84 are still used in classrooms, which is what I used.

Wow editing files and navigating directories, that sounds so fun these days /s

Build a redstone computer in minecraft

A music synthesizer. It's a pathway to learning electronics, music, and the nature of sound. There are cheap kits, cheap synths, lots of kinds of synths, and there are much more complicated and expensive systems you can grow into. You can get software synths also, VCV Rack is a free though complex one:

https://vcvrack.com/

However I'd recommend an inexpensive hardware one with real knobs you can turn, like one of the Korg Volca series:

https://www.korg-volca.com/en/

Recording the sounds can lead into exploring all the concepts and gear involved in recording and mixing music. It's not mutually exclusive with doing other things also, you can play with both synths and computers and being involved with something artistic can add dimensions to and an escape from the nature of classwork/work.

Some other suggestions: gardening, high voltage electronics (with lots of supervision), electronics, photography, movie making, ham radio (gnu radio), show lighting systems (there's more than disco lights, robotics is involved), robotics, acoustic instruments (guitar, piano, flute, drums), sensors (you don't necessarily have to know electronics, get a data logger with built in sensors), weather monitoring/forecasting, hydraulic systems (with supervision), wood working, metal working, 3D printing, bird watching, painting, minibikes/small engines.

Why?! Most particularly with respect to Extended Color Basic. The horror! The horror!

Why would you cripple your child, when doing the real thing is so much easier?

Build a website. Write a game. Make your own really cool alarm clock. Make a demo. Write a voice-driven app. Steer them toward something that has relatively decent bumper-rails and ecosystems. Python. React (with typescript enabled). Or a good web framework for game development. Or, let them assemble a collection of emulator games. So many cool things they could be doing.

A Pi with no less than 8GB of RAM is a marvelous adventure. (4Gb isn't really enough to run VSCode).