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The iPhone killed my inner nerd

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Re: The iPhone killed my inner nerd

#41

Post by corford »

Now I've grown up and free time has become scarce, I tinker a lot less than I used to but I recently enjoyed a weekend burst of the "old times" when I offered to build a hackintosh for a friend.

I'm a linux and windows guy and the last time I used a mac was pre-OSX days so I knew nothing about modern Macs, the ecosystem, what the 'go to' apps were for it or even how to use one (thank god it has a terminal and a semblance of linux underneath!).

Anyway, my friend's a designer and he needed a new mac but didn't have the cash on hand to buy one. I offered one evening to google around and see what options there were for building your own machine and sticking OSX on it. From that, I discovered the hackintosh scene, did some reading up and decided to have a go.

I researched parts for his budget (~€800 with monitor), he bought them off Amazon and then I set about getting it working one weekend (side note: amazing how cheap hardware is these days - managed to get 16GB RAM, a 500GB SSD and a 24" monitor in there for that price!).

Turned out to be a lot of fun, doubly so with the constraint that I didn't have a mac on hand to bootstrap with (virtualbox to the rescue!).

It was a nice little nerdy project. Didn't take too long to do, provided a few interesting things to learn/geek out on, gave me some sweaty moments fighting with clover configs and kex files and yielded a happy, tangible result at the end.

So Apple managed to re-kindle my inner nerd for a weekend at least :)

Re: The iPhone killed my inner nerd

#42

Post by rodolphoarruda »

Well, not a single reference to Linux in the article. It bugs me because one of the reasons I use it as my primary OS is that it keeps my "inner nerd" alive. I believe similar essay could be written with the software in mind. Apps like Whatsapp/WeChat are reducing the pressure we used to feel to find a solution to a given problem via a specific tool. These apps are hammers we use for anything, even for fixing screws on the wall.

Re: The iPhone killed my inner nerd

#43

Post by LeoNatan25 »

Another thing not mentioned in the article or comments is the great Apple SDK APIs. Those “ruined” development for me, in the sense that most else looks terrible in comparison. (I was not familiar with macOS development before iPhone OS).

Re: The iPhone killed my inner nerd

#44

Post by tarsinge »

II2II wrote: post #30
zyb09 wrote: post #7

I wonder if this will have an effect on how kids get into programming. Back when I was a kid we had MS-DOS, my primary motivation was to install and play games, but there was this easy built-in pathway of: Hey, you can do a lot more with this machine if you want, including making your own games. Nowadays consuming and developing are so disconnected, it seems almost impossible for the younger generations to just stumb…

I would like to think that the industry learned the error of its ways. The 1980s and 1990s were prime times for kids getting into programming. Early personal computers came with BASIC. Early HTML and JavaScript were simple enough for a child to get into. That seemed to fall apart in the 2000s when programming languages did not come standard with personal computers and the growing complexity of web development made it…

For me I found it way harder to get into programing in the 90's, as a kid in this decade I really wanted to make my own games and software but being on a Mac I couldn't find how to cross the gap, you didn't have BASIC like before with the Apple II or MSDOS, it was full-featured GUI with expensive compilers or nothing. Now any kid can open the dev console in a browser and write javascript, or even create basic HTML files. Maybe we should encourage more quick and dirty approach and avoid recommending frameworks and complex build processes for hobbyist projects.

Re: The iPhone killed my inner nerd

#45

Post by icebraining »

tarsinge wrote: post #44
II2II wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would like to think that the industry learned the error of its ways. The 1980s and 1990s were prime times for kids getting into programming. Early personal computers came with BASIC. Early HTML and JavaScript were simple enough for a child to get into. That seemed to fall apart in the 2000s when programming languages did not come standard with personal computers and the growing complexity of web development made it…

For me I found it way harder to get into programing in the 90's, as a kid in this decade I really wanted to make my own games and software but being on a Mac I couldn't find how to cross the gap, you didn't have BASIC like before with the Apple II or MSDOS, it was full-featured GUI with expensive compilers or nothing. Now any kid can open the dev console in a browser and write javascript, or even create basic HTML fi…

What about HyperCard?

Re: The iPhone killed my inner nerd

#46

Post by crusso »

rodolphoarruda wrote: post #42

Well, not a single reference to Linux in the article. It bugs me because one of the reasons I use it as my primary OS is that it keeps my "inner nerd" alive. I believe similar essay could be written with the software in mind. Apps like Whatsapp/WeChat are reducing the pressure we used to feel to find a solution to a given problem via a specific tool. These apps are hammers we use for anything, even for fixing screws…

Why would he reference Linux? His point was that his needs are met without having to tinker.

His needs drove his inner nerd. Introducing Linux into his environment so that he would be forced to tinker would be backwards.

Re: The iPhone killed my inner nerd

#47

Post by lucozade »

zyb09 wrote: post #7

I wonder if this will have an effect on how kids get into programming. Back when I was a kid we had MS-DOS, my primary motivation was to install and play games, but there was this easy built-in pathway of: Hey, you can do a lot more with this machine if you want, including making your own games. Nowadays consuming and developing are so disconnected, it seems almost impossible for the younger generations to just stumb…

This was precisely the concern that led Eben Upton to develop the Raspberry Pi.

The idea was to make a cheap, small, device that booted to a prompt so that you interacted with it in the same way that you would have interacted with the DOS prompt. You could then have a few of these in schools etc so children could play with it without the concern that they would brick an expensive piece of kit.

It's clearly ended up vastly more successful than was originally envisaged. It remains to be seen, of course, whether it has inspired another generation of hackers or not.

Re: The iPhone killed my inner nerd

#48

Post by rodolphoarruda »

crusso wrote: post #46
rodolphoarruda wrote: post #42

Well, not a single reference to Linux in the article. It bugs me because one of the reasons I use it as my primary OS is that it keeps my "inner nerd" alive. I believe similar essay could be written with the software in mind. Apps like Whatsapp/WeChat are reducing the pressure we used to feel to find a solution to a given problem via a specific tool. These apps are hammers we use for anything, even for fixing screws…

Why would he reference Linux? His point was that his needs are met without having to tinker. His needs drove his inner nerd. Introducing Linux into his environment so that he would be forced to tinker would be backwards.

So maybe I didn't get his point at all. I thought that he was upset with the fact that new gadgets would be turning him into a plain user (and a consumer...) and reducing the tinker inner nerd facet of his life. If he is pleased that now he doesn't need to build/keep those 5 boxes in his room and just have an iPhone in his pocket, well, then I missed the point badly.

Re: The iPhone killed my inner nerd

#49

Post by mrob »

morganvachon wrote: post #22
norswap wrote: post #5

I get it. I only started programming precisely when the first iphone came out, and I started tinkering a few years before. Even so I long for this sense of wonder that existed when everything was hard, or at least required some thought and ingenuity. I know the raspberry pie and stuff are a way to do that, but it feels so artificial and fake. (No, this comment really has no other point but to evoke diffuse nostalgic…

I started with a TI-99/4a back in 1983 at six years old; I've forgotten most of what I learned as a child tinkering with BASIC and later with DOS/Windows machines. I learned early on that programming wasn't for me, but I love hardware hacking and use those skills daily. > I know the raspberry pie and stuff are a way to do that, but it feels so artificial and fake. The Raspberry Pi came about as the result of obscure,…

The BeagleBoard and BeagleBone predated the Raspberry Pi, and those were well documented and supported. They're actually better documented because they don't depend on proprietary Broadcom firmware to boot (a Free software replacement is in development but not yet usable for most people). The Raspberry Pi was more successful mostly because it was so much cheaper.

Re: The iPhone killed my inner nerd

#50

Post by amelius »

xedsvg wrote: post #25
amelius wrote: post #14

Also, modern cars with their proverbial weld-shut hoods have killed my inner mechanical engineer.

Can you be a little more specific? I find modern cars to be funnier just because of the closed source stuff. It's more rewarding (for me, at least) when i figure out a can bus message or how to flash my ECU with diy adapters.

That sounds more like IT-work than mechanical engineering.
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