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Ask HN: Is there a modern “power on to basic” computer, for kids to learn on?

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Re: Ask HN: Is there a modern “power on to basic” computer, for kids to learn on?

#121

Post by greenspot »

potta_coffee wrote: post #3

The closest thing I've found to this is Pico-8: not a computer, a piece of software, but it's very cool. It has a simple text editor for writing Lua code, a simple sprite editor, and a simple sound editor, all for creating games. It's a nice little sandbox for playing with code and creating things. https://www.lexaloffle.com/pico-8.php

Celeste, one recent major indie game, was started and initially developed on Pico-8.

If are into games, check out Celeste. Just the music is reason to play this game (I played it on PS4 but all versions are equal).

Re: Ask HN: Is there a modern “power on to basic” computer, for kids to learn on?

#122

Post by tmountain »

potta_coffee wrote: post #3

The closest thing I've found to this is Pico-8: not a computer, a piece of software, but it's very cool. It has a simple text editor for writing Lua code, a simple sprite editor, and a simple sound editor, all for creating games. It's a nice little sandbox for playing with code and creating things. https://www.lexaloffle.com/pico-8.php

+1 for Pico-8. It really takes you down the rabbit's hole in a way that stimulates learning all the core concepts in creating a basic game. "Cool, I have a sprite on the screen. Now, how do I make it move?". "What about gravity?". "What about collision detection?" (I've done at least 5 collision detection "engines" so far...).

Games can be compiled to HTML5, ando/or distributed as PNG files with all source code and assets included. There's also a builtin community game browser with ratings, etc. Some bigger name games were prototyped in Pico-8 (i.e., Celeste), and it has a lot of love in the indie community.

Re: Ask HN: Is there a modern “power on to basic” computer, for kids to learn on?

#123

Post by fit2rule »

nurettin wrote: post #108

I will tell you why whatever you find won't feel like the old C= 64 no matter how good the properties are emulated. It is the culture, and the music. You will never find an equivalent, so might as well consider yourself lucky, move on and let the kids beat their keyboards typing JavaScript into their browser in debug mode. If you want to give them something they can program as soon as it boots up, just install any Li…

I'm seriously into retro-computing, having kept every computer I've ever owned since the 70's ..

So I admit my bias in this, but I have to say it: those 8-bit machines are still out there, can still provide endless utility, and are also integrating quite nicely with the modern era. In my 48k Oric Atmos, I have an 8G SD card-based filesystem. My CPC6128 has Internet access over the house wifi.

Old computers never die - their users do!

Re: Ask HN: Is there a modern “power on to basic” computer, for kids to learn on?

#124

Post by astrodust »

In the old days you saved up an extraordinary amount of money, bought a Commodore 64, plugged it in, and then had absolutely no idea what to do unless you had books.

So you went and got books or magazines, some maybe from the library, some from bookstores, and many of them might be for systems other than the C64. It wasn't uncommon for a magazine to have to cater to a dozen slightly different versions of BASIC: Apple ][, Atari, BBC Micro, PET, Sinclair, TI, Tandy, VIC-20 and more. I remember finding all sorts of interesting programs in magazines that weren't for the computer I had, so they were basically useless.

This was because a lot of BASIC code that did anything useful consisted of PEEK/POKE calls to manipulate memory, and as the memory layout of each computer was often completely different. Having a book about the Altair was of no help when trying to program anything but an Altair.

Even if you did get a book that had the right code, for the right hardware, typing it in was frustrating because the computer didn't ship with anything that resembled an editor. You just typed in line numbers and statements and hoped it all worked out. You could LIST your code, but unless you organized it well, you'd get lost quickly. Anything over a hundred lines became an unmaintainable mess of garbage.

So yeah, you could program, but you could only program in BASIC, and that language is one of the absolute worst. There's been joke languages that are more pleasant to use and more educational.

Today there's JavaScript and it works roughly the same everywhere, is thoroughly documented for free, and there's places to ask about coding that simply didn't exist when the C64 launched.

Going back is a mistake. Programming back then was a nightmare, it was an awful, discouraging experience, and I wouldn't wish it on anyone.

Presumably a lot of the golden-hued nostalgia here comes from the fact that you could program a computer, something that at the time was a relative impossibility for most people. That by typing in code you could make the computer Do Things, which can be thrilling.

The thing is today you have things like Arduino, the Pi, and others, where you can not only program them in sensible programming languages inside of civilized build environments, but you can make them interact with hardware in ways that really weren't possible on the C64.

For that sort of thrill, give someone a Feather board they can program with Micropython.

Re: Ask HN: Is there a modern “power on to basic” computer, for kids to learn on?

#125

Post by Kadin »

simion314 wrote: post #87
Kim_Bruning wrote: post #18

Raspberry PI cab be said to be evolved from a ~ power-on-to-BASIC computer; to wit: the (BBC) Acorn Archimedes. You can still get RISC OS for it even. Basically, you power on; hit F12; *BASIC >_ and bob's your uncle: you get a nice BBC BASIC prompt at the bottom of your screen. https://www.riscosopen.org/content/downloads/raspberry-pi (that said, why not use pi + python? It's the new BASIC. And it supports turtle gra…

>why not use pi + python? Do you have experience with teaching python to kids? I am afraid to try it with my son because white space is important, I tried only Scratch and making him think as "a machine" is hard enough adding syntax errors on top would make the job much harder, let me know if you have experience with this and if you think I am wrong.

Python seems like a nice update to what BASIC was in the 8-bit era. Real-time interpreter so you get instant feedback, including very simple imperative syntax. (IMO any introductory programming environment that doesn't let you do something like 10 PRINT BUTTS 20 GOTO 10 and get BUTTS BUTTS BUTTS... out of it is a failure to launch.)

But unlike BASIC, Python will grow with you and you can use it for non-trivial projects without fighting with the language. I certainly wish my old Apple II had Python; it would have prevented the immense jump to a "real" programming language, because I kept trying to go from AppleSoft BASIC to C and banging my head into a wall, nothing about it made any sense. (Perhaps I would have had better luck going from BASIC to Pascal or QBasic, but for some reason I never thought to try it. I think because the very few computer-literate adults I knew were minicomputer people and led me to believe that C was the only thing worth learning.)

Not that working up from a text prompt is the only way to learn how to interact with computers, certainly. I know a fair number of people who learned to program due to environments like HyperCard, which are much more visual, and let you start with the art and storytelling and then glue things together with code, rather than start from the code.

But for some people, including myself, the feeling of interacting directly with a computer via a simple prompt, and making it do things each time I pressed the Return key, was quite powerful.

Re: Ask HN: Is there a modern “power on to basic” computer, for kids to learn on?

#126

Post by craftsman »

modeless wrote: post #69

TI graphing calculators boot to BASIC. I don't know about the newer ones but the old ones are extremely simple computers with Z80 or 68k processors and hardly any operating system, fun to program in BASIC or assembly language or C. Modern kids might find them boring but they are great places to learn how a computer really works without piles of modern software cruft between you and the hardware. That's where I learne…

For those interested in hearing more about TI calculators and hacking on them, this episode of the Embedded.fm podcast was really fun, and there are a couple interesting links in the show notes: https://www.embedded.fm/episodes/259.

Re: Ask HN: Is there a modern “power on to basic” computer, for kids to learn on?

#127

Post by shaunxcode »

philipswood wrote: post #111
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Kids have it too easy today, they don't have to work very hard to get decent computing experiences, and its not like they have to do any programming at all to have fun. It is also super easy to get addicted to just consuming all the time. It is quite depressing. My kid is still a toddler, but I think I might put a stripped down CLI-only computer in his room when he reaches 5 so he can at least play with it if he want…

Kids today have it difficult! A real computer, by definition is something you can program. Today you don't just find accessible devices meeting that requirement in the wild. In the microcomputer era you pressed the power button and you had a REPL prompt. Today there _is_ a computer hidden somewhere inside you laptop or mobile device, but you need to know where to dig to find it. In the 80s a newly hatched geek just h…

I think you are selling kids/newly hatched geeks short. They have also been raised on google and youtube - both places they can find out how to do nearly anything related to programming and game dev. I would have done anything to get access to that info when I was 11 and trying to figure out how to make sega genesis games!

Re: Ask HN: Is there a modern “power on to basic” computer, for kids to learn on?

#128

Post by jschwartzi »

astrodust wrote: post #118
veli_joza wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm surprised you feel that way. Lua seems like a perfect choice for pico-8. Its syntax is friendly and concise, and it's maybe simplest language to embed, with tiny footprint. Almost all other languages I know of would be a worse choice. Scratch would be nice, but graphical editor is harder to integrate. What's more suitable language in your opinion?

The great thing about Lua is the language itself is so small, and not just from an implementation perspective. The spec and documentation are also small because there's not much to learn. You can explain it in an afternoon. Try that with C++ or JavaScript.

It's also fast and it can be made to run in deterministic time. Plus the C API is something I can actually read and understand, which is true of none of the other scripting languages I've used(Python, Perl, et. al.).

Re: Ask HN: Is there a modern “power on to basic” computer, for kids to learn on?

#130

Post by dragonwriter »

astrodust wrote: post #124

In the old days you saved up an extraordinary amount of money, bought a Commodore 64, plugged it in, and then had absolutely no idea what to do unless you had books. So you went and got books or magazines, some maybe from the library, some from bookstores, and many of them might be for systems other than the C64. It wasn't uncommon for a magazine to have to cater to a dozen slightly different versions of BASIC: Apple…

> In the old days you saved up an extraordinary amount of money, bought a Commodore 64, plugged it in, and then had absolutely no idea what to do unless you had books.

While I never got a C64, I did get a Timex-Sinclair 1000, a Timex-Sinclair 2068, and a PC clone in the early-to-mid 1980s, and all of them came with complete BASIC manuals as well as other system documentation.

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