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Ask HN: How can I make a “kid's computer” today as good as an Apple II?

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Re: Ask HN: How can I make a “kid's computer” today as good as an Apple II?

#81

Post by colordrops »

amelius wrote: post #25
bigiain wrote: post #5

I think the problem here is that the world has moved on a lot since some of us kids were amazed at what we could make machines like an AppleII do with basic (and assembler and peek and poke). I remember being amazingly proud of myself for getting an ascii version of Space Invaders working. I could, as a 10 or 12 year old, make something for myself that kinda looked like and was way more fun (for me) to play that _lit…

> Don't get your hopes up _too_ high about your kids being the maybe 1% of people who choose to program for fun. Programming is mostly plumbing anyway, so if your kid chooses differently, that's very ok.

I sometimes think of it as interior decorating. I do a lot of frontend though.

Re: Ask HN: How can I make a “kid's computer” today as good as an Apple II?

#82

Post by fallat »

tmm84 wrote: post #12
bigiain wrote: post #5

I think the problem here is that the world has moved on a lot since some of us kids were amazed at what we could make machines like an AppleII do with basic (and assembler and peek and poke). I remember being amazingly proud of myself for getting an ascii version of Space Invaders working. I could, as a 10 or 12 year old, make something for myself that kinda looked like and was way more fun (for me) to play that _lit…

I agree with this post. Most of the young 6-12 year olds out there aren't going to be really interested in a terminal/basic interpreter. A lot of what that audience wants to do is build mods for the games they play. Minecraft, fortnite, etc. and the like. But programming for these games is a bit more involved than regular programming obviously. I suggest getting them a computer that is capable of playing the game the…

Modding is actually an excellent catalyst to begin the programming path or other similar paths... Great suggestion!

Re: Ask HN: How can I make a “kid's computer” today as good as an Apple II?

#84

Post by em500 »

foobarian wrote: post #76
em500 wrote: post #54

I think this is a lost cause. Other have already mentioned this, but I'll state it again. The computers themselves are the trivial part, both the hardware and the software. You can buy a budget 11- or 13-inch laptop, new for $300 or used for $100, load them with emulators of all the 1980s and 1990s machines, and have literally the same software and much better hardware than we did back then. If you give that to them,…

This is super depressing. What do we do? Firewall all the things at the house and get rid of tablets/phones?

Don't be depressed. In due time, our kids will complain about their kids zombie-ing out in the metaverse all day, whereas back in their days, they were actively creating memes and dance videos, modding minecraft worlds, and occasionally even had to read entire paragraphs of text.

Re: Ask HN: How can I make a “kid's computer” today as good as an Apple II?

#85

Post by warrenm »

foobarian wrote: post #76
em500 wrote: post #54

I think this is a lost cause. Other have already mentioned this, but I'll state it again. The computers themselves are the trivial part, both the hardware and the software. You can buy a budget 11- or 13-inch laptop, new for $300 or used for $100, load them with emulators of all the 1980s and 1990s machines, and have literally the same software and much better hardware than we did back then. If you give that to them,…

This is super depressing. What do we do? Firewall all the things at the house and get rid of tablets/phones?

It's only "super depressing" if you choose to see if that way

Here are some ways to "combat" the choices available, though, if you want:

- kill/limit streaming services

- kill/limit TV in general

- limit internet time(s) per device

- have your kids go outside and play

Re: Ask HN: How can I make a “kid's computer” today as good as an Apple II?

#86

Post by vanderZwan »

chalst wrote: post #32
bigiain wrote: post #5

I think the problem here is that the world has moved on a lot since some of us kids were amazed at what we could make machines like an AppleII do with basic (and assembler and peek and poke). I remember being amazingly proud of myself for getting an ascii version of Space Invaders working. I could, as a 10 or 12 year old, make something for myself that kinda looked like and was way more fun (for me) to play that _lit…

Are you aware of Nintendo Game Builder Garage? [1,2] My youngest daughter was begging me to get this for her when it came out. She spent ages in earlier years trying to figure out doing stuff with the MIT Scratch offline editor. She's not super keen on text-based programming yet (my elder daughter is and solidly resists my typed FP propaganda in favour of hand-typed OO programming), but these kind of visual programmi…

Playfool recently had a nice video with suggestions on how Game Builder Garage combines really well with earlier Labo kits. So if you have any of those lying around..

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vTJH11qXtys

Re: Ask HN: How can I make a “kid's computer” today as good as an Apple II?

#87

Post by jacknews »

vore wrote: post #19

Have you tried PICO-8? https://www.lexaloffle.com/pico-8.php Not a computer but I think embodies a lot of the open-ended creativity of the Apple II.

Also TIC-80.

The only problem with these is that, other than using lua instead of Basic or assembler, they are a little too literal an interpretation of "give me the same experience as when I was a kid".

Re: Ask HN: How can I make a “kid's computer” today as good as an Apple II?

#88

Post by vanderZwan »

bigiain wrote: post #5

I think the problem here is that the world has moved on a lot since some of us kids were amazed at what we could make machines like an AppleII do with basic (and assembler and peek and poke). I remember being amazingly proud of myself for getting an ascii version of Space Invaders working. I could, as a 10 or 12 year old, make something for myself that kinda looked like and was way more fun (for me) to play that _lit…

> And, to be fair, _most_ of the kids when I was in school just wanted to play Space Invader clones and not write Basic programs, I did most of my Basic programming in junior high on a BBC Micro

Well, I wouldn't be surprised if part of that is simply that writing a fun game in Basic is really really difficult. Actually, designing a fun game, period, is really difficult.

I know I was interested in making games at a young age but I also knew I wasn't going to be able to make them in the version of Basic that I had on my DOS computer

Re: Ask HN: How can I make a “kid's computer” today as good as an Apple II?

#89

Post by only4here »

em500 wrote: post #84
foobarian wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is super depressing. What do we do? Firewall all the things at the house and get rid of tablets/phones?

Don't be depressed. In due time, our kids will complain about their kids zombie-ing out in the metaverse all day, whereas back in their days, they were actively creating memes and dance videos, modding minecraft worlds, and occasionally even had to read entire paragraphs of text.

I was able to get through this thread, guess I haven't zombie'd out too much.

Re: Ask HN: How can I make a “kid's computer” today as good as an Apple II?

#90

Post by acomjean »

m-i-l wrote: post #53

My daughter just built her very own Raspberry Pi 4 based computer[0] last weekend for her 10th birthday. Key points: - She picked the components herself (with dad's supervision to make sure they would work together), so the case and keyboard and so on are ones she likes the look of and wants on her desk. - She assembled it all and installed the OS herself (again with dad supervising but trying really hard not to help…

Raspberry pi also has some good books that seem kid friendly on getting started with the computer.

https://store.rpipress.cc/collections/books/products/the-off...

Available at other book sellers as well.

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