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Ask HN: How can I make a “kid's computer” today as good as an Apple II?
151–160 of 244 posts
Re: Ask HN: How can I make a “kid's computer” today as good as an Apple II?
#152I love all these "back in my day.." and "how do I replicate my [very limited, and - no doubt - wildly incorrect memory of] childhood for my kids" type posts Because they all-too-often display a vicarious hubris that some how some way my [limited] memory of childhood is the Only True Way™ to experience childhood, and must be replicated for every successive generation Nostalgia is great - but I do not want to force my…
Do you have children??
I have several
Thanks for asking
Re: Ask HN: How can I make a “kid's computer” today as good as an Apple II?
#153I love all these "back in my day.." and "how do I replicate my [very limited, and - no doubt - wildly incorrect memory of] childhood for my kids" type posts Because they all-too-often display a vicarious hubris that some how some way my [limited] memory of childhood is the Only True Way™ to experience childhood, and must be replicated for every successive generation Nostalgia is great - but I do not want to force my…
Love the Socrates quote. I would take the opposite approach if I had kids. Build a really baddass PC with KDE Plasma, great monitor, just a perfect workstation then tell the kid they can't use it. This is what grownups use to build Youtube and all the apps you love, you aren't old enough to use this. Build the most simple youtube search app with vanilla js/html/css and then act like the code is almost pornographic an…
>Emulating basic on an Apple IIe is like forcing the kid to learn trombone and play Count Basie tunes because that was what was cool back in the day. They will despise trombone by the time they are teenagers.
Exactly!
Forcing kids to learn what you did the way you did is not smart - unless they actually want to learn what you did (the way you did)
I worked at a non-profit in my early 20s, and had the chance to teach kids from middle school to early college how to build web pages (among many other things). When I would teach the workshop, they were building actual, live XHTML 1.0, CSS3 (I think it was 3?) compliant pages and sites in about an hour or so
When others would teach the workshop, they'd be in there for two hours just seeing all the ways we used to do it that we don't anymore (except, you know, when you really need to (using tables to format, etc (all those 'fun' geocities hacks folks making "complex" sites in the 90s had to do before CSS was a thing and widely supported))), and only then get to the 45-60 minutes of how to do it now.
There are some things that can more-or-less "only" be taught one way (like, say, using a table saw). But everything else? Teach it in a way that engages your student(s).
Want to write games? Get some books on the topic, and write games. A handful of fundamentals need to be known first, but without goals that connect with the learners, they'll never really learn it.
And if it turns out they hate programming? That's OK, too - there's a whole world of alternatives, an being so myopic as to think the only way to "have fun" or "learn" is the way you did it as a kid is kinda dumb :)
Re: Ask HN: How can I make a “kid's computer” today as good as an Apple II?
#154The 8-bit guy is building this:
https://www.commanderx16.com/forum/index.php?/home/
Which might fit what you are looking for.
Re: Ask HN: How can I make a “kid's computer” today as good as an Apple II?
#155Yeah, just cause you had wonderment and curiosity about stuff doesn't mean it can be grafted onto kids. Believe me.
Especially when they've been exposed to iPads and Nintendo Switches.
The reason why many of us Boomers, Gen-xers and old Millennials were fascinated with this stuff is simply cause we didn't have much of anything else. And limitations foster creativity.
Kids today (and I know I sound old as fuck) but they grow up with so many cool toys and so many choices.
It will be hard to foster the creativity in them when there are so many things competing for their attention. Sometimes they find it and sometimes they don't and something else calls for their attention (wanderlust, sports, etc.)
And also, not all kids want to program the games or see how they work underneath the hood, some just want to play the games and that's never changed even back then.
You just gotta pay attention to them and help them foster their talents in whatever direction they choose.
Re: Ask HN: How can I make a “kid's computer” today as good as an Apple II?
#156Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
minecraft modding is doable with some help. obviously more complex than writing some little BASIC program from scratch since you're hooking into existing things that are at times not ideally documented but it's a lot more feasible than trying to teach your kid unity, probably
There are plenty of tutorials available out there, with some geared toward kids with no programming experience. My older son went through a class (can't remember which one...it was at least six years ago) that did a very nice job of making basic Minecraft mods very accessible, while still introducing programming topics.
Re: Ask HN: How can I make a “kid's computer” today as good as an Apple II?
#157Try out Circuits in Rec Room: https://blog.recroom.com/posts/2021/5/03/the-circuits-handbo...
It appeals to the age group and general audience currently playing Roblox. Full functionality can be used for free. Rec Room is essentially a game for building games.
Disclaimer: I’m the lead Circuits dev
Re: Ask HN: How can I make a “kid's computer” today as good as an Apple II?
#158>When I was a kid, I had an Apple II with a BASIC interpreter, [...] a computer like that, where there are a lot of open-ended ways to create. I think your particular childhood memories that understandably left an imprint on you have inadvertently affected your idea of what "open-ended" creation means. >, and great creative experiences don't seem available on desktop I also grew up with those 8-bit computers and I do…
Indeed. I had the 4K 'Level I' from RadioShack, and there wasn't much that could be done with that. But the allure was that there was literally nothing else you could do with a television that was interactive, save for maybe the Atari 2600. So you could watch TV, play rather finite games on the TV, or omg have Total Control of the Screen! It helped that the graphics from a TRS-80/PET/AppleII were on par with the 2600, that made the ROM BASIC boxes the same, to a child's visual senses, and gave you the control. Had the game console of 1979 been even as good as the NES, it's doubtful that those early BASIC boxes could have competed for the attention of a 10yo.
Re: Ask HN: How can I make a “kid's computer” today as good as an Apple II?
#159I had a similar problem a few years ago. While I never found the perfect machine here is how I have been introducing my now 10 year old son to the world of computers: - I bought him a Kano computer kit when he was about 7. The kit retailed for about $250 at the time and a kid could assemble it "like LEGO". It came with educational software that introduced him to programming languages, etc. (Unfortunately I do not thi…
Godot is a dead end. I tried it and found it very difficult to grok and then immediately ran into their hacked to hell threading model that you must know about (and sprinkle yields around in just the right spots) to get anything done.
I see it being revised significantly which will be a breaking change. If not, then it is what it is.
Re: Ask HN: How can I make a “kid's computer” today as good as an Apple II?
#160When I was younger I loved making batch file scripts and would look up how to do things like this. It seems to me that something like this would require its own private "internet" that allowed the user to make searches that the search engine would funnel into a desired result.