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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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161–170 of 244 posts

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

#161

Yeah, 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 th…

You had to create, because there was just so little to consume.

This is a deep problem. The Internet isn't just the biggest thing since fire, it's bigger even than fire. It's the most world changing thing the human race has ever been exposed to. Yeah, fire was big. Kept predators at bay, killed parasites, tamed seasons, let you melt shiny stuff out of the oddly colored rocks. But it didn't obviate the need to think entirely. For kids in their very formative years, the internet does exactly that.

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

#164
Why not emulator of Apple II? Bonus: all the software is "acquireable".

I've been mulling how I get my kiddo acclimated to modern computers. I think I will sort of "roll back time" and give him access to old, simple machines and software via emulation, and then roll him forward as he gets older.

The bonus is that he can wreck the software/emulated machine as much as he wants with bad commands. I can rebuild it easily.

Modern kids games on tablets are horrible with the ads. This needs regulation so badly.

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

#165

For gaming (and how to identify dark patterns) take a look at https://www.darkpattern.games/

Discussed yesterday:

DarkPattern.games: Find Healthy Mobile Games - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30184457 - Feb 2022 (199 comments)

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

#166
post #43
post #12

Earlier 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

the minecraft modding experience on the raspberry pi my pre-teen has is dead simple to get working, with a quick code-observe loop, but then there's a gap moving to java mods on the PC, which is much more involved

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

#167

Kids nowadays have too much distractions. Back in the day most of the entertainment kids got were TV and occasionally film but both are also family/friend activities. Then the personal computer showed up, and many kids wanted to make games because 1) That's so cool and 2) There was not many games anyway. They naturally learned BASIC because that was the only high level language pre-installed and then naturally learne…

> many kids wanted to make games because 1) That's so cool and 2) There was not many games anyway.

Yes. And the drive behind this was not only technical, but also artistic. You have seen the works of others (professional game developers) and you want to create something along the same lines. And into a very deep rabbit whole we went.

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

#168
I think the best learning experience is seeing you can still build and repair a computer yourself, so I had my 8yr old kid build his own gaming PC from scratch (with me standing by for guidance). We were about $1200 in with parts: motherboard, cpu, ram, nvme, chassis, dvd-rom, etc.

Then he got to help as we installed dual-boot Ubuntu and Windows, with Ubuntu being default :)

In windows I installed some games I felt ok about. Microsoft Flight Simulator, Kerbal Space Program, Pokemon TCG, his school office apps. But I only let him run Minecraft on the Linux side, so he will have to boot there and sort it out from time to time, with the bonus of a Minecraft server environment we've hacked a bit.

We're no longer in the 80s, that's for sure! But I think focusing on learning the components of hardware/software in computing are better done on a desktop than a laptop or tablet. There's really nothing to be learned in today's repair-hostile walled gardens.

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

#170
What about having the kids learn to assemble their own game console, then how to run Linux on it and use the expansion (gpio, i2c, USB ports) while they have fun?

https://www.hardkernel.com/shop/odroid-go-advance-black-edit...

I purchased the older ESP32 based model years ago and it was really a good product.

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