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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?

#191

Post by dustractor »

Separate cartridges or disks for the OS, the various programs, the user files. When we switched over to internal storage and started putting everything together, the end user lost something. Children (people) need freedom to experiment but also need a way to put things back to square one, like they CAN'T mess the os up when it's on a write protected disk that's already been ejected.

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

#192

Post by wishinghand »

The Raspberry Pi 400 would be a modern day equivalent. It can run PICO-8, which is a fictional emulator that can make very constrained games, Sonic PI which is a live coding musical environment, and I think the Arduino building block software. Plus it can run Node and Python if they get deeper into programming. The computer is built into the keyboard, Commodore style!

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

#194

Post by joezydeco »

ddingus wrote: post #184
joezydeco wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Putting the Roblox controversies aside, I see kids creating entire multiplayer systems in this environment. Putting together 3D polygon models and animating them with Lua scripting. And then on top of all of that they organize themselves into systems . My son belongs to a virtual "airline" that has an org chart, schedules "flights", and has dozens of players that run the show on a daily basis. And, like any other org…

Roblox is crazy! I have one very interested, and I feel it's worth doing. But, I'm way out of the loop on that one, meaning it's a time sink for me too. But, maybe I just have to. Very interesting comment!

If your kid has the interest, they will teach themselves. That's the magic of the 'kids computer' we all get nostalgic for. Nobody taught us how to work with an Apple ][ or C64, we picked it up from books and from friends.

These days the online resources are lightyears better. I say let them explore and they will find their own path. You can't force this on someone and expect them to succeed.

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

#198

Post by some-guy »

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,…

I have a vintage Mac setup, and I tried to get my nieces and nephews when they visited to play KidPix. It's a PowerMac 5400 all-in-one, and they thought it was a weird looking machine, but they kept trying to use it as a touchscreen. When they started to use the mouse with it, they played it for awhile then got bored.

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

#199

Post by duskwuff »

modeless wrote: post #150

TI-89 Graphing Calculator . This is the perfect answer for you. It's portable. It's kid-sized. It's useful. It's what I learned to program on 20 years ago. The hardware and software architecture are positively ancient, in a good way, yet it's still sold and used today. Has its own BASIC. Can be programmed in C to the bare metal. There's an active hacking community and a good library of software and tools, but no comm…

Or the TI-92 / Voyage-200. Same OS, same hardware platform, but with a bigger screen and a proper keyboard.
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