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Ask HN: Whats the modern day equivalent of 80s computer for kids to explore?

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Re: Ask HN: Whats the modern day equivalent of 80s computer for kids to explore?

#11

Post by mmoskal »

ochrist wrote: post #8

Well, apart from RPI - that has already been mentioned - you could look at the BBC microbit: https://microbit.org/

For the game angle https://arcade.makecode.com may be more of a fit. You can even build a cabinet.

Disclaimer: worked on both.

Re: Ask HN: Whats the modern day equivalent of 80s computer for kids to explore?

#13

Post by stef_841 »

Python with its Python shell - We - my 10 year old and I - are using Thonny as an editor. Just start the Phython editor an it‘s „all inside the box“. Closest to switch on a C64 from my days but in a modern world. Loading games, executing commands, running programs.

Re: Ask HN: Whats the modern day equivalent of 80s computer for kids to explore?

#15

Post by n2dasun »

My favorite part of those old computers was sitting with a big book of code and typing things in and seeing a sprite appear, then move, change colors, etc. The closest thing I've seen in recent years was Code Angel, which I supported on kickstarter. It came with a raspberry pi with all the software loaded, along with a monstrous book of code to flip through and type in. Looks like some of the links are dated, but it appears to still be available

https://mycodeangel.com/shop/

Re: Ask HN: Whats the modern day equivalent of 80s computer for kids to explore?

#18

Post by mcook08 »

I’m a Dad who grew up in the 80s and the problem is us, the parents. My parents didn’t push me to get into computing, I just found it fascinating. If we try to find things like gentle introductions, it’s likely to get more kids to a base level familiarity but all of the real learning was in reading a 256 page manual as an 8 year old so I could get StarCraft to work on my highly custom rig. Parents as the driving force simply won’t work. Ask your kids what they are interested in and let them struggle with the problem for hours (days even) and they’ll be better for it than anything you could possibly install or provide to them.

Could your parents navigate DOS? Mine sure couldn’t but it didn’t stop me from learning.

Re: Ask HN: Whats the modern day equivalent of 80s computer for kids to explore?

#19

Post by jmmv »

I tried to set up a Raspberry Pi and configured it to boot into a simple window manager with DosBox full screen by default. I taught my kids to launch games within that and they learned the very basics… but it didn’t stick: they haven’t really gained any interest in how to do other stuff in the shell.

Anyway: check (my own) https://www.endbasic.dev/ which I’ve written precisely for the situation you describe :) You would actually have to /write/ the games first though! There are some rudimentary ones in the gallery.

Re: Ask HN: Whats the modern day equivalent of 80s computer for kids to explore?

#20

Post by code_Whisperer »

Depends on child's age, but here are some things from today that I would have probably found endlessly entertaining when I was a kid:

Flipper Zero

Raspberry PI

SDR

Not a computer, but still very relevant for inquisitive kids and adults:

Amateur radio (an oldie but a goodie)

Decent telescope

Decent microscope

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