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My boys love 1986 computing

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Re: My boys love 1986 computing

#41

Post by jdpage »

willvarfar wrote: post #13
fit2rule wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Give them a working 8-bit system with hundreds of games and apps from the days before the Internet. There is still just as much working 8-bit and non-Internet software out there as there ever was: you just have to find the hardware. Then, most important of all: don't leave them alone with it. Stay there and play with them. Maybe you'll enjoy a return to the 8-bit software development days too, just for the heck of it…

Attempts to reason with them or ban internet have just met with stroppiness. Its like they have moved from being creators to being consumers.

Straight-up banning them probably isn't productive, because yeah, it's nice to sit back and watch some TV sometimes. It might be a better policy to just limit the amount of consuming time.

My parents had limits on consumer computer/TV time when I was growing up (interestingly, both drew from the same pool of time even before internet TV was A Thing). If I wanted to hop on the computer, I'd always get asked what I was planning on doing with it (and then they'd drop by the computer station later to check in on whether I was actually doing that). If I was doing something educational, like reading up on a hobby, doing schoolwork, or programming, then I wouldn't be subject to any screen-time restrictions (other than those that came with it being a shared computer).

Though to a certain extent, kids just get stroppy if they don't get their way, and sometimes they just need to learn to deal. Which sucks for everyone involved in the short-term, but oh well. :/

Re: My boys love 1986 computing

#42

Post by j45 »

Great read.

A big difference emerges in how young folks develop their skills are developed when spending one's time as a creating vs. consuming novelty/distraction in mindless screen time.

We know the path of seeking/consuming novelty and distraction is a limited way of engaging both abstract and critical thinking skills when imagining how the hardware/software/network stack comes together. There's lots of studies on gaming (I was a voracious gamer until it got in the way of my creation and learning time), but I'd wonder if spending time in someone else's virtual worlds helps people get out there and solve real world problems.

In a way, learning by seeing, and mastering a C64 is a timeless experience, only we don't have many C64's today as true, starter computers.

It's where projects like Arduino, Raspberry Pi, and others are so exciting, but there's little like seeing a physical floppy drive spin up and being witness to so many more steps in slow motion.

Re: My boys love 1986 computing

#43

Post by ChuckMcM »

This is great. When my daughter was 11 and wanted a 'computer for her room' I gave her a VAX[1]. She had a lot of fun learning a bit of C programming and playing advent and rogue. And I had realized that for me and my generation we had these very accessible computers of that time and my kids did not. I think some of that need is being met by RasPi's and Arduinos (look at how successful the Kano Kickstarter was [2])

When you talk about folks like Gates or Jobs or Woz or pretty much anyone from the early PC days, the stuff they "learned" on was pretty straight forward. Any high school kid could write a driver for an ISA card in DOS, that is certainly possible in Linux but I find the learning curve to be much higher. And without those little triumphs to keep you going it is hard to stick with it.

[1] A VAX 4000/VLC which is a really compact and nice VAX, running netbsd.

[2] http://www.kano.me/

Re: My boys love 1986 computing

#45

Post by Rabidgremlin »

I've been doing a similar thing with my 6 year old who wanted to learn to programming. I've been using JSBeeb (a browser based BBC Micro emulator) and have started to put together a Coding for Kids "book" based on our "lessons".

It's still very rough and only partially complete but I'd appreciate any feedback http://c4k.rabidgremlin.com

Re: My boys love 1986 computing

#46

Post by corysama »

I've long thought that the original GameBoy Advanced would make a great platform for kids to learn about hardware. Being solid state, it doesn't have the physicality that OP describes, but it does have a very understandable hardware and software model. Basically, 100% of the machine can be controlled via memory-mapped structs. No need to call a magical function from some Nintendo-sanction wizard. You can stomp the bits yourself and make stuff happen. I've written a toy program to draw on the screen in half a page of C. No includes, no libs. int main, vidmode=3, pixels[n]=255;

Re: My boys love 1986 computing

#47

Post by tjr »

crististm wrote: post #28
willvarfar wrote: post #4

I initially gave my two girls an old desktop computer with a linux on it. They started to use it before I showed them how and they started figuring stuff out without me and soon I was sitting riveted in the background watching them discover things and trying to learn about computer UIs and work out how they thought. Here's an old blog post about it: http://williamedwardscoder.tumblr.com/post/19500788060/my-te... - I…

I suspect internet access is what kills the joy of real work since you can be so easily distracted. Before you know it, one hour has passed and you didn't do anything. I'm beginning to see a solution in a separate computer just for Internet access, as PG suggested several years ago. The one for work should just redirect everything to localhost or not have network access at all.

I found it much easier to get into the groove of real work when internet access was either not possible or prohibitively slow/expensive to use much.

On the other hand, once I do get into the groove of real work, having instant access to the internet can be immensely helpful too.

Re: My boys love 1986 computing

#49

Post by juliendorra »

willvarfar wrote: post #4

I initially gave my two girls an old desktop computer with a linux on it. They started to use it before I showed them how and they started figuring stuff out without me and soon I was sitting riveted in the background watching them discover things and trying to learn about computer UIs and work out how they thought. Here's an old blog post about it: http://williamedwardscoder.tumblr.com/post/19500788060/my-te... - I…

One solution: get out of the house! :-) We were a group of tech/dev parents struggling to get our daughters and sons interested in creating things with code. At home it was never the right time… So, we started a special family-oriented time, a kind of picnic/party for coding with our kids.[1] We set aside 3h, 3h and half, on Saturday or Sunday afternoon, invite other families, gather in a friendly place (science center, cultural center, company office…) and have fun programming together and eating cakes :-)

We started 3 years ago[2] and never stopped!

(We have one recurring challenge: find good tools and (French) documentation to help kids that excel at Scratch or other 'kids languages' make the jump to Python or javascript. CodeCombat is not up to it, for example. That's why I personally started a generative art workshop for young kids based on Processing Python Mode, not Scratch.)

[1] http://codinggouter.org [2] http://ils.sont.la/post/kids-code-and-cakes-coding-gouter-pa...

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