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My boys love 1986 computing

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Re: My boys love 1986 computing

#51

Post by willvarfar »

juliendorra wrote: post #49
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 cent…

This is brilliant advice :). Thx

Re: My boys love 1986 computing

#52

Post by vidarh »

vidarh wrote: post #33
mnw21cam wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That hard drive probably had "sticktion", where the read/write head sticks to the platter surface, preventing the motor from spinning the drive up. It can happen if you leave a hard drive running for a while and then shut it down without allowing it to park its head. Modern hard drives are clever enough to park the head when they detect the power supply turning off, so it hasn't been such a problem recently. The reco…

Maybe. What I maybe didn't make clear, though, was that this wasn't a one off thing: I had to manually spin it up every time I turned it on. After the first couple of times I didn't bother screwing the cover back on, and occasionally I'd leave it off to show friends...

I know someone who got his drive working again after the drive heads had fused to the plate by slowly heating the drive in an oven while it was connected. They then proceeded to copy data off as quickly as possible. Poor mans version of what some recovery services does if the above advice of dropping/tapping on it doesn't work...

Re: My boys love 1986 computing

#53

Post by jwilliams »

kalleboo wrote: post #10
yodsanklai wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately, this is true for adults too. I used to code for hours and now I have such a hard time to stay focused...

Just spent the past 3 weeks with my parents in their cabin 2 hours from civilization. Only internet connection is slow $60/4 GB 3G that's only stable in the early AM and late PM. Haven't been this productive in AGES.

Many (many) years ago I was using an IBM XT. It had come from Singapore and the HD wouldn't seek when it was cold – my theory was that it'd been formatted on a very hot and humid day and it couldn't track when it changed shape in the cold.

Anyway. Big segue, but reminded me of that. If I had a task, I'd have to map it out on paper for an hour or two (while, I presume, the drive warmed up)... Don't think I've ever been as productive since!

Re: My boys love 1986 computing

#54

Post by indiv0 »

bunderbunder wrote: post #35
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've seriously considered setting up an old-fashioned automatic timer to control the power going to our DSL modem so that our Internet service is only available for an hour or so out of every day. My worry, though, is that I'd be unplugging the modem from the timer and hooking it directly into the wall whenever I work from home, and that'd be a slippery slope to just having it hooked up all the time again.

If your router supports Tomato[1], dd-wrt[2], open-wrt[3], or similarly featured firmware, you might have a feature to restrict access at certain times of the day based on MAC address.

This would allow you to work from home, while restricting access for your children.

The only issue I might see with this setup is if your work-from-home PC is the same as the one the rest of your family uses to access the internet.

[1]: http://www.polarcloud.com/tomato

[2]: https://secure.dd-wrt.com/site/

[3]: https://openwrt.org/

Re: My boys love 1986 computing

#55

Post by eah13 »

This is part of something I hope takes hold in CS education: ontogenous education. Ontogeny is the study of the development of organisms throughout their lifecycle. Technology develops in a way that often makes the present as dissimilar from its roots as a caterpillar and butterfly. So by starting at the beginning (or a beginning at least), rather than the present we give kids a full grasp of why things are the way they are rather than the millions of other ways they could be.

For many learners technology is a turn-off because it seems 'arbitrary'. It is, in the same sense that a biological organism or historical event is arbitrary. It's only with context that these things start to become intelligible. So ontogenous CS education is about giving a historical context to modern technology.

Re: My boys love 1986 computing

#56

Post by mhjensen »

eah13 wrote: post #55

This is part of something I hope takes hold in CS education: ontogenous education. Ontogeny is the study of the development of organisms throughout their lifecycle. Technology develops in a way that often makes the present as dissimilar from its roots as a caterpillar and butterfly. So by starting at the beginning (or a beginning at least), rather than the present we give kids a full grasp of why things are the way t…

I agree with this sentiment. Do you have any good recommendations for books on the history computer science? Lots of options available, but I'm looking for a technical overview of the subject.

Re: My boys love 1986 computing

#57

Post by politician »

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…

Well, you could "downgrade" them back to dial up speeds and trade cool hacks for Mbps.

Re: My boys love 1986 computing

#58

Post by Someone »

bunderbunder wrote: post #35
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've seriously considered setting up an old-fashioned automatic timer to control the power going to our DSL modem so that our Internet service is only available for an hour or so out of every day. My worry, though, is that I'd be unplugging the modem from the timer and hooking it directly into the wall whenever I work from home, and that'd be a slippery slope to just having it hooked up all the time again.

Apple's Airport Express has that built-in. http://9to5mac.com/2013/10/06/how-to-set-time-limits-on-your... states you even can set it up per device, so you can give your kids 7x24 access while making yourself more productive by limiting Internet your own access.

Let someone else set the device password, glue the network cable into your DSL modem and the Airport Express and you are all set.

Re: My boys love 1986 computing

#59

Post by eah13 »

mhjensen wrote: post #56
eah13 wrote: post #55

This is part of something I hope takes hold in CS education: ontogenous education. Ontogeny is the study of the development of organisms throughout their lifecycle. Technology develops in a way that often makes the present as dissimilar from its roots as a caterpillar and butterfly. So by starting at the beginning (or a beginning at least), rather than the present we give kids a full grasp of why things are the way t…

I agree with this sentiment. Do you have any good recommendations for books on the history computer science? Lots of options available, but I'm looking for a technical overview of the subject.

In the beginning there was the command line (1999) is the best I know http://faculty.georgetown.edu/irvinem/theory/Stephenson-Comm...

Happy to hear suggestions of others- I haven't found much and haven't looked lately.

Re: My boys love 1986 computing

#60

Post by jgoerzen »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #43

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]) W…

"I gave her a VAX" made me smile. You are awesome.
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