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Building the MacPaint for hardware

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Re: Building the MacPaint for hardware

#11

Post by delish »

ThomPete wrote: post #8
delish wrote: post #7

> Retro-computing is a weird hobby of mine. I hate to criticize the very first sentence, but I want retro-computing to be mainstream, and calling it "weird" seems to cover for the author's lack of confidence in his hobby. I'm trying to find a rationale for calling one's own hobby weird--I can't find one. I have technical hobbies--resurrecting a Lisp Machine, collecting 80s and earlier computer keyboards, duplicating…

i think you are taking it too literally. What I normally mean when i say it in this context is fetish. Something other people might find weird but i enjoy immensely.

> i think you are taking it too literally.

If you're making a spectrum between "taking something literally" and "accepting something as a throwaway comment", and saying I went too far in taking something seriously or literally:

I'm looking at the /effects/ that word has on its readers. The author (are you the author? hi) doesn't /intend/ those things I said in my grandparent post. But the effect is (in my estimation) the author looks unconfident in his hobby. And the secondary effects are: people are /less/ likely to feel invited to join in. I would prefer the author invite me into his hobby by confidently showing me how cool it is.

(I'm stating my preference in order to make my point understood; I understand the author didn't ask for it.)

Re: Building the MacPaint for hardware

#12

Post by Fuzzwah »

Gracana wrote: post #9

It's interesting how he talks about the raspberry pi: > The first was listening to Eben Upton, the brains behind the Raspberry Pi, describe that the number of qualified applicants to study computer science is dropping. Rather than learning how computers work at a more fundamental level, students are applying only with knowledge of webpage construction and high-level scripting languages. He argued that this is emblema…

I was never a C64 hacker, my first computer was an Atari ST. It sparked my interest and lead me towards buying a 486 some years later.

I open with that because I could very well be wrong...... But surely at the time the C64 had a "weird architecture" and some proprietary blobs?

I do think that loading desktop linux onto an R-Pi results in a different kind of experience to a kid firing up a C64 and finding themselves at a basic prompt. However, it's pretty easy set up an R-Pi so that you're greeted by something similar.....

Note: I've got 2 original R-Pi's and my R-Pi 2 arrived today. I also have a 1 year old girl who I hope to one day get excited about the kinds of things that these wonderful devices enable me to do play with.

Re: Building the MacPaint for hardware

#13

Post by devindotcom »

delish wrote: post #7

> Retro-computing is a weird hobby of mine. I hate to criticize the very first sentence, but I want retro-computing to be mainstream, and calling it "weird" seems to cover for the author's lack of confidence in his hobby. I'm trying to find a rationale for calling one's own hobby weird--I can't find one. I have technical hobbies--resurrecting a Lisp Machine, collecting 80s and earlier computer keyboards, duplicating…

I think your annotated exception and interpretation of this phrase is something of an overcorrection here. Leaving aside how the author may feel about his own hobby and what justification you have for speculation on the point, the word "weird" is a versatile one and could very easily be a way of saying "uncommon" or "highly specific."

"I don't think retro computing is a weird hobby" would seem to say all you want to say, but in a sympathetic and positive way that doesn't turn things around on the author.

Re: Building the MacPaint for hardware

#14

Post by joezydeco »

Gracana wrote: post #9

It's interesting how he talks about the raspberry pi: > The first was listening to Eben Upton, the brains behind the Raspberry Pi, describe that the number of qualified applicants to study computer science is dropping. Rather than learning how computers work at a more fundamental level, students are applying only with knowledge of webpage construction and high-level scripting languages. He argued that this is emblema…

Agreed, the system isn't the "C64 of the 2010s" that it's been proclaimed to be. Unless there's a wave of success stores out there that I haven't seen. Mostly it's people using them as beefier Arduinos for their projects.

But I wouldn't go as far to say all the Broadcom blob-nonsense is the hindering factor. That's completely a non-issue if we're talking about education. The reason the C64 and Apple and BBC Acorn were they way they were was because they booted right into a programming environment.

Where's the autostart environment for the RPi?

Re: Building the MacPaint for hardware

#15

Post by DanBC »

joezydeco wrote: post #14
Gracana wrote: post #9

It's interesting how he talks about the raspberry pi: > The first was listening to Eben Upton, the brains behind the Raspberry Pi, describe that the number of qualified applicants to study computer science is dropping. Rather than learning how computers work at a more fundamental level, students are applying only with knowledge of webpage construction and high-level scripting languages. He argued that this is emblema…

Agreed, the system isn't the "C64 of the 2010s" that it's been proclaimed to be. Unless there's a wave of success stores out there that I haven't seen. Mostly it's people using them as beefier Arduinos for their projects. But I wouldn't go as far to say all the Broadcom blob-nonsense is the hindering factor. That's completely a non-issue if we're talking about education. The reason the C64 and Apple and BBC Acorn wer…

It's not just booting into a programming environment, but being supplied with documentation that had memory maps in and taught people how to link assembly language routines into their BASIC programmes or how to POKE or PEEK.

Re: Building the MacPaint for hardware

#16

Post by abecedarius »

Fuzzwah wrote: post #12
Gracana wrote: post #9

It's interesting how he talks about the raspberry pi: > The first was listening to Eben Upton, the brains behind the Raspberry Pi, describe that the number of qualified applicants to study computer science is dropping. Rather than learning how computers work at a more fundamental level, students are applying only with knowledge of webpage construction and high-level scripting languages. He argued that this is emblema…

I was never a C64 hacker, my first computer was an Atari ST. It sparked my interest and lead me towards buying a 486 some years later. I open with that because I could very well be wrong...... But surely at the time the C64 had a "weird architecture" and some proprietary blobs? I do think that loading desktop linux onto an R-Pi results in a different kind of experience to a kid firing up a C64 and finding themselves…

The C64 came with a manual including the full memory map, what addresses to PEEK and POKE to control the sound chip, etc. "Proprietary blob" may be technically true in that the ROMs weren't open source, but it was simple, accessible, and documented enough that that doesn't well describe my experience with it.

(Though it's not a machine I ever got deep into, myself.)

Re: Building the MacPaint for hardware

#17

Post by Someone »

tdicola wrote: post #6
moe wrote: post #2

Isn't this more like "Lego" for hardware? In MacPaint I can paint anything. In your toolbox I can only assemble something with the parts that you give me. The MacPaint analogy would hold water if you'd let me draw any shape that I want (to be 3d printed), and merely assist by enforcing the basic constraints required for my device to be manufactured and functional (e.g. enough space to put the electronics in, etc.).

I think it's a bit looser of analogy, where MacPaint was one of the first desktop computing apps people saw and immediately realized how much better than the old command line tools something could be. Word processors, spreadsheets, etc. worked fine with all text but MacPaint was truly special and couldn't be replicated without a full desktop environment. From what I gather in the article they want to do something sim…

The mouse was a must for MacPaint, but it didn't run in a 'full desktop environment' at all. It blitted something looking like a window onto the screen. If it used the OS for doing that, that only was because it took up less memory that way, not because it wanted to behave like it ran on a desktop environment.

Did it have movable windows? No.

Did it have resizable windows? No.

Could you move the tool palette around? No.

Could you open multiple windows? No (no surprise, given that a full-page painting took a whopping 28kB or so and the OS didn't really have enough RAM to store that.)

Re: Building the MacPaint for hardware

#18

Post by pjmlp »

joezydeco wrote: post #14
Gracana wrote: post #9

It's interesting how he talks about the raspberry pi: > The first was listening to Eben Upton, the brains behind the Raspberry Pi, describe that the number of qualified applicants to study computer science is dropping. Rather than learning how computers work at a more fundamental level, students are applying only with knowledge of webpage construction and high-level scripting languages. He argued that this is emblema…

Agreed, the system isn't the "C64 of the 2010s" that it's been proclaimed to be. Unless there's a wave of success stores out there that I haven't seen. Mostly it's people using them as beefier Arduinos for their projects. But I wouldn't go as far to say all the Broadcom blob-nonsense is the hindering factor. That's completely a non-issue if we're talking about education. The reason the C64 and Apple and BBC Acorn wer…

I would say in RISC OS Pi.

Re: Building the MacPaint for hardware

#20

Post by cgh »

abecedarius wrote: post #16
Fuzzwah wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was never a C64 hacker, my first computer was an Atari ST. It sparked my interest and lead me towards buying a 486 some years later. I open with that because I could very well be wrong...... But surely at the time the C64 had a "weird architecture" and some proprietary blobs? I do think that loading desktop linux onto an R-Pi results in a different kind of experience to a kid firing up a C64 and finding themselves…

The C64 came with a manual including the full memory map, what addresses to PEEK and POKE to control the sound chip, etc. "Proprietary blob" may be technically true in that the ROMs weren't open source, but it was simple, accessible, and documented enough that that doesn't well describe my experience with it. (Though it's not a machine I ever got deep into, myself.)

Yes, exactly. Strange as it is to say, possibly the closest thing running on modern hardware would be TempleOS.
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