When I was 6, I got a Commodore PLUS/4, which was Commodore's unsuccessful attempt at a business-oriented 8 bit computer. I think my folks wanted to give me a Commodore 64, but things happen. Since there were not nearly as many games on that thing, I learned to program early. It had a build in assembler/disassembler (shift-reset would reset the computer without wiping the memory - just the first byte of the program memory), so I learned how to reverse engineer assembly code before I was 10. This arguably "wrong tool" shaped my whole life, and was maybe the most important thing that happened to me. If I got a C64, I could have easily turned into someone else.
“This is not the computer for you”
121–130 of 390 posts
Re: “This is not the computer for you”
#122This article struck a nerve. There's something about the curiosity of tinkering around in a computer. It's the most powerful technology humankind has built. It's versatile. It lets you break it. It's a bicycle for the mind, as Steve Jobs would say.
May all the hackers out there, old and young, discover the beauty of the personal computer.
Re: “This is not the computer for you”
#123The Neo seems kind of nice but I don't really see how it's more significant than "a nice low end computer." The article reads like its fire from Olympus but a nicer screen and trackpad is only incrementally better than what was available in Chromebooks and cheap PCs. Personally I think a the Steam Machine will have a better chance to cheat a general computing device into the home of someone not looking for it. The Ne…
One also has to consider that Apple remains an “aspirational” kind of computer. The things bemoaned by HNers due to Apple having something of the status of a luxury brand delivering a premium computing experience are also desirable to huge numbers of people in the world seeking to improve their status and lot in life. It’s very easy for us in the west to overlook that there’s a couple of billion people in the world earning $300-400 a month. So there’s a billion kids out there who would perhaps be lusting after this machine instead of struggling along with a very recycled and half-decrepit laptop. There’s also huge numbers of people in the west who live paycheck to paycheck so having an actual machine at this price point that will deliver years of faultless computing will probably make a big difference. At least I get the aspirational tone the OP is arguing for - a kid completely learning the edges and maxing out their machine will likely produce better results and better educational outcomes than one given a top of the range MBP or windows desktop supercomputer.
Re: “This is not the computer for you”
#124Earlier quoted context omitted.
I second that! This is also how I feel about Raspberry Pis. There's so much they can't do, and yet in a way they can do everything. It's not the power of the machine, its about how much control you have or how close you can get to the metal. At least that way you learn about why you need more powerful hardware. Chrome books and phones teach nothing.
It's one click to set up a Debian environment on a Chromebook. Same on an Android phone. You can learn plenty from that. Once you've learned the limits of what you can learn within that environment, it's not difficult to then unlock the bootloader and learn even more.
To be honest, anytime I see someone recommending how easy it is to install Debian I always feel like they’re some relic from the nineties. Kids likely won’t follow any advice starting with “install Debian”.
Re: “This is not the computer for you”
#125Sometimes I feel privileged for being in the generation that learnt to program BASIC on a C64 when it was the coolest thing around at the time. Being that much closer to the metal is a whole different experience of learning what a computer is and can do. Is that even possible now? Probably not. Years ago I tried to get my kids interested in playing with their own Raspberry Pi when they came out, that they could do wh…
I totally admire raspberry pi and their attempt to get kids a gateway into cheap computing - made by people the generation who started on those BASIC machines. But I’ve always found it to be a radically different experience on Raspberry Pi given it boots into a full desktop and has endless things to do, compared to the empty terror-filled void that is a blinking BASIC cursor with nothing else on the screen except for some arcane copyright message. Loading a game from tape and experiencing the 5-minute cacophony of that noise was also a surreal and tedious experience for the nippers of the 1980s. It made you really want it in a way that machines since can’t deliver.
Re: “This is not the computer for you”
#126I remember this period of my own life. I had taken over my father's old 486 and spent my days and evenings trying to learn the basics of programming in C. I was making silly text based games, dreaming I'd one day be creating the game of my dreams. I also modded games by opening every content file and trying to figure out what they did and how I could modify them. I was still years from realizing game development was…
Because most people don’t know that the boot screen and even the shut-down (Safe to Shut Down Windows) screens were simple BMPs, they get shit scared when you “hacked” the computer to show different messages/pictures. (Always backup and have a renamed copy of the BMP, just in case.)
Re: “This is not the computer for you”
#127[dead]
Re: “This is not the computer for you”
#128Earlier quoted context omitted.
Asahi only supports M1 and M2 series Macs currently. The Neo uses an A18 Pro, which was only ever in an iPhone before. I wouldn’t count on Asahi coming to these soon.
I see no reason they couldn’t. But we know there’s lots of other models that they’re already working on. We don’t know how similar or different it is from an OS perspective.
The reason is the lack of documentation from Apple.
Reverse engineering needs a lot of time and hard work, which may not be worthwhile.
Sometimes someone does this work, and everyone may benefit from it, but you should never count on this happening, unless you do the work yourself.
Re: “This is not the computer for you”
#129The Neo seems kind of nice but I don't really see how it's more significant than "a nice low end computer." The article reads like its fire from Olympus but a nicer screen and trackpad is only incrementally better than what was available in Chromebooks and cheap PCs. Personally I think a the Steam Machine will have a better chance to cheat a general computing device into the home of someone not looking for it. The Ne…
you're commenting on an ad for Apple
of course it will praise the product like it's golden, turning disadvantages into "that's actually the good part"
Re: “This is not the computer for you”
#130> The kid who tries to run Blender on a Chromebook doesn’t learn that his machine can’t handle it. He learns that Google decided he’s not allowed to. Or they learn to enable developer mode, unlock the bootloader, and install Linux, or use the officially supported Crostini, or so on. There's like 3 different ways to run Linux desktop apps on a modern Chromebook. The Macbooks don't let have an officially supported path…
There’s an entire Linux distro (Asahi) for MacBooks. Apple has never released a Mac with a locked bootloader. And macOS frankly provides a far better Unix experience than ChromeOS, in my experience, having actually used both (including for development, though only for a short time on ChromeOS because it was horrible).
Apple did not lock the bootloader, but they do not provide documentation for their products.
What would have been a trivial porting work with documentation, becomes extremely time-consuming and hard work without documentation.
That is why Asahi Linux lags by several years with the support for Apple computers, and it is unlikely that this lag time will ever be reduced. Even for the old Apple computers the hardware support is only partial, so such computers are never as useful for running Linux as AMD/Intel based computers.