Grab one of these:
The C64
https://www.amazon.com/C64-not-machine-specific/dp/B08GMTJYX...
Games pre-installed (and you can add your own) plus you can boot into BASIC.
Ask HN: How can I make a “kid's computer” today as good as an Apple II?
141–150 of 244 posts
Re: Ask HN: How can I make a “kid's computer” today as good as an Apple II?
#142I don't think kids today would be as interested in an Apple II today as we were as kids. The games and things they can do on a computer now are far beyond that and it just doesn't hold their interest.
My kids have done some basic programming in scratch, which I think is a good place to start. I also once set up godot with a simple open source game that they could edit (change sprites and adjust parameters like speed/size etc). They enjoyed that. I think once they want to start doing something more advanced, something like roblox or minecraft modding might be a good place to get their interest. Shadertoy/GLSL might be another fun thing to start with at more a high school level.
Re: Ask HN: How can I make a “kid's computer” today as good as an Apple II?
#143I think this is a lost cause. Other have already mentioned this, but I'll state it again. The computers themselves are the trivial part, both the hardware and the software. You can buy a budget 11- or 13-inch laptop, new for $300 or used for $100, load them with emulators of all the 1980s and 1990s machines, and have literally the same software and much better hardware than we did back then. If you give that to them,…
This is super depressing. What do we do? Firewall all the things at the house and get rid of tablets/phones?
You can't. They will have friends who have access to those devices, plus daycares play programs and schools sometimes "require" a tablet. I don't know TBF.
Re: Ask HN: How can I make a “kid's computer” today as good as an Apple II?
#144Maybe try the Maximite
https://geoffg.net/maximite.html
Which boots into a fast Basic interpreter and has plenty of programmable graphics and sound capabilities.
Re: Ask HN: How can I make a “kid's computer” today as good as an Apple II?
#145Earlier quoted context omitted.
Agreed. Mobile gaming should absolutely be banned from kids. Most of the games out there were designed to be money-grabbing. Consoles are better especially if you give them a retro one as the first machine.
You mean designed to get you to pay/watch ads gaming. There's lots of great mobile games, why bad them all?
Yeah, I have a little section of no-ad kids games on my phone. There are times when it's helpful.
Minecraft, a couple educational games the younger one likes, machinarium, don't starve, lost journey.
I find that it's nice to say no mobile games but it's easier to fill that void with stuff that doesn't suck.
Re: Ask HN: How can I make a “kid's computer” today as good as an Apple II?
#146Earlier quoted context omitted.
My 7yo is absolutely thrilled by scratch on Lego Mindstorms Robot Innovator [1]. The physicality of it is engaging. Granted, I'm generally a very restrictive parent about mobile/console gaming. 1: https://www.lego.com/en-us/product/robot-inventor-51515
Restricting kids from the mobile games is like restricting kids from drinking vodka you have in your bar. Everyone should do it. Those things are not games they are whale seeking mind fucking drugs that no child should have to try and deal with. Anyway school my kids are in uses older version of the inventor, librarian runs a class with that twice a week both my 8 and 6 year old LOVE IT. Meaning that is their topic o…
I'm struggling with what to do about Roblox. There are many different subgames on it, some of which really focused on money, some not, some focused on grinding, etc. But restricting Roblox wholesale then misses the opportunity to get into the creative/coding side of things. But then if the focus of that is going to be monetization...
Re: Ask HN: How can I make a “kid's computer” today as good as an Apple II?
#147Earlier quoted context omitted.
Agreed. Mobile gaming should absolutely be banned from kids. Most of the games out there were designed to be money-grabbing. Consoles are better especially if you give them a retro one as the first machine.
You mean designed to get you to pay/watch ads gaming. There's lots of great mobile games, why bad them all?
That's for sure, not all mobile games are bad, but the majority out there (especially those pushed by stores) are bad because only those have the $$ for monetization (aka pushed to front).
I guess we can always ban store access and only download the "good" ones, which is one solution that does not toss the baby out.
Re: Ask HN: How can I make a “kid's computer” today as good as an Apple II?
#148Add a real language / console for it, instead of bash and terminal.
Re: Ask HN: How can I make a “kid's computer” today as good as an Apple II?
#149Raspberry Pi
Re: Ask HN: How can I make a “kid's computer” today as good as an Apple II?
#150TI-89 Graphing Calculator. This is the perfect answer for you. It's portable. It's kid-sized. It's useful. It's what I learned to program on 20 years ago. The hardware and software architecture are positively ancient, in a good way, yet it's still sold and used today. Has its own BASIC. Can be programmed in C to the bare metal. There's an active hacking community and a good library of software and tools, but no commercial app store so all it's all hobbyist quality and it's feasible for your kid to contribute something meaningful that will actually get users, like a version of their favorite board game or something.