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Ask HN: How can I make a “kid's computer” today as good as an Apple II?

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Re: Ask HN: How can I make a “kid's computer” today as good as an Apple II?

#181

Post by ddingus »

m-i-l wrote: post #53

My daughter just built her very own Raspberry Pi 4 based computer[0] last weekend for her 10th birthday. Key points: - She picked the components herself (with dad's supervision to make sure they would work together), so the case and keyboard and so on are ones she likes the look of and wants on her desk. - She assembled it all and installed the OS herself (again with dad supervising but trying really hard not to help…

I did not know we had coined the term "IKEA effect" for that process of ownership, but it makes a ton of sense.

Personally, I have never felt ownership of something I did not setup from the basics. Makes a ton of sense.

Re: Ask HN: How can I make a “kid's computer” today as good as an Apple II?

#182

Post by buescher »

ddingus wrote: post #179

Well, you could just get an Apple. New plus boards are being made, the cards you need are available. Mine is equipped with: 80 Col / mem expansion to 128K Fast Chip for some speed, up to 16Mhz (which is crazy fast on most software designed for 1Mhz) HDMI output device, VidHD card. This thing is GREAT. CFFA / USB Flash disk solution for loading programs, disk images, etc... My younger granddaughter enjoys the machine.…

A IIgs with an accelerator card, maxed out memory, and solid state storage would really fit the bill, wouldn't it? You could run Apple Logo AND Hypercard.

Or maybe one of the macs that took an Apple IIe card, same thing only different.

Re: Ask HN: How can I make a “kid's computer” today as good as an Apple II?

#183

Post by ddingus »

greenbit wrote: post #158
jasode wrote: post #56

>When I was a kid, I had an Apple II with a BASIC interpreter, [...] a computer like that, where there are a lot of open-ended ways to create. I think your particular childhood memories that understandably left an imprint on you have inadvertently affected your idea of what "open-ended" creation means. >, and great creative experiences don't seem available on desktop I also grew up with those 8-bit computers and I do…

Indeed. I had the 4K 'Level I' from RadioShack, and there wasn't much that could be done with that . But the allure was that there was literally nothing else you could do with a television that was interactive, save for maybe the Atari 2600. So you could watch TV, play rather finite games on the TV, or omg have Total Control of the Screen! It helped that the graphics from a TRS-80/PET/AppleII were on par with the 260…

This is true! Getting control over the pixels was a big deal back then. Doing anything interactive was magic!!

My own kids were not interested in computing itself. They largely ignored my retro systems. They loved MAME though. I had a great setup with a big CRT and they played the crap out of it, that setup competing nicely with a Playstation. This surprised me.

My granddaughter is a bit different. She's interested, sees me using the old machine and wants to join in. If I am doing it with her, she's in. She won't do much on her own yet. And she's 6!

Re: Ask HN: How can I make a “kid's computer” today as good as an Apple II?

#184

Post by ddingus »

joezydeco wrote: post #115
bigiain wrote: post #5

I think the problem here is that the world has moved on a lot since some of us kids were amazed at what we could make machines like an AppleII do with basic (and assembler and peek and poke). I remember being amazingly proud of myself for getting an ascii version of Space Invaders working. I could, as a 10 or 12 year old, make something for myself that kinda looked like and was way more fun (for me) to play that _lit…

Putting the Roblox controversies aside, I see kids creating entire multiplayer systems in this environment. Putting together 3D polygon models and animating them with Lua scripting. And then on top of all of that they organize themselves into systems . My son belongs to a virtual "airline" that has an org chart, schedules "flights", and has dozens of players that run the show on a daily basis. And, like any other org…

Roblox is crazy!

I have one very interested, and I feel it's worth doing. But, I'm way out of the loop on that one, meaning it's a time sink for me too.

But, maybe I just have to. Very interesting comment!

Re: Ask HN: How can I make a “kid's computer” today as good as an Apple II?

#185

Post by ddingus »

foobarian wrote: post #146
tlear wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

This concerns me too. I have arrived at the task of just getting into Roblox enough to manage the problems.

It's like crack to my younger one. The pandemic has limited social contact, and she's ultra social! Like 11 on a scale of 10.

The moment she understood there are OTHER PEOPLE IN THAT THING, boom. Donzo, it's all she wants to do.

Re: Ask HN: How can I make a “kid's computer” today as good as an Apple II?

#186

Post by ddingus »

em500 wrote: post #54

I 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 all rings true for me.

Frankly, if I am doing things on the old computer, that's one scenario. My young one wants to get involved and do stuff with me.

Doing stuff on their own? Not gonna happen.

Re: Ask HN: How can I make a “kid's computer” today as good as an Apple II?

#187

Post by acomjean »

what about Processing?

It runs on a lot of computers, its fun to make graphics and games. The online version is "javascript" and lets you code online and share off. And if you have a machine with a browser you can run it.

https://p5js.org

"The coding train" series has some tutorials, from very basic to pretty complex.

https://thecodingtrain.com/beginners/p5js/

Re: Ask HN: How can I make a “kid's computer” today as good as an Apple II?

#188

Post by jaclaz »

mattmoose21 wrote: post #131
AlanYx wrote: post #120

It's too bad there's no open source version of something like Print Shop Pro. I find LibreOffice to be very buggy when trying to design signs and banners (at least on the Raspberry Pi, some features don't work properly with huge fonts, and the option to print a large banner spread across multiple pages doesn't seem to work properly). Inkscape is okay but is a little too advanced for kids and doesn't come with clip ar…

Don't think it is open source but I thought this was pretty neat. https://theprintshop.club/

The DOS correspondent in those times was banner-mania AFAICR:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banner_Mania

Re: Ask HN: How can I make a “kid's computer” today as good as an Apple II?

#189

Post by jcelerier »

datavirtue wrote: post #159
billziss wrote: post #8

I had a similar problem a few years ago. While I never found the perfect machine here is how I have been introducing my now 10 year old son to the world of computers: - I bought him a Kano computer kit when he was about 7. The kit retailed for about $250 at the time and a kid could assemble it "like LEGO". It came with educational software that introduced him to programming languages, etc. (Unfortunately I do not thi…

Godot is a dead end. I tried it and found it very difficult to grok and then immediately ran into their hacked to hell threading model that you must know about (and sprinkle yields around in just the right spots) to get anything done. I see it being revised significantly which will be a breaking change. If not, then it is what it is.

> Godot is a dead end.

c'mon, there have been millions of human hours played on games developed on engines or systems with not even 1/1000th of what Godot is able to achieve.

Re: Ask HN: How can I make a “kid's computer” today as good as an Apple II?

#190

Post by poyu »

billziss wrote: post #8

I had a similar problem a few years ago. While I never found the perfect machine here is how I have been introducing my now 10 year old son to the world of computers: - I bought him a Kano computer kit when he was about 7. The kit retailed for about $250 at the time and a kid could assemble it "like LEGO". It came with educational software that introduced him to programming languages, etc. (Unfortunately I do not thi…

+1 for Ben Eater's 8-bit computer, the videos are very well put together and easy to understand. It's even a bit addicting to watch them because you always want to get to the next step. I binged it in a matter of 3 days. His 6502 is also very good, I wonder if that can be a good computing platform OP is talking about.
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