Ask HN: Whats the modern day equivalent of 80s computer for kids to explore?

Right? I remember messing around with config files as a starting point. I know it still exists but that it doesn't have the same accessibility it used to. I found this stuff on my own - now id probably have to lead my children to it after ressearch. Different dynamic thats all.

There's a mod scene around a lot of games. Start out liking a video game, get on some board discussing it, then find out there's people making customizations.

Hmm good ideas in here. I have a pi at home - never considered it for that kind of option.

Don't let your kids get exploited by Roblox.

Why?! Most particularly with respect to Extended Color Basic. The horror! The horror!

Why would you cripple your child, when doing the real thing is so much easier?

Build a website. Write a game. Make your own really cool alarm clock. Make a demo. Write a voice-driven app. Steer them toward something that has relatively decent bumper-rails and ecosystems. Python. React (with typescript enabled). Or a good web framework for game development. Or, let them assemble a collection of emulator games. So many cool things they could be doing.

A Pi with no less than 8GB of RAM is a marvelous adventure. (4Gb isn't really enough to run VSCode).

Thats really interesting and it takes some of the config overhead out of the equation for younger kids but still keeps some of the technical.

For the game angle https://arcade.makecode.com may be more of a fit. You can even build a cabinet.

Disclaimer: worked on both.

Add the makey makey and it is a lot of fun with Scratch.

Definitely. Javascript is absolutely the modern analogue of '80s BASIC. Comes built-in to the computer/browser with no need to install anything, interpreted language with no need for any kind of toolchain, emphasizes ease of use (even when that comes at a detriment to things that language purists like -- e.g., strong typing), has metric tons of example code to do all kinds of cool things...

Jan Beta review of F256 Fenix: https://youtu.be/57FuA8YuXn0

Another similar computer (Z80), but cheaper: https://youtu.be/PRcipJ-k_aY

Computers weren’t on my radar until my grandmother surprised me with one. I came home from school and there lay 2 huge boxes. I was on my own from there.

I was given the opportunity.

>>Parents as the driving force simply won’t work.

I keep seeing that myth. Most of the people I know studies the same as their parents, inspired by them. Specially what catches in kids are hobbies. I have lots of friend which are professional or semi professional musicians. All of them got the playing of the instrument from the parents.

This has been my experience too. Not for a lack of trying either! Looking back now, it seems obvious.

I like to leave interesting things lying around where we hangout the most though. Giving them at least an opportunity to get interested (and almost inevitably lose interest!).

This is a great answer. I think you already hint at this but I wanted to elaborate on it a bit: the big thing that our kids fall in love with will not necessarily be computing (at least not in the sense that we mean), and that's okay.

We grew up at various stages of a massive revolution—some are reminiscing for the 80s, I'm at the tail end reminiscing for the early web and then the Flash era. Computers were wonderful to me because I could, as a kid, produce results that looked and felt like they were in the same ballpark as what I saw professionals doing. It was the frontier, and I felt like I was helping to explore it.

In the last two decades computing has grown up, and having grown up it's no longer possible for children to participate in the frontier. From a young age they interact primarily with toys and tools that would be impossible for any one of us to make alone, much less for a child who's still learning. Sandboxes like Scratch are great, but an adventurous kid who wants to be at the frontier will very quickly recognize it as just that: a sandbox. It's not as compelling because it's artificial, created specifically for their education.

Instead, I expect that my children will find something else, a new frontier to push. My kids don't want toys curated by their parents, they want to explore the world and they want to contribute. They are going to find the fields that are still fresh, that still have mystery, that don't require years of education to get to the point where they can contribute meaningfully. And that's awesome! I'm excited to see what they find, and excited for them to show me along.

I am also a dad that grew up in the 80's and my thoughts on this issue is that back in those days there was a much smaller selection of things you could do with a computer, less stimuli and smaller need for instant gratification. At some point computers turned from being a tool you could create to a tool you use to consume other people's creations. From my experience, children today don't have enough patience to learn how to hack things around before they get bored and move on to the next thing. There amount of distractions is insane (web, social media, youtube, easily accessible video games etc). Its more likely a kid will avoid the problem than try to solve it at this point. I feel we lost something important along the way.

From my experience, the best approach is to get your children to try lots of different things and let them find their own interests. I tried lots of things with my son:

https://successfulsoftware.net/2014/01/31/fun-and-geeky-thin...

Some he really enjoyed. Other he lost interest in very quickly.

It can be frustrating when they quickly lose interest in some toy you have spent your hard earned cash on. But that is the way it goes. One of the things we tried was model rocketry (starting with a small Estes kit) and that was a big success. He has now won competitions, is level 1 certified and wants to study aerospace engineering at University.

I guess it is a bit like running a film studio - most of the films lose money, but the occasional blockbuster more than makes up for it.

This is a good idea. What I think you need (based on my own experience) is a book with documentation and exercises, games and such. Also you need interfaces with video, sound, and some hardware.

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My 15 year old son has been having a blast with the Flipper Zero

I often look back at how fortunate I was to be a kid during those times. It was truly wondrous for me.

Edit: Just caught your username.

I wonder if there is an equivalent technology or 'activity' from the 80s as addictive and individual as social media.

As a GenZ human myself, I can't really imagine that much of a life without the Internet. In recent months, I've tried to adopt a less-internet lifestyle, such as reading, doing exercise, etcetera. But I still look back and think: if I hadn't had so much time to use a computer and the internet, I never would have discovered my passion (programming). I also get into a vicious cycle when learning new things: I don't commit to anything. (just Linux afaik) There's just so many technologies, stacks coming out, plenty of things, endless things to learn about that I never really wrap my head around what to really learn and dedicate to. But I guess that's more of a general opinion on learning things, not necessarily exclusive of recent technology.

On a Raspberry Pi you can still run RiscOS and program in BASIC and assembly language.

And the Pi has all those nice GPIO pins.

Self-hosting anything and everything (on one's LAN) is a domain with lots of "Wild West" still in it.

No two people will set it up quite the same.

Hacking drones is still on early days with lots of low hanging fruit if you have time and nothing else to think about. However, it is an order of magnitude more dangerous than PCs were back in the 80s and parents may resist the idea.

In the 80s playing with software was more relevant than with hardware. Nowadays I believe it’s the opposite, trades were abandoned and are an huge oportunity.

This is true. But note that is the case for anything, not only learning about computers. Accepting this as the status quo means accepting our kids to be amoebas. But must not be the like that, youtube can also inspire to do things, like sport, or also learning about computers. I have good examples around me. Guidance is everything.

A pi by itself, eh I don't know.

A pi + a full kit like breadboard/cables, LCD/LED display panels, camera, microphone/speaker, air sensors, IR sensors, gyros, etc. Now that's got a chance.

It's certainly not going to be for all kids but for those with an inquisitive mind once you set them up and show how to display output in various ways they will start to see the potential. From there you can move onto basic rc hobbyist stuff which is more accessible than ever. Buy some cheap brushless motors, wheels and a frame online, make the pi follow you around by sound only.

I've migrated a number of projects that didn't strictly require a Pi to ESP32/8266 and PandaBoard over the past few years. Depending on what you want to teach and how, there are lots of great SBCs to choose from.

A Raspberry Pi or similar may be a choice only because it is cheap, but otherwise it does not provide any better learning experience than any Intel/AMD personal computer with Linux or FreeBSD.

In order to have a computer that can be completely understood, like one from 40 years ago, the best would be a development board for some Cortex-M microcontroller, e.g. one of the STM32 Discovery kits.

These are very cheap and have complete documentation, unlike a personal computer or a Raspberry Pi.

On such a development kit it is easy to learn anything that could be learned on an 80's computer.

There are 2 disadvantages when compared to the old computers, these development boards do not have manuals intended for newbies, so someone technically competent has to guide, at least in the beginning, whomever wants to experiment and learn with the kit, and secondly, the development kits are not stand-alone, you need a personal computer on which to compile the programs and load them on the kit.

Despite the 2 disadvantages, such a development kit with an ARM Cortex-M microcontroller is the best way to recreate the experience of an old computer.

Using the development kit for direct access to hardware can be combined with learning programming on the host computer, e.g. for GUI programs or games.

I do like Pi. I might say that arduino or even a knockoff pi might be better fir the simple fact of availability. It's taking a long time (6mo) to get some models of Pi, and they are getting more expensive now.

This, unfortunately, is the truth.

But that begs the question: what are 11-year-old computer nerds doing now? Modding games? Building complicated machines in Minecraft?

Exactly, this means we are living in a very weird period in history. Right now there are people who know a lot about computers, for the sake of "they looked cool in the 80s/90s". People born in the 70s and 80s are ~5-15 years removed from pension or disappearing from the workforce. Already there are no 20 year old and few 30 year old geeks.

3% of us are disappearing every year. And that's just not going to stop.

Their website redesign is so unintuitive.

It's still there, based on Raspberry Pi 3. The newer models are Intel based w Windows 10s. I'd preorder a Pi 5 and do a project w the kid where you source the pi, case, screen, get an old laptop or two a old router and set up a network lab.

Maybe set them up at NeoCities, depending on age, but could also move into CGI and RSS with this. I may be way off, but I feel like CGI could be a bridge between markup and programming.

My sparse knowledge of CGI dates to the 90s, and IANAP(rogrammer).