5 ms·

For those of us who grew up in the 8-bit era, this has a lot of appeal since that's how we got engaged. But for most kids today, is this sort of ab initio appr

by blihp 8y ago

For those of us who grew up in the 8-bit era, this has a lot of appeal since that's how we got engaged. But for most kids today, is this sort of ab initio approach really the right way to go about it? Based on my experience with a few different types of kids/personalities, I'm skeptical. Dropping them into the command line / IDE of any language / environment is likely to leave them both unimpressed and lost. Neither the Raspberry Pi (more software oriented) or Arduino (more hardware oriented) is going to be terribly impressive from a standalone point of view compared to the PC/iPhone/XBox they're used to. But the thing they've got going for them are a lot of cool projects other people have done with them, step-by-step tutorials, and pre-built stuff that's relatively easy to re-create and/or integrate. Will the 8-bit recreation you have in mind have any of that?

mixmastamyk 8y ago
> they're used to Maybe they're not used to them, because we haven't given them one? Or largely restrict their use? Necessity is the mother of invention for kids.
- blihp 8y ago
  Only if they don't have friends. I have a family member who tried that and failed miserably: not only are the kids computer illiterate (from not having any positive/useful exposure to technology when they were younger) but now they are hooked video games and social 'stuff' from their friends / school. The parents have now thrown in the towel and use technology as a pacifier for their adolescents. Just because you don't allow it at home, don't assume they're not getting it somewhere else.
  - mixmastamyk 8y ago
    Nope, my daughter is very social, an avid reader, and can program minecraft too. The fact that friends have toys doesn't solve the learning/boredom drive at home. Also, playing with an iphone or x-box, is not computer-literate.
seanmcdirmid 8y ago
Kids have it too easy today, they don't have to work very hard to get decent computing experiences, and its not like they have to do any programming at all to have fun. It is also super easy to get addicted to just consuming all the time. It is quite depressing. My kid is still a toddler, but I think I might put a stripped down CLI-only computer in his room when he reaches 5 so he can at least play with it if he wants. It doesn't need to count as dangerous screen time, there is no internet to worry about, and he probably won't get addicted to a CLI at least. I mean, the alternative to that is probably no computer in his room until he is 16.
- majormajor 8y ago
  Is this so new? 25 years ago kids were addicted to cable/phone/Genesis/VHS and never "had" to do any programming to have any fun, either. There was a phase where people expected that people starting on iPhones even younger than people started on Windows in 1993 would make them more technologically literate, but that was optimistic - they're iPhone-literate to the same level kids then were Windows-literate. Actually understanding things at the machine level was very rare back then, too, though.
  - lotyrin 8y ago
    Somewhat affluent kids maybe. As a preteen in the 90s I had an uncle's hand-me-down 80s console (NES) with like two cartridges and 80s computer with a few pieces of shareware game demos that I hand to know CLI commands and manage files to start plus a basic interpreter. My (nearly infinite seeming now) time was spent staring at the wall, sitting in rural nature, building things out of my whopping ~80 off-brand lego bricks, socializing with kids that I didn't understand at all (rednecks who didn't comprehend the idea that one might read on purpose, for fun) or messing with the interpreter. Later on as a teen I'd hear about a "free" OS that was good at running on limited hardware, which would be exciting to me in the very free-as-in gratis sort of way as a kid with an aging (different than previous paragraph, mid 90s) hand-me-down PC, no money or anyone to ask for money -- I had to go on a waiting list to get a CD mailed to me IIRC -- but then then I was up and running with my first linux server (RedHat 6), albeit isolated from the internet at large, but I'd get a whole slew of new interpreters and compilers to mess with (C, Python, Perl, PHP), and they all came with documentation, and stuff had sources I could read!! During both periods my single mother would sporadically (when a sales guy convinced her) subscribe to cable for a few months at a time before realizing she couldn't afford it. We didn't own many VHS (to a detriment, renting favorites multiple times -- math and planning weren't in my mother's toolbox). Even if there were any real content available for our television, we just had the one and she used it for the entirety of her own downtime. There were internet trial floppies/CDs or ad-supported dial-up schemes etc., but I didn't have regular access to a reliable internet connection in my family home until I got my first job out of high school (writing C for embedded controller of a machine tool platform) and could pay for that with my own money. If my mother were born 20 years later and made the same kind of life decisions, that rural backwoods is now served by a community project that provides affordable 100 megabit fiber to the premises we could probably keep on despite a late payment here or there (better service and value than the cable I have access to in a real metro area today, frustratingly). I would have hand-me-down iPad and iPhone (as would my mother -- giving us each our own screens with which to consume entertainment in parallel), little money with which to purchase software for these, no way to pirate software for them, no general purpose computer, and my mother could probably manage to keep her Netflix subscription paid for keeping us both with a tap of easy entertainment. My more curious forms of bored energy would probably be satisfied watching other people play PC games on Twitch or something or bulshitting with my peers (who would exist, me being less nerdy and society in general having become a bit more nerdy). By 18 I'd know a lot more about internet culture and games (and probably have more friends) but I wouldn't be able to raise my hand when the careers counselor comes by asking if any of the students knows C (and that machine would probably have a proprietary runtime instead, and that company would probably have offshored those tasks before reaching out to the local high school).
b_t_s 8y ago
Truestory. I was and embedded engineer and I still find this stuff pretty dull. I can't imagine a kid caring unless they have a specific project in mind. Especially when everything these days has nice graphics and there are so many options for apps, games, websites etc that are easier and more engaging.
- blihp 8y ago
  But did you ever find it interesting/fun or was it always just a job? I suspect that the OP is trying to find a way to convey the fun they experienced getting into tech as a kid... either that or they're sadistic ;-)
- nazri1 8y ago
  Truestory. I graduated with EE degree and a few years after that I still get a kick out of making an LED, connected directly to my desktop printer port, blink on and off. Different strokes for different folks, yeah?
strainer 8y ago
Besides the novelty of the actual 8-bit machines, that era pushed the 'kid hacker hero' character (hard!) Whiz-kids Richie, Wargames David, Ferris Bueller, kids programming supermodels, spaceships etc. What came first the enthusiasts or the role models? A generation of kids might have easily been bedazzled into chef'ing or carpentry instead. Mightn't have been a bad thing.

by blihp 8y ago

mixmastamyk 8y ago

> they're used to Maybe they're not used to them, because we haven't given them one? Or largely restrict their use? Necessity is the mother of invention for kids.

blihp 8y ago
Only if they don't have friends. I have a family member who tried that and failed miserably: not only are the kids computer illiterate (from not having any positive/useful exposure to technology when they were younger) but now they are hooked video games and social 'stuff' from their friends / school. The parents have now thrown in the towel and use technology as a pacifier for their adolescents. Just because you don't allow it at home, don't assume they're not getting it somewhere else.
- mixmastamyk 8y ago
  Nope, my daughter is very social, an avid reader, and can program minecraft too. The fact that friends have toys doesn't solve the learning/boredom drive at home. Also, playing with an iphone or x-box, is not computer-literate.

seanmcdirmid 8y ago

Kids have it too easy today, they don't have to work very hard to get decent computing experiences, and its not like they have to do any programming at all to have fun. It is also super easy to get addicted to just consuming all the time. It is quite depressing. My kid is still a toddler, but I think I might put a stripped down CLI-only computer in his room when he reaches 5 so he can at least play with it if he wants. It doesn't need to count as dangerous screen time, there is no internet to worry about, and he probably won't get addicted to a CLI at least. I mean, the alternative to that is probably no computer in his room until he is 16.

majormajor 8y ago
Is this so new? 25 years ago kids were addicted to cable/phone/Genesis/VHS and never "had" to do any programming to have any fun, either. There was a phase where people expected that people starting on iPhones even younger than people started on Windows in 1993 would make them more technologically literate, but that was optimistic - they're iPhone-literate to the same level kids then were Windows-literate. Actually understanding things at the machine level was very rare back then, too, though.
- lotyrin 8y ago
  Somewhat affluent kids maybe. As a preteen in the 90s I had an uncle's hand-me-down 80s console (NES) with like two cartridges and 80s computer with a few pieces of shareware game demos that I hand to know CLI commands and manage files to start plus a basic interpreter. My (nearly infinite seeming now) time was spent staring at the wall, sitting in rural nature, building things out of my whopping ~80 off-brand lego bricks, socializing with kids that I didn't understand at all (rednecks who didn't comprehend the idea that one might read on purpose, for fun) or messing with the interpreter. Later on as a teen I'd hear about a "free" OS that was good at running on limited hardware, which would be exciting to me in the very free-as-in gratis sort of way as a kid with an aging (different than previous paragraph, mid 90s) hand-me-down PC, no money or anyone to ask for money -- I had to go on a waiting list to get a CD mailed to me IIRC -- but then then I was up and running with my first linux server (RedHat 6), albeit isolated from the internet at large, but I'd get a whole slew of new interpreters and compilers to mess with (C, Python, Perl, PHP), and they all came with documentation, and stuff had sources I could read!! During both periods my single mother would sporadically (when a sales guy convinced her) subscribe to cable for a few months at a time before realizing she couldn't afford it. We didn't own many VHS (to a detriment, renting favorites multiple times -- math and planning weren't in my mother's toolbox). Even if there were any real content available for our television, we just had the one and she used it for the entirety of her own downtime. There were internet trial floppies/CDs or ad-supported dial-up schemes etc., but I didn't have regular access to a reliable internet connection in my family home until I got my first job out of high school (writing C for embedded controller of a machine tool platform) and could pay for that with my own money. If my mother were born 20 years later and made the same kind of life decisions, that rural backwoods is now served by a community project that provides affordable 100 megabit fiber to the premises we could probably keep on despite a late payment here or there (better service and value than the cable I have access to in a real metro area today, frustratingly). I would have hand-me-down iPad and iPhone (as would my mother -- giving us each our own screens with which to consume entertainment in parallel), little money with which to purchase software for these, no way to pirate software for them, no general purpose computer, and my mother could probably manage to keep her Netflix subscription paid for keeping us both with a tap of easy entertainment. My more curious forms of bored energy would probably be satisfied watching other people play PC games on Twitch or something or bulshitting with my peers (who would exist, me being less nerdy and society in general having become a bit more nerdy). By 18 I'd know a lot more about internet culture and games (and probably have more friends) but I wouldn't be able to raise my hand when the careers counselor comes by asking if any of the students knows C (and that machine would probably have a proprietary runtime instead, and that company would probably have offshored those tasks before reaching out to the local high school).

b_t_s 8y ago

Truestory. I was and embedded engineer and I still find this stuff pretty dull. I can't imagine a kid caring unless they have a specific project in mind. Especially when everything these days has nice graphics and there are so many options for apps, games, websites etc that are easier and more engaging.

blihp 8y ago
But did you ever find it interesting/fun or was it always just a job? I suspect that the OP is trying to find a way to convey the fun they experienced getting into tech as a kid... either that or they're sadistic ;-)
nazri1 8y ago
Truestory. I graduated with EE degree and a few years after that I still get a kick out of making an LED, connected directly to my desktop printer port, blink on and off. Different strokes for different folks, yeah?

strainer 8y ago

Besides the novelty of the actual 8-bit machines, that era pushed the 'kid hacker hero' character (hard!) Whiz-kids Richie, Wargames David, Ferris Bueller, kids programming supermodels, spaceships etc. What came first the enthusiasts or the role models? A generation of kids might have easily been bedazzled into chef'ing or carpentry instead. Mightn't have been a bad thing.