6 ms·

Every time I consider the simplicity of computing in the early 90s (when I was a kid) I have a pang of nostalgia. We've made some wonderful things together as

Every time I consider the simplicity of computing in the early 90s (when I was a kid) I have a pang of nostalgia. We've made some wonderful things together as an industry but the author reminded me of something poignant in his last paragraph. When I was younger I used to strive to keep my computer running as long as possible. I relished the idea that in the future, it would never need to turn off. Now I live a life where I seem to be hoping to do the exact opposite.

speedplane 7y ago
> Every time I consider the simplicity of computing in the early 90s (when I was a kid) I have a pang of nostalgia. Nostalgia is a very subjective thing. Today, people fondly reminisce their first BASIC application or developing their first program that created a network socket. In the future, the old hats may look back longingly over setting up their first multi-server cluster or modifying an app to take advantage of parallelism or a GPU. Nostalgia isn't going anywhere.
- taeric 7y ago
  I call bs. The cost of entry to get to basic used to be turning the computer on. If you had one, you did this every time you used it. Contrast with modern computers. Even the raspberry pi environment offers a ton more. I picked up turtle geometry the other day and realize I don't have an obvious place to try the stuff they are doing. Which feels really really off.
  - arkades 7y ago
    My niece spent 30 seconds on the App Store and now has a place to write and run python scripts on her iPhone. Cost to entry was basically zero.
    - taeric 7y ago
      I'm curious to know what she is using. Allowing access to the app store is not something I'm encouraging, for what feels like obvious reasons.
      - arkades 7y ago
        Pythonista (http://omz-software.com/pythonista/ http://omz-software.com/pythonista/)
        mysterydip 7y ago
        Looks like the cost of entry was $9.99 ;)
  - adestefan 7y ago
    Python has a built in turtle module.
    - iamnothere 7y ago
      Maybe someone could set up one of the little Micropython capable boards to boot into iPython. I wonder if any of the ESP32 boards have VGA or HDMI? Edit: this should work https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19943059 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19943059
    - taeric 7y ago
      That is news to me. Thanks! I'll have to look more at it.
  - II2II 7y ago
    The Raspberry Pi offers a tonne more since it is trying to be everything to everyone, at least in the domain of computer education. I agree that this obscures the obvious place to start, yet it also has some benefits. For example, there are Python libraries for GPIO. While interfacing electronics projects with a 1980's vintage computer was certainly possible, it did not afford such ease. On the flip side is RISC OS on the Raspberry Pi. The OS is pretty much stuck in the 1990's with some throwbacks to the 1980's. For example: it is easy to drop into BASIC, then write programs as you would in the early days of personal computers.
    - taeric 7y ago
      My point of bringing in the pi was that it feels closest to the computers I had growing up. Tinkering was and is the point. Most computing devices, that is not the case.
    - ohithereyou 7y ago
      >While interfacing electronics projects with a 1980's vintage computer was certainly possible, it did not afford such ease. One of my favorite examples of interfacing 1980s micros with electronics is 8 Bit Guy's[0] series on interfacing with LCD character with the Commodore 64's user port[1]. [0] https://www.youtube.com/user/adric22 https://www.youtube.com/user/adric22 [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vV8FbwobrKY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vV8FbwobrKY
- iamnothere 7y ago
  Personally I think nostalgia is a proxy for a generalized desire for simplicity. Most people don't long for the days of swapping out 10 different floppy disks to install an operating system, or of messing around with IRQ/DMA and UART settings to get a modem configured. It's the simple things (like BASIC) that are remembered and missed.
  - noir_lord 7y ago
    As someone who started young with computers in the 80s you are right. I miss the simplicity of the first programs I wrote. I don’t miss a single thing about the hardware. I’ll take dual 4K displays hooked up to a fast reliable machine over any of my previous machines. Modern machines are simpler to build, vastly faster, vastly more reliable and vastly cheaper, they win on every metric imo.
    - JohnJamesRambo 7y ago
      I miss my Commodore 64 hardware. I can still feel the clack of the keys.
  - spinach 7y ago
    I think nostalgia is more complicated than simply a desire for simplicity, though that may be a part of it - and not just because things were more simple back then, but because we didn't understand the complexity as children. Like those people who don't want politics in media/art even though there always has been, they just didn't know as a kid.
  - yters 7y ago
    Maybe something like a cheap Chromebook that boots into something like BASIC where it's easy to write simple PRINT and GOTO based programs, draw stuff on the screen, and beep and boop the sound card. It's having access to simple and easily composable basic elements, like Legos, that made computing so accessible back in the day. Computer gaming was my big motivation. So, this simple platform also needs a decent collection of fun and hackable games, and other useful applications.
- alchemism 7y ago
  I was able to write long novels as a child in DOS programs. I was never able to focus on word processing in a windowed environment. Full-screen “distraction-free” writing utilities attempt to recapture the simplicity of the old days....but it still just isn’t the same as WordPerfect.
  - jefurii 7y ago
    There's always DOSbox
- tech4all 7y ago
  Nostalgia isn't what it used to be.
- tonyedgecombe 7y ago
  I mostly remember everything being expensive. Today if I want to learn a new language I just download it an start working. Back when I started you had to put your hand in your pocket for everything.
scarface74 7y ago
My computer in the early 90s was a Mac LCII running System 7. It was no “simpler” than a computer I have now. I would be running three or four apps and it would be multitasking (cooperative but still). Instead of a web browser, I would have a dialup terminal or AOL.
WalterBright 7y ago
> Every time I consider the simplicity of computing in the early 90s (when I was a kid) I have a pang of nostalgia. When I was a kid, this was my first computer: https://www.evilmadscientist.com/2011/a-video-introduction-to-the-digi-comp-ii/ https://www.evilmadscientist.com/2011/a-video-introduction-t...
- dmix 7y ago
  Were your parents academics or using computers with their job? That's pretty interesting none-the-less.
  - WalterBright 7y ago
    No, not really. Pilot and homemaker.
jseliger 7y ago
If you want a distraction-free writing environment, there are companies attempting to offer just that: https://getfreewrite.com/ https://getfreewrite.com/
- siphon22 7y ago
  >600 dollars >no control or arrow keys what a steal
  - copperx 7y ago
    This will sound like HN's initial dismissal of Dropbox's business idea, but for distraction-free writing I use a non-WiFi Raspberry Pi with Emacs on a framebuffer (no X). I never turn it off. Sure, it's not very portable, but it isn't $600 either. And I version control with git and push ocassionaly to GitHub for backups.
vmurthy 7y ago
For me the nostalgia is for something a little deeper: developing under resource constraints. Anyone else feels that with resource limitations came good software design and code? Or am I off my rocker ?
- Annatar 7y ago
  I still write all my software like that and am able to do so because of the programming language choices - shell and AWK, running on a true UNIX®️. My programs are full-blown applications compliant with all POSIX command line standards, yet they are only a few KB in size and use maybe several hundred KB of memory. They run so fast I never need to translate them into a compiled language. Even when I write in C, I still write the program to be as small and as fast as possible, although sometimes I sacrifice memory consumption for that, but I'm solving a different set of problems in those cases.
  - vmurthy 7y ago
    Hi , Interesting to hear this. Out of curiosity, what field do you work on which gives you the opportunity to do this?
    - Annatar 7y ago
      I won't name the industry out of privacy paranoia, but I do large scale IT technical architecture and lots and lots of classic system engineering (requirements gathering, writing specifications, implementing those, writing manual pages for the software I develop). The reason I'm able to do that is due to massive off-shoring at the client where I consult: I am one of the handful of people left in "a high cost location" who can debug, link, compile and package software correctly, thereby making large and complex software easy to install and JustWork™️. Management is for the most part unaware of all of my software running underneath until some major application goes live and then I give them a presentation on what is ticking underneath. This comes from my days of assembler coding of intros and cracking software on the Commodore64 and the Amiga: one learns the value of writing small, fast code very quickly and that programming and code design style stays with one for the rest of one's life. With its vast memory, processing power and built-in tools like AWK, UNIX®️ makes that style of programming small, fast software even easier. I spent decades studying what all UNIX®️ and its tools can do and have to offer though.
morganvachon 7y ago
I keep a 2001 era Pentium III laptop around for when I'm feeling nostalgic or the need for distraction-free writing. The keyboard is excellent even by desktop standards, much less for a laptop; the 4:3 screen is better suited for writing than my 2K main display, and it runs OpenBSD with Fluxbox which is about as distraction-free as one can get and still have a stacking window environment. It has one USB port, no built in comms other than a dialup modem (I have WiFi and Ethernet CardBus devices for performing updates and syncing files), and it can house two batteries if I take out the CD-ROM drive, making it a great portable word processor. It won't play any games beyond the occasional Solitaire, it isn't powerful enough to edit modern video files (or even play them), and it's atrocious on the modern Internet unless I use a text only browser. But it is my favorite writing machine, and I'll likely never get rid of it.

speedplane 7y ago

> Every time I consider the simplicity of computing in the early 90s (when I was a kid) I have a pang of nostalgia. Nostalgia is a very subjective thing. Today, people fondly reminisce their first BASIC application or developing their first program that created a network socket. In the future, the old hats may look back longingly over setting up their first multi-server cluster or modifying an app to take advantage of parallelism or a GPU. Nostalgia isn't going anywhere.

taeric 7y ago
I call bs. The cost of entry to get to basic used to be turning the computer on. If you had one, you did this every time you used it. Contrast with modern computers. Even the raspberry pi environment offers a ton more. I picked up turtle geometry the other day and realize I don't have an obvious place to try the stuff they are doing. Which feels really really off.
- arkades 7y ago
  My niece spent 30 seconds on the App Store and now has a place to write and run python scripts on her iPhone. Cost to entry was basically zero.
  - taeric 7y ago
    I'm curious to know what she is using. Allowing access to the app store is not something I'm encouraging, for what feels like obvious reasons.
    - arkades 7y ago
      Pythonista (http://omz-software.com/pythonista/ http://omz-software.com/pythonista/)
      - mysterydip 7y ago
        Looks like the cost of entry was $9.99 ;)
- adestefan 7y ago
  Python has a built in turtle module.
  - iamnothere 7y ago
    Maybe someone could set up one of the little Micropython capable boards to boot into iPython. I wonder if any of the ESP32 boards have VGA or HDMI? Edit: this should work https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19943059 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19943059
  - taeric 7y ago
    That is news to me. Thanks! I'll have to look more at it.
- II2II 7y ago
  The Raspberry Pi offers a tonne more since it is trying to be everything to everyone, at least in the domain of computer education. I agree that this obscures the obvious place to start, yet it also has some benefits. For example, there are Python libraries for GPIO. While interfacing electronics projects with a 1980's vintage computer was certainly possible, it did not afford such ease. On the flip side is RISC OS on the Raspberry Pi. The OS is pretty much stuck in the 1990's with some throwbacks to the 1980's. For example: it is easy to drop into BASIC, then write programs as you would in the early days of personal computers.
  - taeric 7y ago
    My point of bringing in the pi was that it feels closest to the computers I had growing up. Tinkering was and is the point. Most computing devices, that is not the case.
  - ohithereyou 7y ago
    >While interfacing electronics projects with a 1980's vintage computer was certainly possible, it did not afford such ease. One of my favorite examples of interfacing 1980s micros with electronics is 8 Bit Guy's[0] series on interfacing with LCD character with the Commodore 64's user port[1]. [0] https://www.youtube.com/user/adric22 https://www.youtube.com/user/adric22 [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vV8FbwobrKY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vV8FbwobrKY
iamnothere 7y ago
Personally I think nostalgia is a proxy for a generalized desire for simplicity. Most people don't long for the days of swapping out 10 different floppy disks to install an operating system, or of messing around with IRQ/DMA and UART settings to get a modem configured. It's the simple things (like BASIC) that are remembered and missed.
- noir_lord 7y ago
  As someone who started young with computers in the 80s you are right. I miss the simplicity of the first programs I wrote. I don’t miss a single thing about the hardware. I’ll take dual 4K displays hooked up to a fast reliable machine over any of my previous machines. Modern machines are simpler to build, vastly faster, vastly more reliable and vastly cheaper, they win on every metric imo.
  - JohnJamesRambo 7y ago
    I miss my Commodore 64 hardware. I can still feel the clack of the keys.
- spinach 7y ago
  I think nostalgia is more complicated than simply a desire for simplicity, though that may be a part of it - and not just because things were more simple back then, but because we didn't understand the complexity as children. Like those people who don't want politics in media/art even though there always has been, they just didn't know as a kid.
- yters 7y ago
  Maybe something like a cheap Chromebook that boots into something like BASIC where it's easy to write simple PRINT and GOTO based programs, draw stuff on the screen, and beep and boop the sound card. It's having access to simple and easily composable basic elements, like Legos, that made computing so accessible back in the day. Computer gaming was my big motivation. So, this simple platform also needs a decent collection of fun and hackable games, and other useful applications.
alchemism 7y ago
I was able to write long novels as a child in DOS programs. I was never able to focus on word processing in a windowed environment. Full-screen “distraction-free” writing utilities attempt to recapture the simplicity of the old days....but it still just isn’t the same as WordPerfect.
- jefurii 7y ago
  There's always DOSbox
tech4all 7y ago
Nostalgia isn't what it used to be.
tonyedgecombe 7y ago
I mostly remember everything being expensive. Today if I want to learn a new language I just download it an start working. Back when I started you had to put your hand in your pocket for everything.

scarface74 7y ago

My computer in the early 90s was a Mac LCII running System 7. It was no “simpler” than a computer I have now. I would be running three or four apps and it would be multitasking (cooperative but still). Instead of a web browser, I would have a dialup terminal or AOL.

WalterBright 7y ago

> Every time I consider the simplicity of computing in the early 90s (when I was a kid) I have a pang of nostalgia. When I was a kid, this was my first computer: https://www.evilmadscientist.com/2011/a-video-introduction-to-the-digi-comp-ii/ https://www.evilmadscientist.com/2011/a-video-introduction-t...

dmix 7y ago
Were your parents academics or using computers with their job? That's pretty interesting none-the-less.
- WalterBright 7y ago
  No, not really. Pilot and homemaker.

jseliger 7y ago

If you want a distraction-free writing environment, there are companies attempting to offer just that: https://getfreewrite.com/ https://getfreewrite.com/

siphon22 7y ago
>600 dollars >no control or arrow keys what a steal
- copperx 7y ago
  This will sound like HN's initial dismissal of Dropbox's business idea, but for distraction-free writing I use a non-WiFi Raspberry Pi with Emacs on a framebuffer (no X). I never turn it off. Sure, it's not very portable, but it isn't $600 either. And I version control with git and push ocassionaly to GitHub for backups.

vmurthy 7y ago

For me the nostalgia is for something a little deeper: developing under resource constraints. Anyone else feels that with resource limitations came good software design and code? Or am I off my rocker ?

Annatar 7y ago
I still write all my software like that and am able to do so because of the programming language choices - shell and AWK, running on a true UNIX®️. My programs are full-blown applications compliant with all POSIX command line standards, yet they are only a few KB in size and use maybe several hundred KB of memory. They run so fast I never need to translate them into a compiled language. Even when I write in C, I still write the program to be as small and as fast as possible, although sometimes I sacrifice memory consumption for that, but I'm solving a different set of problems in those cases.
- vmurthy 7y ago
  Hi , Interesting to hear this. Out of curiosity, what field do you work on which gives you the opportunity to do this?
  - Annatar 7y ago
    I won't name the industry out of privacy paranoia, but I do large scale IT technical architecture and lots and lots of classic system engineering (requirements gathering, writing specifications, implementing those, writing manual pages for the software I develop). The reason I'm able to do that is due to massive off-shoring at the client where I consult: I am one of the handful of people left in "a high cost location" who can debug, link, compile and package software correctly, thereby making large and complex software easy to install and JustWork™️. Management is for the most part unaware of all of my software running underneath until some major application goes live and then I give them a presentation on what is ticking underneath. This comes from my days of assembler coding of intros and cracking software on the Commodore64 and the Amiga: one learns the value of writing small, fast code very quickly and that programming and code design style stays with one for the rest of one's life. With its vast memory, processing power and built-in tools like AWK, UNIX®️ makes that style of programming small, fast software even easier. I spent decades studying what all UNIX®️ and its tools can do and have to offer though.

morganvachon 7y ago

I keep a 2001 era Pentium III laptop around for when I'm feeling nostalgic or the need for distraction-free writing. The keyboard is excellent even by desktop standards, much less for a laptop; the 4:3 screen is better suited for writing than my 2K main display, and it runs OpenBSD with Fluxbox which is about as distraction-free as one can get and still have a stacking window environment. It has one USB port, no built in comms other than a dialup modem (I have WiFi and Ethernet CardBus devices for performing updates and syncing files), and it can house two batteries if I take out the CD-ROM drive, making it a great portable word processor. It won't play any games beyond the occasional Solitaire, it isn't powerful enough to edit modern video files (or even play them), and it's atrocious on the modern Internet unless I use a text only browser. But it is my favorite writing machine, and I'll likely never get rid of it.