5 ms·

Computers are still cool, I still have my collection of Unix workstations from 20yrs ago all rotting away in the garage, SGI indigo, sparcstations, HP servers,,

Computers are still cool, I still have my collection of Unix workstations from 20yrs ago all rotting away in the garage, SGI indigo, sparcstations, HP servers,, decstations, IBM machines. The only thing that made them cool back them was they were different! They were not x86, they had weird/different CPUs and gcc -S provided a very different output. They ran weird Unix OS such as IRIX, HPUX, AIX, BSD, SunOS & Solaris which allowed one to see a different take on things. sometimes they brought their own advantages, Solaris had really cool software, the only thing amazing about the SGI was the Monitor and the color, just beautiful. These were fun to network, hookup and share with Unix fiends so we didn't get into trouble using other folks computer. Yet, I find that I'm still experiencing that same sort of fun, the raspberry pi, Arduino, GPUs, Xeon Psi, Google Coral, all sorts of cheap FPGA, if you want hardware, you got it! Tons more are now available with documentation. If you want software, you got it, Linux, BSDs, and you can still run NetBSD on your toaster. If you want programming languages, there's more available now than ever. Even getting access to a solid Lisp or Prolog system back then was a pain, you can get access to many choices for free today. Then you have latest and newest shiny things like Rust, Go, Javascript/Typescript, Haskell, Ocaml, Idris, elm, dart, etc. Computers have never been this freaking cool! Craziest thing is that a $5 raspberry pi zero that fits between 2 fingers, could run circles around some of those cool computers of yesteryears. The past was fun then, the future is much fun IMO.

deleted 6y ago
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joshxyz 6y ago
This takes me back to the perspective that "wealth is relative". Sure, these arduino and rpi may not be as powerful as the latest intel and amd processors, but lol kings and queens hundreds of years ago didn't even have access to these - not even to a goddamn calculator!
- bayindirh 6y ago
  Also, required computation power and perceived power is relative. I have a small OrangePi Zero fixed under my desk which runs Syncthing, Transmission, DNSMasq and other small daemons which really makes my life easier and network faster. That little box sits at 0.00/0.00/0.00 load while doing a lot of helpful stuff. A good and very useful computer doesn't have to have a ton of bandwidth, monstrous amounts of power or bag-of-holding level storage to be exciting, interesting and useful at the same time.
  - bserge 6y ago
    And that board is like 10x faster than my router, which does similar things with a 560 MHz single core MIPS processor, 128 MB of RAM and USB attached storage.
    - bayindirh 6y ago
      Original Raspberry Pi is more powerful than my Old P2-266 computer with a Voodoo-II accelerator on board. That's unbelievable and very exciting IMHO.
      - bserge 6y ago
        Oh I fondly remember my Pentium MMX 200 Mhz with a Voodoo 2 and a whole 64 MB of RAM. It even ran Windows XP after upgrading to 128 MB of RAM! I was pretty sad when I found out it would not run GTA III :D
        bayindirh 6y ago
        Oh, GTA3 was heavily nVdia optimized. A low end nVidia card would smoke a higher end ATI at GTA3 and that was unfair.
II2II 6y ago
My feelings are more mixed. On the positive, I will pull out something like an Arduino for fun. It is possible to explore the depths of the machine and do things that are rather unique. Cheap FPGAs, 3-D printing, and such are all the same. On the other hand, you have things like the Raspberry Pi 400. It was fun to watch a tear down or two to see what is inside. The vintage form factor is cool too. Yet the moment it came to software, the interest dwindled since it is just another Linux box. When it comes to software, I feel that the lack of scarcity also hurts. Take those programming languages. Once upon a time there was the anticipation of getting something new, and there was incentive to learn the details. Now it's all just there. It's often hard to find motivation to learn anything but the surface details unless it's a truly unique language. This isn't meant to diminish what has been accomplished. In the hands of the right people, they are powerful tools. In the hands of someone who just wants to play, they are much less cool.
- UncleSlacky 6y ago
  > Yet the moment it came to software, the interest dwindled since it is just another Linux box. RasPis can run RISC OS too: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RISC_OS https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RISC_OS https://www.riscosopen.org/content/downloads/raspberry-pi https://www.riscosopen.org/content/downloads/raspberry-pi
- segmondy 6y ago
  On the motivation front, that's a personal thing. When choices are limited and things are new, there's that exciting factor in learning. But it seems most of us have seen the same thing in different variation, and then drowning in choices which does reduce the motivation factor. But this is more subjective than objective. Nothing stopping you from creating your own OS for the pi. Linus did it in 1990 for x86 with very little resource, anyone motivated can do so today.

deleted 6y ago

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joshxyz 6y ago

This takes me back to the perspective that "wealth is relative". Sure, these arduino and rpi may not be as powerful as the latest intel and amd processors, but lol kings and queens hundreds of years ago didn't even have access to these - not even to a goddamn calculator!

bayindirh 6y ago
Also, required computation power and perceived power is relative. I have a small OrangePi Zero fixed under my desk which runs Syncthing, Transmission, DNSMasq and other small daemons which really makes my life easier and network faster. That little box sits at 0.00/0.00/0.00 load while doing a lot of helpful stuff. A good and very useful computer doesn't have to have a ton of bandwidth, monstrous amounts of power or bag-of-holding level storage to be exciting, interesting and useful at the same time.
- bserge 6y ago
  And that board is like 10x faster than my router, which does similar things with a 560 MHz single core MIPS processor, 128 MB of RAM and USB attached storage.
  - bayindirh 6y ago
    Original Raspberry Pi is more powerful than my Old P2-266 computer with a Voodoo-II accelerator on board. That's unbelievable and very exciting IMHO.
    - bserge 6y ago
      Oh I fondly remember my Pentium MMX 200 Mhz with a Voodoo 2 and a whole 64 MB of RAM. It even ran Windows XP after upgrading to 128 MB of RAM! I was pretty sad when I found out it would not run GTA III :D
      - bayindirh 6y ago
        Oh, GTA3 was heavily nVdia optimized. A low end nVidia card would smoke a higher end ATI at GTA3 and that was unfair.

II2II 6y ago

My feelings are more mixed. On the positive, I will pull out something like an Arduino for fun. It is possible to explore the depths of the machine and do things that are rather unique. Cheap FPGAs, 3-D printing, and such are all the same. On the other hand, you have things like the Raspberry Pi 400. It was fun to watch a tear down or two to see what is inside. The vintage form factor is cool too. Yet the moment it came to software, the interest dwindled since it is just another Linux box. When it comes to software, I feel that the lack of scarcity also hurts. Take those programming languages. Once upon a time there was the anticipation of getting something new, and there was incentive to learn the details. Now it's all just there. It's often hard to find motivation to learn anything but the surface details unless it's a truly unique language. This isn't meant to diminish what has been accomplished. In the hands of the right people, they are powerful tools. In the hands of someone who just wants to play, they are much less cool.

UncleSlacky 6y ago
> Yet the moment it came to software, the interest dwindled since it is just another Linux box. RasPis can run RISC OS too: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RISC_OS https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RISC_OS https://www.riscosopen.org/content/downloads/raspberry-pi https://www.riscosopen.org/content/downloads/raspberry-pi
segmondy 6y ago
On the motivation front, that's a personal thing. When choices are limited and things are new, there's that exciting factor in learning. But it seems most of us have seen the same thing in different variation, and then drowning in choices which does reduce the motivation factor. But this is more subjective than objective. Nothing stopping you from creating your own OS for the pi. Linus did it in 1990 for x86 with very little resource, anyone motivated can do so today.