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Is it really any more limiting? They can make programs in Scratch or other web apps on their phone. It's not "real" native software but it wasn't in the 1980's

Is it really any more limiting? They can make programs in Scratch or other web apps on their phone. It's not "real" native software but it wasn't in the 1980's either. Kids then used BASIC interpreters. Compilers for "real" programming languages like C were unaffordable. Even assembly language and machine language were often inaccessible because computers didn't have an assembler or hex editor and you couldn't get new software like that without spending money.

Robotbeat 6y ago
You can’t use Scratch on your iPhone, and the built-in basic programming was far more “native” than any similar smartphone equivalent we have today. My TI-89 calculator remains way more programmable than my smartphone. I’m not sure why it has become so common on HackerNews to defend this trend and/or pretend it’s not a trend.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- Lio 6y ago
  Isn’t that the wrong comparison though? If you want to run scratch just use something other than an iPhone. When I was a kid we had 8bit micros. They were programmable but they were also eye wateringly expensive. So it was a struggle to own anything you could program at all. Also they all came with closed source, proprietary OSs. I used to spend a fair amount of time just starring at adverts for things I couldn’t afford and that would be obsolete before I could. Now you can get a whole computer given away free on the front cover of a magazine and it will do a pretty good job of running scratch for you.
- pjmlp 6y ago
  Then just install Pythonista.
LocalH 6y ago
ML wasn't totally inaccessible by that metric, it was quite common to store ML in DATA statements and POKE it into the desired memory locations. Depending on the platform it would either be directly called with SYS or CALL type statements, or it'd be vectored through USR() (or perhaps the ampersand in Applesoft).
- exporectomy 6y ago
  That's true. I was mainly thinking of a struggle I had trying to create a binary .com file containing ML. The BASIC had no function for writing an arbitrary binary file. In hindsight, I suppose you could use one of those ML techniques you mentioned to do file I/O but that would have seemed out of reach in difficulty to me as a teenager.

Robotbeat 6y ago

You can’t use Scratch on your iPhone, and the built-in basic programming was far more “native” than any similar smartphone equivalent we have today. My TI-89 calculator remains way more programmable than my smartphone. I’m not sure why it has become so common on HackerNews to defend this trend and/or pretend it’s not a trend.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
Lio 6y ago
Isn’t that the wrong comparison though? If you want to run scratch just use something other than an iPhone. When I was a kid we had 8bit micros. They were programmable but they were also eye wateringly expensive. So it was a struggle to own anything you could program at all. Also they all came with closed source, proprietary OSs. I used to spend a fair amount of time just starring at adverts for things I couldn’t afford and that would be obsolete before I could. Now you can get a whole computer given away free on the front cover of a magazine and it will do a pretty good job of running scratch for you.
pjmlp 6y ago
Then just install Pythonista.

LocalH 6y ago

ML wasn't totally inaccessible by that metric, it was quite common to store ML in DATA statements and POKE it into the desired memory locations. Depending on the platform it would either be directly called with SYS or CALL type statements, or it'd be vectored through USR() (or perhaps the ampersand in Applesoft).

exporectomy 6y ago
That's true. I was mainly thinking of a struggle I had trying to create a binary .com file containing ML. The BASIC had no function for writing an arbitrary binary file. In hindsight, I suppose you could use one of those ML techniques you mentioned to do file I/O but that would have seemed out of reach in difficulty to me as a teenager.