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Steve Woz said something in his book that always stuck with me: the younger generation is missing out on what it was like to grow up during a time where it was

by gdubs 4y ago

Steve Woz said something in his book that always stuck with me: the younger generation is missing out on what it was like to grow up during a time where it was possible to grasp the entire machine in your mind. People always chime in to say that you can still do that today. But back then the constraint was real; it was the best you had to work with, and it forced you to think of creative ways to use it and maximize it. Anyway, super cool piece — thanks for sharing!

spogbiper 4y ago
I grew up with early 80s microcomputers. I played around with BASIC and a little asm, definitely found it fascinating but as a kid just typing in little games from magazines I didn't really ever understand the whole computer. Then in my 30s I found a group of retro enthusiasts that were still hacking on the little oddball computer I'd had as a kid. It became a hobby for a few years, and coming back to the platform with a couple decades of experience programming was truly a revelation. Fitting the whole machine in your head, knowing what every byte in the memory map and every cycle of the CPU are doing.. its an experience I don't think is really possible on modern hardware. Maybe with a microcontroller or arduino type device, but even these are much more complex than the old 80s microcomputers.
- midoridensha 4y ago
  It's still possible, but only on extremely low-resource microcontrollers, such as the PICs and AVRs from Microchip (and Atmel, now part of Microchip). Many of these are tiny 8-bit micros with only a few dozen bytes of memory, meant for simple applications.
Eleison23 4y ago
[dead]
hbn 4y ago
It's even more sad for kids being raised on smartphones and iPads as their only computing paradigm. If desktop OSes aren't complicated enough, there's certainly no hope of you learning how one of those work with how locked down they are. There's a lot of people who got into programming from learning to make Minecraft mods or basic scripting for some game. It feels like the mobile application paradigm tightly cements the idea that all software that runs on a computer is from some big company and shan't be tampered with. And I don't think Xcode Playgrounds or various Programming Environment For Babies applications draw as much attention and spark as much imagination as learning to mod infinite lives into a game you already play, or even something as simple as modifying an ini file for a mod you found online.
- ilyt 4y ago
  I do vividly remember feeling of pride when as kid I edited some game files to do something funky (like swapping Red Alert Tanya weapon to tesla coil...) or managed to cheat the game via hex editor or cheat engine. Mixing "something you like" with "something you can learn" is always a winning combo.
- marcellus23 4y ago
  Any kid who wants to build an app for the iPhone/iPad can do it pretty easily, they just need a Mac and Xcode. With Swift Playgrounds for iPad, you don't even need a Mac. I know you mentioned it "doesn't spark as much imagination", but I'm going to strongly disagree with you there. I don't think most software engineers got started by tweaking existing software. _You_ may have started that way, but I didn't. I got into programming by seeing the kinds of apps people made for Mac and iPhone, and wanting to build those kinds of experiences.
  - gdubs 4y ago
    I just want to be clear I'm not framing today's tools as "bad" or unable to spark imagination — my own kids are getting started with Scratch and it's great! But I also feel like there's some magic in the past too. Some of it's nostalgia, but there's also lessons there that are valuable.
- benj111 4y ago
  Well I had a BBC as a kid before progressing to pcs. The idea of programming never really occured to me. I had a book but it's idea of programming consisted of typing out an ASCII art house. I only got in to programming in my 20s when some company called canonical were giving CDs away of this thing call Linux. Point is. We have the internet now for kids to discover these things, and schools are more up on it and we have inexpensive computers and stuff for kids to play about with.
Waterluvian 4y ago
I don’t disagree, but it’s all perspective and it’s all fractal. Every generation is building on top. He had his own examples of what he laments, I’m sure.
deleted 4y ago
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criddell 4y ago
And the generation before the one Jobs was nostalgic for didn't have integrated circuits. They knew every transistor, resistor, and capacitor.

by gdubs 4y ago

spogbiper 4y ago

I grew up with early 80s microcomputers. I played around with BASIC and a little asm, definitely found it fascinating but as a kid just typing in little games from magazines I didn't really ever understand the whole computer. Then in my 30s I found a group of retro enthusiasts that were still hacking on the little oddball computer I'd had as a kid. It became a hobby for a few years, and coming back to the platform with a couple decades of experience programming was truly a revelation. Fitting the whole machine in your head, knowing what every byte in the memory map and every cycle of the CPU are doing.. its an experience I don't think is really possible on modern hardware. Maybe with a microcontroller or arduino type device, but even these are much more complex than the old 80s microcomputers.

midoridensha 4y ago
It's still possible, but only on extremely low-resource microcontrollers, such as the PICs and AVRs from Microchip (and Atmel, now part of Microchip). Many of these are tiny 8-bit micros with only a few dozen bytes of memory, meant for simple applications.

Eleison23 4y ago

[dead]

hbn 4y ago

It's even more sad for kids being raised on smartphones and iPads as their only computing paradigm. If desktop OSes aren't complicated enough, there's certainly no hope of you learning how one of those work with how locked down they are. There's a lot of people who got into programming from learning to make Minecraft mods or basic scripting for some game. It feels like the mobile application paradigm tightly cements the idea that all software that runs on a computer is from some big company and shan't be tampered with. And I don't think Xcode Playgrounds or various Programming Environment For Babies applications draw as much attention and spark as much imagination as learning to mod infinite lives into a game you already play, or even something as simple as modifying an ini file for a mod you found online.

ilyt 4y ago
I do vividly remember feeling of pride when as kid I edited some game files to do something funky (like swapping Red Alert Tanya weapon to tesla coil...) or managed to cheat the game via hex editor or cheat engine. Mixing "something you like" with "something you can learn" is always a winning combo.
marcellus23 4y ago
Any kid who wants to build an app for the iPhone/iPad can do it pretty easily, they just need a Mac and Xcode. With Swift Playgrounds for iPad, you don't even need a Mac. I know you mentioned it "doesn't spark as much imagination", but I'm going to strongly disagree with you there. I don't think most software engineers got started by tweaking existing software. _You_ may have started that way, but I didn't. I got into programming by seeing the kinds of apps people made for Mac and iPhone, and wanting to build those kinds of experiences.
- gdubs 4y ago
  I just want to be clear I'm not framing today's tools as "bad" or unable to spark imagination — my own kids are getting started with Scratch and it's great! But I also feel like there's some magic in the past too. Some of it's nostalgia, but there's also lessons there that are valuable.
benj111 4y ago
Well I had a BBC as a kid before progressing to pcs. The idea of programming never really occured to me. I had a book but it's idea of programming consisted of typing out an ASCII art house. I only got in to programming in my 20s when some company called canonical were giving CDs away of this thing call Linux. Point is. We have the internet now for kids to discover these things, and schools are more up on it and we have inexpensive computers and stuff for kids to play about with.

Waterluvian 4y ago

I don’t disagree, but it’s all perspective and it’s all fractal. Every generation is building on top. He had his own examples of what he laments, I’m sure.

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deleted 4y ago
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criddell 4y ago

And the generation before the one Jobs was nostalgic for didn't have integrated circuits. They knew every transistor, resistor, and capacitor.