5 ms·

I love this project. I've been feeling lately that as computers have become more advanced and software has become more inscrutable, our relationship with our c

by tines 2y ago

I love this project. I've been feeling lately that as computers have become more advanced and software has become more inscrutable, our relationship with our computers has changed, for the worse. This essay hit home for me: https://explaining.software/archive/transparent-like-frosted-glass/ https://explaining.software/archive/transparent-like-frosted... These old-school computers viewed their users as creators, as developers. Modern computers (read: smartphones) _are_ the users, and the "used" are just ad-watching revenue cows. I passionately hate this arrangement. When I have children, I want them to know what computing should feel like---empowering, creative and stimulating, not controlled, consumptive, compulsive and mindless. I want to give them a computer that builds up their spirit, rather than grinding it down. I think this computer should have several qualities: 0. The computer should be about _creation_ and not consumption. 1. The computer should be _local_, not global. Intranet should be prioritized over Internet. 1.5 A corollary, the computer should be _personal_. It should encourage and reward in-person interaction, physical sharing of information and programs, and short-range connection between computers. 2. The computer should be _limited_. Because the medium is the message, we have to restrict the capabilities of our media to better promote the messages we value. 2.5. A corollary, the computer should be _text-oriented_. Graphics shouldn't be impossible, but text should be primary. The computer should cultivate a typographic mind, not a graphic mind (in Marshall McLuhan's terminology). 3. The computer should be _focused_. It should never distract you from what you want to work on. 4. The computer should be _reactive_, not proactive. It should never give you a notification. You should be in charge of retrieving all information yourself, like a library, not a call center. 5. The computer should be _physical_. It should be oriented around physical media. 6. The computer should be _modifiable_. It should encourage and reward inspection into its internals, and be easy to change. 7. The computer should be _simple_, understandable by a single person in its entirety with time and study. The Mega65 is amazing and checks these boxes, but unfortunately it's a tad expensive for me. What other machines are out there like this?

GenericDev 2y ago
I agree with you a million percent, so you're not alone in this. But we are very much the minority :( It feels like people aren't interested in being creators. Just consumers. And that shows in how media and companies refer to people as consumers. I wish there was a way to reverse this trend. It feels in many ways like a Plato's cave kind of situation.
- sfjailbird 2y ago
  Even back when all the kids had C64s, most only knew enough about it to load up games from the tape drive. Personally I was intrigued by the built-in basic, and that got me started programming (and I absolutely loathed the mindless consoles like the Nintendo Entertainment System), but I was very much in the minority.
andai 2y ago
I've wanted an e-paper laptop ever since I saw a Kindle ad in 2008. I'm also interested in ultra low power computing (solar charging, daylight readable, months of battery life, offline-first, mostly text...). So your list has a lot of overlap with mine! Such a thing doesn't seem to have been invented yet. The remarkable might come close (or that weird typewriter like thing?) but I haven't been able to justify any of those purchases yet... I'm not 100% sure about e-paper (the lag may actually be a feature reducing addictiveness), I'm also amenable to those transflective Sharp LCDs! (Though I think they're a bit too small for a daily driver.)
wvenable 2y ago
I grew up before the Internet and we still craved connectivity with our computers. I remember dialing into BBSes and playing turn-based text games and it was amazing. It was also the best way to get software; my computer would be pretty boring if the only software I had was what I created myself or purchased in a box. I also could have done so much more with all my computers, from my Commodore 64 to my 286, if had I had the vast information resources that are available now.
- tines 2y ago
  I think the difference is that in the days of the nascent internet, connecting with people meant much more than it does now. You dial into a BBS or log into a MUD and you have a small-ish community of real people that you can develop relationships with. Modern internet connectivity almost means the opposite: all the major services are oriented toward moneymaking, nothing is genuine, there is no sincerity, most behavior is motivated by accumulation of worthless social capital. So, the society that you craved connection with no longer exists now that you are able to connect. This is another thing that, seemingly, has to be rebuilt from the ground up locally.
  - icedchai 2y ago
    I got started with a 1200 baud modem, back in the late 80's. I miss the local community found on BBSes and the early, text-oriented Internet providers. There seems to be no replacement for that at all. Any "local" oriented sub-reddit, Discord, etc. is full of bots and spammers.
- zikduruqe 2y ago
  > I remember dialing into BBSes and playing turn-based text games and it was amazing. You can still take trips down memory lane. https://www.telnet.org/htm/places.htm https://www.telnet.org/htm/places.htm
bluescrn 2y ago
So much of the effort and expense has gone into creating a large plastic shell and custom keyboard, though, resulting in a costly product targeting a very small niche of the already fairly niche hobby that is retro computing/gaming (or even retro Commodore enthusiasts) And that large plastic shell of the C65 was always an ugly design, and I can't imagine it's comfortable to type on with that floppy drive protrusion so close to the arrow keys?
ruk_booze 2y ago
Sounds like you may want a Commodore 64? Preferably equipped with an Ultimate 1541. Or if that it is too limited, go for the Amiga. It is more modifiable. As a sidenote, I got my Mega65 just the other day. Been waiting almost a year for it :)
- tines 2y ago
  Real Commodore hardware is going to break down eventually, I'd love to have something that uses modern parts so we aren't dependent on rare parts that are going to disappear or become super expensive.
  - ruk_booze 2y ago
    There are modern FPGA-based options like the Ultimate64. https://ultimate64.com/Ultimate64 https://ultimate64.com/Ultimate64 Got one of these too (the now discontinued non-Elite version) and it is pretty cool running stuff at 48MHz: https://youtube.com/shorts/fF2IXTwWDPQ?si=ww3IXp7CVWDT3SZy https://youtube.com/shorts/fF2IXTwWDPQ?si=ww3IXp7CVWDT3SZy In above video, I hacked the awesome demo Andropolis to utilize U64’s turbo mode during vblank. This clip shows it running in full turbo mode: https://youtube.com/shorts/hvmNnwz7ENQ?si=6idbUgRYikXHh25O https://youtube.com/shorts/hvmNnwz7ENQ?si=6idbUgRYikXHh25O
  - varjag 2y ago
    They are extremely repairable due to low level of integration and commodity components. And many ICs (outside DRAM or PROM) can potentially last for centuries.
- DowagerDave 2y ago
  vintage hardware is too expensive. I'm not sure why, or who's buying it, but if you want to actually run & program on it you're better off with emulators
  - thijson 2y ago
    There's a project called MisterFPGA, there's probably a C64 core available.
hajile 2y ago
Mega65 is a nostalgia project aimed at targeting a specific kind of older computer system. If practical and simple were the goals, it wouldn't be using an 8-bit chip nor would it be focused on things like BASIC as these kinds of things make things harder rather than easier. Mega65 is about working within constraints, but (to me), the bend of the complexity curve where things are simple enough to understand, but powerful enough to do necessary tasks requires much larger software and hardware resources than what a system like Mega65 offers. At a bare minimum, I believe you'd want a much more powerful single-core machine with the ability to do floating point and vector calculations while having access to at least a couple hundred megabytes of RAM and a few gigabytes of storage. Something more along the lines of a Pi Zero, but based on open hardware and open chip designs seems to be around the point where it is powerful enough to do all the common, non-connected tasks a user might need to do while still being simple enough that you could understand most of the moving parts if you wanted to take the time.
- tines 2y ago
  I agree completely. I've looked at designing a system around the Pi Zero, but it's so much work for someone with the time and skills that I (don't) have. And the Pi Zero doesn't seem to have the kind of I/O capability that I'm looking for.
  - thijson 2y ago
    I feel like the RP2040 or RP2350 approach the simplicity of these older machines. https://www.raspberrypi.com/products/rp2350/ https://www.raspberrypi.com/products/rp2350/ The documentation is pretty good. Reading it reminds me of going through the documentation provided with my Tandy Color Computer as a kid.
    - 082349872349872 2y ago
      I appreciate that when BCPL got its first floating point support, almost half a century after initial release, it was only because Martin Richards was writing a flight simulator for his Pi.
- 2y ago
simonswain 2y ago
Consider the RC2014 https://rc2014.co.uk https://rc2014.co.uk I think it hits a bunch of these points. Also don't overlook the SpecNext https://www.specnext.com https://www.specnext.com -- both have very active communities.
DowagerDave 2y ago
Interesting that the hackers in the book of the same name (by Steven Levy) were looking to change the public's perception of computers from something very different from what we see today to something very similar to what you describe. You both describe an end state that is very tactile, emotional and human. I struggle to get my kids to experience computers with the same sense of wonder and amazement that I had. This could be inevitable (I've always taken flipping a light switch or refrigerated food for granted) but it still makes me sad.
- tines 2y ago
  This is an interesting point of view, thinking about it I agree that instilling the "hacker ethic" into kids is very valuable. But how does one do that? For myself, I fell into video game hacking (and related hijinks) because I loved a particular game, and happened to hang out with some smart people on some forums online, and that set the course of my life to a large degree. But it seems like accidentally having these experiences is harder and harder these days. How do we set our kids up, or set the world up for our kids, to have these experiences organically?
jonjacky 2y ago
The Tulip Creative Computer[1][2] hits most of your points (I'm just a customer). It is definitely not a retro computer. It uses modern technology (ESP32S3 microcontroller with megabytes of flash memory and RAM, USB ports, wifi, color touch screen etc.) and runs a modern programming language (MicroPython) that also serves as the operating system. This particular product might not be exactly what you want, but it shows that you can use these technologies to build a computer that is much simpler and more malleable than a modern PC in both hardware and software, but is still very capable, and intriguing to use. 1. https://github.com/shorepine/tulipcc https://github.com/shorepine/tulipcc 2. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41122986 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41122986
- scandox 2y ago
  Weirdly that HN article you linked to is flagged
kstrauser 2y ago
I dug out an old HP-50g calculator I got a while back. I'm finding it trips my triggers in the right way, with nearly all of the points you made. It's a tiny, programmable computer that's fully knowable. I was surprised how much fine I'm having with it.
robinsonb5 2y ago
> I've been feeling lately that as computers have become more advanced and software has become more inscrutable, our relationship with our computers has changed, for the worse. Very much so. Technology stopped being about empowerment some time ago - it's been subverted into a tool for erecting virtual tollbooths. > This essay hit home for me: https://explaining.software/archive/transparent-like-frosted https://explaining.software/archive/transparent-like-frosted... Thanks for that - I just read it. This made me grin: > "By the mid-1990s," Turkle says, "when people said that something was transparent, they meant that they could immediately make it work, not that they knew how it worked." ... and by the late 1990s people meant they could see its PCB through the case!
CalRobert 2y ago
Then their school gives them a tablet because math on paper is old fashioned. But I agree
MarkusWandel 2y ago
BTW back in the early C64 days (before 1985), the user base was "programmers" and "people who are going to learn how to do it any day now". Everybody played video games, but the machine was still seen as a challenge to create something with. The vast majority of the "any day now" crowd never did anything more than run ready-made apps of course. The "just buy it to run video games" thing came later.
- tssva 2y ago
  I got my C64 prior to 1985 and many of my friends did also. I was the exception by not being "just buy it to run video games".
ryukoposting 2y ago
> The computer should be _reactive_, not proactive. It should never give you a notification. You should be in charge of retrieving all information yourself, like a library, not a call center. I think we all know how impactful the smartphone has been, but your way of putting it is especially succinct. It's not the iphone that mattered in particular, it's the convergence of phone and computer. The telephone was one of the first pieces of "noisy" technology, i.e. it yells at you when it wants your attention. Merging that with the versatility and sheer power of the computer was... consequential, to say the least.
card_zero 2y ago
I'm struck by how badly we wanted the opposite of everything on your list, back when a C64 was what a kid was typically stuck with. Well, maybe not the opposite of point 6, there's nothing fun about a locked-down machine. But we very much wanted graphics, and sound, and 3D and simulation and virtual reality and MMORPGs (and internet, or at least improved telnet). And we wanted to be wildly distracted by a machine that does magic tricks and spins fantasies. OK, we wanted to be creative too, but as an afterthought. Possibly the joy of the golden age was in ruining computing for everybody who came after.
- skydhash 2y ago
  I started using computers with Windows XP and Windows 7 and the computer experience was way saner than what we have now (but that may due to the fact that everything was local in my town as internet access was scarce). It was a creation machine as well as a consumption one, mostly because it was not expected to have a 24/7 connection to the internet and software has to be file interoperable instead of having data silo in databases. No notifications other than system ones. And actual desktop design for the UI.
spintin 2y ago
[dead]
Findecanor 2y ago
I think a computer system checking most of those boxes could be made with software on modern PC hardware. I think that is possible as long as we keep check of ourselves to continue following the principles. Your list of qualities remind me of what I liked most about the Amiga and its OS. The (desktop) system was manageable by one person and you learned as you went. It did not "mollycoddle" the user, and it did not require you to spend years of study (as with Unix, Linux and the internals of MS-Windows). One older principle (1967) that is related to several of yours, and apparently largely forgotten these days is "The principle of least astonishment" [0]. Other lists of computing principles I've come across that I find interesting (even if I do not always agree): Loper-OS's seven laws of Sane Computing [1], and the principles of Permacomputing [2]. [0]: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principle_of_least_astonishment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principle_of_least_astonishmen...> [1]: http://www.loper-os.org/?p=284 http://www.loper-os.org/?p=284 [2]: https://permacomputing.net/Principles/ https://permacomputing.net/Principles/
lproven 2y ago
> What other machines are out there like this? Quite a few. * Feonix 256 * Commander X16 * ZX Spectrum Next * ZX UNO / ZX DUO et al. * Chloe 280SE

by tines 2y ago

GenericDev 2y ago

I agree with you a million percent, so you're not alone in this. But we are very much the minority :( It feels like people aren't interested in being creators. Just consumers. And that shows in how media and companies refer to people as consumers. I wish there was a way to reverse this trend. It feels in many ways like a Plato's cave kind of situation.

sfjailbird 2y ago
Even back when all the kids had C64s, most only knew enough about it to load up games from the tape drive. Personally I was intrigued by the built-in basic, and that got me started programming (and I absolutely loathed the mindless consoles like the Nintendo Entertainment System), but I was very much in the minority.

andai 2y ago

I've wanted an e-paper laptop ever since I saw a Kindle ad in 2008. I'm also interested in ultra low power computing (solar charging, daylight readable, months of battery life, offline-first, mostly text...). So your list has a lot of overlap with mine! Such a thing doesn't seem to have been invented yet. The remarkable might come close (or that weird typewriter like thing?) but I haven't been able to justify any of those purchases yet... I'm not 100% sure about e-paper (the lag may actually be a feature reducing addictiveness), I'm also amenable to those transflective Sharp LCDs! (Though I think they're a bit too small for a daily driver.)

wvenable 2y ago

I grew up before the Internet and we still craved connectivity with our computers. I remember dialing into BBSes and playing turn-based text games and it was amazing. It was also the best way to get software; my computer would be pretty boring if the only software I had was what I created myself or purchased in a box. I also could have done so much more with all my computers, from my Commodore 64 to my 286, if had I had the vast information resources that are available now.

tines 2y ago
I think the difference is that in the days of the nascent internet, connecting with people meant much more than it does now. You dial into a BBS or log into a MUD and you have a small-ish community of real people that you can develop relationships with. Modern internet connectivity almost means the opposite: all the major services are oriented toward moneymaking, nothing is genuine, there is no sincerity, most behavior is motivated by accumulation of worthless social capital. So, the society that you craved connection with no longer exists now that you are able to connect. This is another thing that, seemingly, has to be rebuilt from the ground up locally.
- icedchai 2y ago
  I got started with a 1200 baud modem, back in the late 80's. I miss the local community found on BBSes and the early, text-oriented Internet providers. There seems to be no replacement for that at all. Any "local" oriented sub-reddit, Discord, etc. is full of bots and spammers.
zikduruqe 2y ago
> I remember dialing into BBSes and playing turn-based text games and it was amazing. You can still take trips down memory lane. https://www.telnet.org/htm/places.htm https://www.telnet.org/htm/places.htm

bluescrn 2y ago

So much of the effort and expense has gone into creating a large plastic shell and custom keyboard, though, resulting in a costly product targeting a very small niche of the already fairly niche hobby that is retro computing/gaming (or even retro Commodore enthusiasts) And that large plastic shell of the C65 was always an ugly design, and I can't imagine it's comfortable to type on with that floppy drive protrusion so close to the arrow keys?

ruk_booze 2y ago

Sounds like you may want a Commodore 64? Preferably equipped with an Ultimate 1541. Or if that it is too limited, go for the Amiga. It is more modifiable. As a sidenote, I got my Mega65 just the other day. Been waiting almost a year for it :)

tines 2y ago
Real Commodore hardware is going to break down eventually, I'd love to have something that uses modern parts so we aren't dependent on rare parts that are going to disappear or become super expensive.
- ruk_booze 2y ago
  There are modern FPGA-based options like the Ultimate64. https://ultimate64.com/Ultimate64 https://ultimate64.com/Ultimate64 Got one of these too (the now discontinued non-Elite version) and it is pretty cool running stuff at 48MHz: https://youtube.com/shorts/fF2IXTwWDPQ?si=ww3IXp7CVWDT3SZy https://youtube.com/shorts/fF2IXTwWDPQ?si=ww3IXp7CVWDT3SZy In above video, I hacked the awesome demo Andropolis to utilize U64’s turbo mode during vblank. This clip shows it running in full turbo mode: https://youtube.com/shorts/hvmNnwz7ENQ?si=6idbUgRYikXHh25O https://youtube.com/shorts/hvmNnwz7ENQ?si=6idbUgRYikXHh25O
- varjag 2y ago
  They are extremely repairable due to low level of integration and commodity components. And many ICs (outside DRAM or PROM) can potentially last for centuries.
DowagerDave 2y ago
vintage hardware is too expensive. I'm not sure why, or who's buying it, but if you want to actually run & program on it you're better off with emulators
- thijson 2y ago
  There's a project called MisterFPGA, there's probably a C64 core available.

hajile 2y ago

Mega65 is a nostalgia project aimed at targeting a specific kind of older computer system. If practical and simple were the goals, it wouldn't be using an 8-bit chip nor would it be focused on things like BASIC as these kinds of things make things harder rather than easier. Mega65 is about working within constraints, but (to me), the bend of the complexity curve where things are simple enough to understand, but powerful enough to do necessary tasks requires much larger software and hardware resources than what a system like Mega65 offers. At a bare minimum, I believe you'd want a much more powerful single-core machine with the ability to do floating point and vector calculations while having access to at least a couple hundred megabytes of RAM and a few gigabytes of storage. Something more along the lines of a Pi Zero, but based on open hardware and open chip designs seems to be around the point where it is powerful enough to do all the common, non-connected tasks a user might need to do while still being simple enough that you could understand most of the moving parts if you wanted to take the time.

tines 2y ago
I agree completely. I've looked at designing a system around the Pi Zero, but it's so much work for someone with the time and skills that I (don't) have. And the Pi Zero doesn't seem to have the kind of I/O capability that I'm looking for.
- thijson 2y ago
  I feel like the RP2040 or RP2350 approach the simplicity of these older machines. https://www.raspberrypi.com/products/rp2350/ https://www.raspberrypi.com/products/rp2350/ The documentation is pretty good. Reading it reminds me of going through the documentation provided with my Tandy Color Computer as a kid.
  - 082349872349872 2y ago
    I appreciate that when BCPL got its first floating point support, almost half a century after initial release, it was only because Martin Richards was writing a flight simulator for his Pi.
2y ago

simonswain 2y ago

Consider the RC2014 https://rc2014.co.uk https://rc2014.co.uk I think it hits a bunch of these points. Also don't overlook the SpecNext https://www.specnext.com https://www.specnext.com -- both have very active communities.

DowagerDave 2y ago

Interesting that the hackers in the book of the same name (by Steven Levy) were looking to change the public's perception of computers from something very different from what we see today to something very similar to what you describe. You both describe an end state that is very tactile, emotional and human. I struggle to get my kids to experience computers with the same sense of wonder and amazement that I had. This could be inevitable (I've always taken flipping a light switch or refrigerated food for granted) but it still makes me sad.

tines 2y ago
This is an interesting point of view, thinking about it I agree that instilling the "hacker ethic" into kids is very valuable. But how does one do that? For myself, I fell into video game hacking (and related hijinks) because I loved a particular game, and happened to hang out with some smart people on some forums online, and that set the course of my life to a large degree. But it seems like accidentally having these experiences is harder and harder these days. How do we set our kids up, or set the world up for our kids, to have these experiences organically?

jonjacky 2y ago

The Tulip Creative Computer[1][2] hits most of your points (I'm just a customer). It is definitely not a retro computer. It uses modern technology (ESP32S3 microcontroller with megabytes of flash memory and RAM, USB ports, wifi, color touch screen etc.) and runs a modern programming language (MicroPython) that also serves as the operating system. This particular product might not be exactly what you want, but it shows that you can use these technologies to build a computer that is much simpler and more malleable than a modern PC in both hardware and software, but is still very capable, and intriguing to use. 1. https://github.com/shorepine/tulipcc https://github.com/shorepine/tulipcc 2. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41122986 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41122986

scandox 2y ago
Weirdly that HN article you linked to is flagged

kstrauser 2y ago

I dug out an old HP-50g calculator I got a while back. I'm finding it trips my triggers in the right way, with nearly all of the points you made. It's a tiny, programmable computer that's fully knowable. I was surprised how much fine I'm having with it.

robinsonb5 2y ago

> I've been feeling lately that as computers have become more advanced and software has become more inscrutable, our relationship with our computers has changed, for the worse. Very much so. Technology stopped being about empowerment some time ago - it's been subverted into a tool for erecting virtual tollbooths. > This essay hit home for me: https://explaining.software/archive/transparent-like-frosted https://explaining.software/archive/transparent-like-frosted... Thanks for that - I just read it. This made me grin: > "By the mid-1990s," Turkle says, "when people said that something was transparent, they meant that they could immediately make it work, not that they knew how it worked." ... and by the late 1990s people meant they could see its PCB through the case!

CalRobert 2y ago

Then their school gives them a tablet because math on paper is old fashioned. But I agree

MarkusWandel 2y ago

BTW back in the early C64 days (before 1985), the user base was "programmers" and "people who are going to learn how to do it any day now". Everybody played video games, but the machine was still seen as a challenge to create something with. The vast majority of the "any day now" crowd never did anything more than run ready-made apps of course. The "just buy it to run video games" thing came later.

tssva 2y ago
I got my C64 prior to 1985 and many of my friends did also. I was the exception by not being "just buy it to run video games".

ryukoposting 2y ago

> The computer should be _reactive_, not proactive. It should never give you a notification. You should be in charge of retrieving all information yourself, like a library, not a call center. I think we all know how impactful the smartphone has been, but your way of putting it is especially succinct. It's not the iphone that mattered in particular, it's the convergence of phone and computer. The telephone was one of the first pieces of "noisy" technology, i.e. it yells at you when it wants your attention. Merging that with the versatility and sheer power of the computer was... consequential, to say the least.

card_zero 2y ago

I'm struck by how badly we wanted the opposite of everything on your list, back when a C64 was what a kid was typically stuck with. Well, maybe not the opposite of point 6, there's nothing fun about a locked-down machine. But we very much wanted graphics, and sound, and 3D and simulation and virtual reality and MMORPGs (and internet, or at least improved telnet). And we wanted to be wildly distracted by a machine that does magic tricks and spins fantasies. OK, we wanted to be creative too, but as an afterthought. Possibly the joy of the golden age was in ruining computing for everybody who came after.

skydhash 2y ago
I started using computers with Windows XP and Windows 7 and the computer experience was way saner than what we have now (but that may due to the fact that everything was local in my town as internet access was scarce). It was a creation machine as well as a consumption one, mostly because it was not expected to have a 24/7 connection to the internet and software has to be file interoperable instead of having data silo in databases. No notifications other than system ones. And actual desktop design for the UI.

spintin 2y ago

[dead]

Findecanor 2y ago

I think a computer system checking most of those boxes could be made with software on modern PC hardware. I think that is possible as long as we keep check of ourselves to continue following the principles. Your list of qualities remind me of what I liked most about the Amiga and its OS. The (desktop) system was manageable by one person and you learned as you went. It did not "mollycoddle" the user, and it did not require you to spend years of study (as with Unix, Linux and the internals of MS-Windows). One older principle (1967) that is related to several of yours, and apparently largely forgotten these days is "The principle of least astonishment" [0]. Other lists of computing principles I've come across that I find interesting (even if I do not always agree): Loper-OS's seven laws of Sane Computing [1], and the principles of Permacomputing [2]. [0]: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principle_of_least_astonishment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principle_of_least_astonishmen...> [1]: http://www.loper-os.org/?p=284 http://www.loper-os.org/?p=284 [2]: https://permacomputing.net/Principles/ https://permacomputing.net/Principles/

lproven 2y ago

> What other machines are out there like this? Quite a few. * Feonix 256 * Commander X16 * ZX Spectrum Next * ZX UNO / ZX DUO et al. * Chloe 280SE