6 ms·

The Utopia of the Family Computer

81 points by surprisetalk 7mo ago

MORPHOICES 7mo ago
[dead]
eigencoder 7mo ago
Call me old-fashioned, but I have a family computer. I got rid of my laptop, and got a desktop instead. It stays in the living room, in a desk drawer. The monitor is a portable monitor, and it gets put away when the computer is not in use. My kids aren't old enough to use it yet, but it will be the family computer eventually.
- bombcar 7mo ago
  We used to hide TVs when not in use, also - now we have TVs designed to be "always on" and show artwork instead. Out of sight, out of mine - I think it's generally a good idea.
- stephbook 7mo ago
  I've never bought a laptop or tablet for this very reason. No big phone (iPhone 13). I'm still writting this now, from the couch. I fear how much screen time others waste.
- shovas 7mo ago
  Legend
dupdup 7mo ago
Turkish word for computer is "bilgi-sayar"(info-counter) mag on the image.
Lalabadie 7mo ago
The fixed computer is also a huge factor to facilitate supervised computer use (and make it a shared experience!) with kids at home. As much as I agree with the point of the article, I keep getting tripped up that every second sentence is "It didn't X, it Y'ed". I think it's repeated to form a stylistic device in the second paragraph, but then the shape is interspersed so much in the rest of the text that it reads like a clumsy first write.
- NewsaHackO 7mo ago
  Yes, this is definitely AI-generated. It's always weird that people don't even attempt to sanitize the output to look a little more human. The last pic was very nostalgic, however. It's like we have shared experiences very similar to the corner computer in the living room, complete with the stack of CDs (which will never get completely used).
  - imiric 7mo ago
    I can't say whether this was machine-generated or not, but the reason LLMs use these patterns is because they're often used by humans, which is what they're trained to mimic. LLM spam has now made it annoying, but there are many people who still write like this. Asking them to change their writing patterns because LLMs have ruined it for readers is not just unfair—it's offensive. (See what I did there? Double whammy!)
    - vardump 7mo ago
      Sigh. That's why I stopped using — (em dash)...
    - AlecSchueler 7mo ago
      > I can't say whether this was machine-generated or not, but the reason LLMs use these patterns is because they're often used by humans, which is what they're trained to mimic. It's definitely written by an AI. I understand that people use these same rhetoric devices but the word "mimic" is exactly right. They're not writing like humans, they're mimicking human writing in a way that feels extremely uncanny. (Hey look, I did the thing too!)
    - thewebguyd 7mo ago
      Thank you for saying this. I use those writing devices a lot, always have since I was young. I've always said I don't write like an LLM, the LLMs are copying me. Its also a common hallmark of neurodivergent writing, and it's frustrating to frequently get dismissed for being an LLM just because of writing patterns? I'm now having to deliberately re-word my emails and comments, spending additional time, to avoid being accused of being an LLM.
gensym 7mo ago
This is a lovely bit of writing, and really points to the value of constraints. Some of my favorite childhood memories were being at friends' houses, huddled over the computer, playing Space Quest or Zork. At one of my friends' houses, we were aware that Leisure Suit Larry was installed, and curious, but never played it because of the central location of the machine. I think the shift we've seen TV is something similar. When I was a kid, TV was viewed as an antisocial medium ("the boob tube"), but I have really fond memories of sitting with my family watching Quantum Leap or Growing Pains. Now that everyone has their own screen to watch TV, it seems the studios don't even bother trying to make shows that appeal to an entire family. We focus so much on the media (tv/internet/video games/books) when ascribing value, but, as this article indicates, the physical nature of the delivery (shared living room appliance vs portable individual screen) makes a huge difference.
- piker 7mo ago
  Yes! And music! What a social thing listening to a CD or watching MTV in someone's room used to be. Now it's just isolating.
- relevant_stats 7mo ago
  > This is a lovely bit of writing A lovely bit of AI slop. Edit - This is not the first time I'm observing this. Could somebody explain to me why the comments which point out the discussed texts are AI generated are being frequently downvoted on Hacker News? In the very same thread there is this apparently downvoted (as of now) comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47807528 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47807528 Why is it so, is this really this community's stance on LLM-generated, mostly weak and empty writing?
  - AlecSchueler 7mo ago
    I think your comment was maybe downvoted for being so terse and dismissive. But you're right that it is anything but a good piece of writing and it is genuinely strange to see people act otherwise. > That kind of furniture organized more than just objects. It organized a relationship with technology. It suggested that the computer (and with it, the internet) was something used under particular conditions: seated, in that spot, for a certain amount of time. Something that was switched on and off, opened and closed. It's making a nice point and one that I'm sure most of the people here do find appealing, it's an idea that I relate to myself. But the words used to make that point are bordering on nonsense.
bwestergard 7mo ago
Poignantly in this instance, Utopia is from "ou-topos" (coined by Sir Thomas More in the early modern period). It literally means "no place".
- smogcutter 7mo ago
  The pun being that “eu-topos” would be “good place”.
junon 7mo ago
Sorry but is this just completely AI generated? Or does the author really love "not X but Y" devices?
shovas 7mo ago
Requisite youtube video: The Internet Used to Be a Place: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oYlcUbLAFmw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oYlcUbLAFmw
fellowniusmonk 7mo ago
I hated every moment of the family computer era. Hated the dialup, hated having to steal other users AOL passwords because my large family couldn't afford internet. Hated, later, having to keylog the local libraries ISDN line because the provider offered a free national dial in number for "traveling". The whole world of information available to become less ignorant and I can only use it for an hour a day. As a below poverty line child with heart defects who was prohibited from sports and a whole slew of other things, what we have now is fucked up because we've allowed every interaction to become a dopamine casino and we've skinners boxed ourselves straight to hell. This kind of nostalgia bait is actively harmful, there are clear patterns businesses based in america use and all that shit should be banned. Forcing everyone to use a real Id is an evil, making skinners box patterns illegal is much easier. I loved Juno email, I loved that rich people paid for the ads I easily ignored because I had a velcro TMNT wallet from a community free store but not a single dollar inside of it.
bitwize 7mo ago
> It’s not nostalgia. It’s something else: the distance left by an idea that no longer holds. sniff sniff... sniiiiiffffff... Yes, I can definitely smell AI. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Jbw5KX9TaXY https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Jbw5KX9TaXY I never experienced having just one computer for family use, but when internet finally came there was just one line for it and we had to limit our time and carefully coordinate when we got on. But for me that was also a time when computers were used for things other than online-stuff: programming, playing single-player games, drawing, or writing. There was also a sense that the internet was a place: not a specific place in the house, but "out there", while your own computer was "in here" where your stuff lived. The UI affordances of the time reflected this. The first two icons on the desktop in Windows 95 were called "My Computer" and "Network Neighborhood", allowing you to access your own computer, and other computers nearby with shared files. When old browsers connected to the internet, the "throbber" in the upper right corner would animate. This was distinct from the animated hourglass cursor that indicated your computer was doing some sort of processing, and was specifically designed to indicate that stuff from "out there" was currently being transferred to your machine. Because "out there" was unknown, it was dangerous. It was 42nd Street at night in 90s NYC, and you didn't know who you were going to bump into or what you might find. And then Steve Ballmer or somebody at Microsoft decided, you know what would be great? What if the browser was the OS, and everything on your machine were accessed just like it was online? One familiar interface for everything! That's why I still don't forgive Microsoft for its Windows 98 UI changes and browser integration. Not just monopoly and anticompetitive reasons, but because they blurred what I thought at the time to be an an extremely important distinction. To me it was a lot like what they were trying to do with making Windows 11 an "agentic OS": inviting danger to ordinary users and making it seem safe. (Geez, now I'm doing the thing.) Today of course it doesn't matter. Today everything is online all the time. If an application runs on your computer or phone, it's usually still to interact with some online service, but to more closely monitor and constrain how this is done.
- deleted 7mo ago
  [deleted]
Illniyar 7mo ago
I was a kid when we had a family computer in the living room. We mostly played games on it. It's really not fun playing games in the living room while everyone is around you doing other stuff. It's like being the only one watching TV on the sofa while others are reading or working.
- Modified3019 7mo ago
  Same, and agreed. It’s also annoying for everyone else who has to listen to the same few unit movement confirmation sounds hundreds of times in an hour.
- Thorrez 7mo ago
  One idea is 2 family computers next to each other. LAN party!
renewiltord 7mo ago
[flagged]
- tlhunter 7mo ago
  I actually found the LLM-generated image more annoying than the LLM-generated prose.
wxw 7mo ago
Regulating our digital experiences through the built environment is underrated. I like the idea of a dedicated internet corner at home: somehow both nostalgic and futuristic. Also related and enjoyable: cafes with no/limited WiFi hours and riding the subway with no signal.
GuB-42 7mo ago
Oh, it is not that family computer https://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Famicom https://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Famicom
- lizardking 7mo ago
  The Famicom was so cool in a way that the NES just never intended to be. Disk drives, a modem (online banking!), super funky aesthetics for the console and the carts, etc. Very ahead of its time.
mentalgear 7mo ago
> [the internet] It didn’t just have a place; it had a time. There were moments of access, moments of waiting, moments when it simply wasn’t available. You went in and came out. I feel like this physicality and time-constraint is what really helped you use it (the computer/internet) as a tool to enrich one's life. The introduction of the smart phone and the "always-on" internet that gave rise to a super-charged attention economy, tracking, engagement algorithms fuelling doom scrolls and unnecessary notifications avalanches has become a hostile internet of stress and anxiety.
- thewebguyd 7mo ago
  Agreed. Maybe its rose-tinted goggles for me, but I feel like the internet was a better place (and encouraged a healthy relationship with technology) when it was a place you "went" instead of something thats with you all the time, always connected. Using the computer, or getting online required setting aside a block of time, and physically going to a desk (or library/computer lab). It didn't follow you when you were done, you shutdown the computer and went on with your life. There was a clear separation of online and irl, those identities weren't merged yet. It was very task focused. Yeah, I still got on the family computer and just browsed around for an hour, but for the most part it was something I got on to do something specific, as a tool, not an extension of my daily life.
  - aleph_minus_one 7mo ago
    > Maybe its rose-tinted goggles for me, but I feel like the internet was a better place (and encouraged a healthy relationship with technology) when it was a place you "went" instead of something thats with you all the time, always connected. In my experience the difference was rather that a lot of internet users of this generation were radically pro-privacy, and very opposed to any centralized service (they were willing to teach you a lot about setting up your own internet applications, websites or web applications under the promise that you don't use a centralized web platform and you delete your accounts there).

81 points by surprisetalk 7mo ago

[dead]

Call me old-fashioned, but I have a family computer. I got rid of my laptop, and got a desktop instead. It stays in the living room, in a desk drawer. The monitor is a portable monitor, and it gets put away when the computer is not in use. My kids aren't old enough to use it yet, but it will be the family computer eventually.

bombcar 7mo ago
We used to hide TVs when not in use, also - now we have TVs designed to be "always on" and show artwork instead. Out of sight, out of mine - I think it's generally a good idea.
stephbook 7mo ago
I've never bought a laptop or tablet for this very reason. No big phone (iPhone 13). I'm still writting this now, from the couch. I fear how much screen time others waste.
shovas 7mo ago
Legend

dupdup 7mo ago

Turkish word for computer is "bilgi-sayar"(info-counter) mag on the image.

Lalabadie 7mo ago

The fixed computer is also a huge factor to facilitate supervised computer use (and make it a shared experience!) with kids at home. As much as I agree with the point of the article, I keep getting tripped up that every second sentence is "It didn't X, it Y'ed". I think it's repeated to form a stylistic device in the second paragraph, but then the shape is interspersed so much in the rest of the text that it reads like a clumsy first write.

NewsaHackO 7mo ago
Yes, this is definitely AI-generated. It's always weird that people don't even attempt to sanitize the output to look a little more human. The last pic was very nostalgic, however. It's like we have shared experiences very similar to the corner computer in the living room, complete with the stack of CDs (which will never get completely used).
- imiric 7mo ago
  I can't say whether this was machine-generated or not, but the reason LLMs use these patterns is because they're often used by humans, which is what they're trained to mimic. LLM spam has now made it annoying, but there are many people who still write like this. Asking them to change their writing patterns because LLMs have ruined it for readers is not just unfair—it's offensive. (See what I did there? Double whammy!)
  - vardump 7mo ago
    Sigh. That's why I stopped using — (em dash)...
  - AlecSchueler 7mo ago
    > I can't say whether this was machine-generated or not, but the reason LLMs use these patterns is because they're often used by humans, which is what they're trained to mimic. It's definitely written by an AI. I understand that people use these same rhetoric devices but the word "mimic" is exactly right. They're not writing like humans, they're mimicking human writing in a way that feels extremely uncanny. (Hey look, I did the thing too!)
  - thewebguyd 7mo ago
    Thank you for saying this. I use those writing devices a lot, always have since I was young. I've always said I don't write like an LLM, the LLMs are copying me. Its also a common hallmark of neurodivergent writing, and it's frustrating to frequently get dismissed for being an LLM just because of writing patterns? I'm now having to deliberately re-word my emails and comments, spending additional time, to avoid being accused of being an LLM.

gensym 7mo ago

This is a lovely bit of writing, and really points to the value of constraints. Some of my favorite childhood memories were being at friends' houses, huddled over the computer, playing Space Quest or Zork. At one of my friends' houses, we were aware that Leisure Suit Larry was installed, and curious, but never played it because of the central location of the machine. I think the shift we've seen TV is something similar. When I was a kid, TV was viewed as an antisocial medium ("the boob tube"), but I have really fond memories of sitting with my family watching Quantum Leap or Growing Pains. Now that everyone has their own screen to watch TV, it seems the studios don't even bother trying to make shows that appeal to an entire family. We focus so much on the media (tv/internet/video games/books) when ascribing value, but, as this article indicates, the physical nature of the delivery (shared living room appliance vs portable individual screen) makes a huge difference.

piker 7mo ago
Yes! And music! What a social thing listening to a CD or watching MTV in someone's room used to be. Now it's just isolating.
relevant_stats 7mo ago
> This is a lovely bit of writing A lovely bit of AI slop. Edit - This is not the first time I'm observing this. Could somebody explain to me why the comments which point out the discussed texts are AI generated are being frequently downvoted on Hacker News? In the very same thread there is this apparently downvoted (as of now) comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47807528 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47807528 Why is it so, is this really this community's stance on LLM-generated, mostly weak and empty writing?
- AlecSchueler 7mo ago
  I think your comment was maybe downvoted for being so terse and dismissive. But you're right that it is anything but a good piece of writing and it is genuinely strange to see people act otherwise. > That kind of furniture organized more than just objects. It organized a relationship with technology. It suggested that the computer (and with it, the internet) was something used under particular conditions: seated, in that spot, for a certain amount of time. Something that was switched on and off, opened and closed. It's making a nice point and one that I'm sure most of the people here do find appealing, it's an idea that I relate to myself. But the words used to make that point are bordering on nonsense.

bwestergard 7mo ago

Poignantly in this instance, Utopia is from "ou-topos" (coined by Sir Thomas More in the early modern period). It literally means "no place".

smogcutter 7mo ago
The pun being that “eu-topos” would be “good place”.

junon 7mo ago

Sorry but is this just completely AI generated? Or does the author really love "not X but Y" devices?

shovas 7mo ago

Requisite youtube video: The Internet Used to Be a Place: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oYlcUbLAFmw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oYlcUbLAFmw

fellowniusmonk 7mo ago

I hated every moment of the family computer era. Hated the dialup, hated having to steal other users AOL passwords because my large family couldn't afford internet. Hated, later, having to keylog the local libraries ISDN line because the provider offered a free national dial in number for "traveling". The whole world of information available to become less ignorant and I can only use it for an hour a day. As a below poverty line child with heart defects who was prohibited from sports and a whole slew of other things, what we have now is fucked up because we've allowed every interaction to become a dopamine casino and we've skinners boxed ourselves straight to hell. This kind of nostalgia bait is actively harmful, there are clear patterns businesses based in america use and all that shit should be banned. Forcing everyone to use a real Id is an evil, making skinners box patterns illegal is much easier. I loved Juno email, I loved that rich people paid for the ads I easily ignored because I had a velcro TMNT wallet from a community free store but not a single dollar inside of it.

bitwize 7mo ago

> It’s not nostalgia. It’s something else: the distance left by an idea that no longer holds. sniff sniff... sniiiiiffffff... Yes, I can definitely smell AI. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Jbw5KX9TaXY https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Jbw5KX9TaXY I never experienced having just one computer for family use, but when internet finally came there was just one line for it and we had to limit our time and carefully coordinate when we got on. But for me that was also a time when computers were used for things other than online-stuff: programming, playing single-player games, drawing, or writing. There was also a sense that the internet was a place: not a specific place in the house, but "out there", while your own computer was "in here" where your stuff lived. The UI affordances of the time reflected this. The first two icons on the desktop in Windows 95 were called "My Computer" and "Network Neighborhood", allowing you to access your own computer, and other computers nearby with shared files. When old browsers connected to the internet, the "throbber" in the upper right corner would animate. This was distinct from the animated hourglass cursor that indicated your computer was doing some sort of processing, and was specifically designed to indicate that stuff from "out there" was currently being transferred to your machine. Because "out there" was unknown, it was dangerous. It was 42nd Street at night in 90s NYC, and you didn't know who you were going to bump into or what you might find. And then Steve Ballmer or somebody at Microsoft decided, you know what would be great? What if the browser was the OS, and everything on your machine were accessed just like it was online? One familiar interface for everything! That's why I still don't forgive Microsoft for its Windows 98 UI changes and browser integration. Not just monopoly and anticompetitive reasons, but because they blurred what I thought at the time to be an an extremely important distinction. To me it was a lot like what they were trying to do with making Windows 11 an "agentic OS": inviting danger to ordinary users and making it seem safe. (Geez, now I'm doing the thing.) Today of course it doesn't matter. Today everything is online all the time. If an application runs on your computer or phone, it's usually still to interact with some online service, but to more closely monitor and constrain how this is done.

deleted 7mo ago
[deleted]

Illniyar 7mo ago

I was a kid when we had a family computer in the living room. We mostly played games on it. It's really not fun playing games in the living room while everyone is around you doing other stuff. It's like being the only one watching TV on the sofa while others are reading or working.

Modified3019 7mo ago
Same, and agreed. It’s also annoying for everyone else who has to listen to the same few unit movement confirmation sounds hundreds of times in an hour.
Thorrez 7mo ago
One idea is 2 family computers next to each other. LAN party!

renewiltord 7mo ago

[flagged]

tlhunter 7mo ago
I actually found the LLM-generated image more annoying than the LLM-generated prose.

wxw 7mo ago

Regulating our digital experiences through the built environment is underrated. I like the idea of a dedicated internet corner at home: somehow both nostalgic and futuristic. Also related and enjoyable: cafes with no/limited WiFi hours and riding the subway with no signal.

GuB-42 7mo ago

Oh, it is not that family computer https://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Famicom https://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Famicom

lizardking 7mo ago
The Famicom was so cool in a way that the NES just never intended to be. Disk drives, a modem (online banking!), super funky aesthetics for the console and the carts, etc. Very ahead of its time.

mentalgear 7mo ago

> [the internet] It didn’t just have a place; it had a time. There were moments of access, moments of waiting, moments when it simply wasn’t available. You went in and came out. I feel like this physicality and time-constraint is what really helped you use it (the computer/internet) as a tool to enrich one's life. The introduction of the smart phone and the "always-on" internet that gave rise to a super-charged attention economy, tracking, engagement algorithms fuelling doom scrolls and unnecessary notifications avalanches has become a hostile internet of stress and anxiety.

thewebguyd 7mo ago
Agreed. Maybe its rose-tinted goggles for me, but I feel like the internet was a better place (and encouraged a healthy relationship with technology) when it was a place you "went" instead of something thats with you all the time, always connected. Using the computer, or getting online required setting aside a block of time, and physically going to a desk (or library/computer lab). It didn't follow you when you were done, you shutdown the computer and went on with your life. There was a clear separation of online and irl, those identities weren't merged yet. It was very task focused. Yeah, I still got on the family computer and just browsed around for an hour, but for the most part it was something I got on to do something specific, as a tool, not an extension of my daily life.
- aleph_minus_one 7mo ago
  > Maybe its rose-tinted goggles for me, but I feel like the internet was a better place (and encouraged a healthy relationship with technology) when it was a place you "went" instead of something thats with you all the time, always connected. In my experience the difference was rather that a lot of internet users of this generation were radically pro-privacy, and very opposed to any centralized service (they were willing to teach you a lot about setting up your own internet applications, websites or web applications under the promise that you don't use a centralized web platform and you delete your accounts there).