I object to the entire concept of cheap-for-the-masses-of-huddled-yearning-to-breath-free-and-therefore-worthy-of-pious-donations-from-on-high. (Subtext: cast not your pearls before swine, lest they turn on ye and rend thee.)
My first computer was a TI 99 which cost me a fortune in 19-whatever. Plus the frigging PEbox and eu-land-hairshirt-programming-language-card. (I forget what's its called. Pasgul? Postal? Something. Was too expensive to do more than once and too painful to write in the checkbook.)
All I see that comes from this sort of thing is another acre of spam from parts of the world that are better left to eking out a subsistance with rakes made of cow bones.
heater said...
Is there any evidence to suggest that filling schools (or homes for that matter) with computers has ever enhanced the education of our children ?
Educationalists certainly say there are advantages and don't forget we're talking "their children" not "our children". They are in a totally different environment to what most of us here are. You could say the same about TV which we largely regard as entertainment but certainly does have an educational use and especially where traditional educational resources are thin on the ground.
heater said...
Coincidently I've just been spending hours watching lectures on VLSI design and such coming out of India. www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=D2350A83B752C861 brilliant! All blackboard and chalk. Which brings me back to the $10 web browser....
I've no objection to that ( another worthy goal ) but web browsers are only useful with an internet connection.
Fred Hawkins said...
All I see that comes from this sort of thing is another acre of spam from parts of the world that are better left to eking out a subsistance with rakes made of cow bones.
Best let them rot then. Or maybe kill them now, save them from their misery ? It's the kindest thing to do.
Educationalists seem to say a lot of things. But you can't beat a good teacher who knows his stuff, is contagiously enthusiastic about their subject, and knows how to teach. Blackboard and all. Now if you don't have such people on hand, dumping a pile of hardware down is not necessarily going to help. Which seems to be increasingly the case.
"web browsers are only useful with an internet connection" Now I think we come to a good point. None of this is helpful without an infrastructure. I guess there is a chicken and egg problem there.
"Let them rot" no. As long as there maybe one more Ramanujan hiding amongst the chickens and goats it's worth the effort.
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For me, the past is not over yet.
GET UNLIMITED FREE HIGH QUALITY SLIGHTLY USED WORKING COMPUTERS FROM THE USA GOVERNMENT!!!
Just go to the dumpster of your local public school in the summer time. Get your own Pentium 4 with XP today!
(and, I suppose, if you paid for them with your taxes you can get tax credits by donating them to the needy)
Fred Hawkins said...
All I see that comes from this sort of thing is another acre of spam from parts of the world that are better left to eking out a subsistance with rakes made of cow bones.
Best let them rot then. Or maybe kill them now, save them from their misery ? It's the kindest thing to do.
Kind? Not really. My point is that there are dues to be paid, schools to go to, time to put in, things to think. Plus it would be nice that there is a more or less benevolent society that acknowledges property rights. Plus I had to walk to school through snow drifts that were as tall as small supermen, with wind driven drifts of frozen shards that blasted the slow-moving into tatters.
On the other hand, I am glad you like my favorite sentence of that post; it's nice to see it featured so nicely. Kinda like a museum piece.
My perspective is simple. I know that I, and many of my friends, had an entire world opened up for us by those "worthless" microcomputers
of the 80's. I'm not saying just computer programming, but math, electronics, games, all sorts of things. Those things and the Basic they
came with were extensions of my brain; they let me ask questions and get answers I never would have been able to otherwise.
There is nothing comparable today; the modern PC does not come with an accessible programming environment, and it certainly does not
come with any accessible documentation (for young children). And further, the modern PC with its all-powerful web browser and chat rooms
actually poses a *danger* to children.
I saved up from my minimum wage job to buy my (second) computer, a TRS-80 color computer---and it was the best investment of my
life, in spades.
I just want children growing up to have the same opportunities that I had.
On pearls before swine and from-on-high, certainly they are welcome to throw the devices away; I don't care. There will certainly be those
few for whom the device is a window into a world of intellectual exploration, of curiosity, of the joy of creation.
Those "psuedo-laptops" are a disgrace. Without some sort of rudimentary programming capability, they make kids think computers are
nothing more than multi-purpose appliances, and never introduce them to the world of wonder that is programming.
But we are talking about different things, of course; I am talking about a toy I want to build for kids in my neighborhood and across the
United States; the $12 computer project is trying to save the world.
What's the evidence that this plan will help the 3rd world?
It seems like none was presented & or was even asked for. Remember that rhetoric & anecdotes are not evidence.
This seems to me to be a bunch of engineers boasting - they don't have a design. They don't have a plan.
The elephant in the room is that the poor don't need cheap computers. They need personal property rights and economic & social freedom.
As a computer nerd, it's a fun question, though - how useful of a computer can you make with a 6502? It's fun if you like intellectual challenges, I guess. But not the architecture I would choose!
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Hmmm. Ya know, that CPM emulator could do the 1983 TANDY TRS-80 Model 100 laptop (with it's 8085 CPU),
which has BASIC, old fashioned internet connectivity, graphic LCD for games and stuff, and rarely
used expandability. It wouldn't be impossible to upgrade it to a color LCD and make it Y2K compatible.
(Mine still works great, but says it's 1908.)
If someone was going to build a cheap computer, they should consider getting rid of all the extra useless chips,
for example the two chips on either side of the keyboard and mouse and USB connectors. I remember a mouse
that had two variable resistors contacting the ball and that went to a simple joystick port, and keyboards that
self scanned ASCII with diodes, and bit-banged RS-232C ports. Before PC's they had wonderful graphics and sound
without graphics and sound cards, and they worked with TVs, not a variety of peculiar incompatible monitors.
I suppose we use some excessively complex peripherals and drivers on the Propeller because they are cheaper than scat,
and the simpler alternatives are not and never were. But why should the simple ASCII keyboards cost more than the
incredibly complex and illogical junk we have instead? I have a TI/99-4A keyboard and it's got no electronics on it at all.
Get rid of the Java bloatware c**p and a web browser will easily work on a ARM with 4 megs and running say QNX or Bluebottle(a multimedia variant of Oberon for Intel SMP's and ARM systems). Heck I remember web surfing on a Windows 3.1 system with 1 meg of Ram. Of course that was in the days when Java was a cup a coffee.
Virand
Building a cheap computer with design concepts from early desktop pc's like Tandy CoCo, Atari ST or Amiga I think would be a great idea.
I have one idea for a low cost pc that uses a Coldfire(since I know the chip) and a Prop, though it hasn't gotten beyond the planning phase.
Some think: let's forget about those... apes ? that sorrily live in "third world" countries, that... ahem we keep that way.
Some others think: A computer like that helped my own curiosity, desire to learn and so on. It is a great idea,
Others: Give them nothing, they are better off with some other basic need covered.
Just as an anecdote: When I was ten I got my first computer, a ZX81 clone made in Brazil. It helped me develop some skills. But it was not till I got a PC that things started to go... faster. I was also a bit older .
Here in Germany, 13% of all kids are living under the poverty line (officially... so maybe more) So I ask myself... could those computers be useful *also* here ? How many are in USA ? and in the UK ? So please... get a bit (more) real.
Those computers are tools, that maybe some will think I'd rather have some bread than some useless technological thing I cannot eat does not mean that some others, like me, see it as a useful mean of learning "how to fish". The "I want to save the world and do something BIG" mentality... well it is short fetched. People have to save themselves, give them tools and please: stop oppressing them!.
Educational value... to see relationships between numbers, you have to play with the numbers. In our schools, they still start off with graphing calculators.
Games... possibly the most important feature. We have our gamesters that can crank out a game in about a day...
Put them both together and you have kids playing and learning.
AND you can put the EEProm on a card... so that you can check out applications from a library... without programming it at all... Then you get all of the power of the Prop, without the hassle of programming... all you need is a standard configuration and you are good to go.
Oldbit... I think you have a quorum here[noparse]:)[/noparse]
rokicki : "Those "psuedo-laptops" are a disgrace. Without some sort of rudimentary programming capability, they make kids think computers are nothing more than multi-purpose appliances, and never introduce them to the world of wonder that is programming"
Ale : "Those computers are tools"
That's the way the majority of people do use computers and PC's, as multi-purpose or specific-purpose appliances, tools to do a job. Programming of computers is a vocation of a much smaller group.
It is therefore logical to address the needs of the larger market especially when those in that market need basic skills before they can even dream of taking up programming. Not providing a means to program is a lack but not necessarily a debilitating one.
The goal is to help people better and advance themselves, to provide the tools to do that, not to teach them programming. If it encourages them into that field then all well and good but that's not the primary goal.
It's a bit premature to worry about people not having the joys of being able to program when they don't have the joy of being able to read or write or being able to do simple math. The basics have to be addressed first. If a $10 computer can do that then it's a great idea IMO, it can always be bettered once the ball is rolling.
Is there anyone here who learned to read or write or do simple arithmetic from a computer ?
I'm always wondering how this is supposed to work.
As I said before we are swimming in computers but kids come out of school unable to do mental arithmetic (or on paper) they need a calculator or computer. So much for seeing the relations between numbers. Perhaps they can read but writing seems to be a lost art for many.
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For me, the past is not over yet.
I have always loathed math. My highschool teacher spent months trying to help me understand
simple algebra. He finally got disgusted and transfered me to business math. As a result, I can
function in society and balance my checkbook without special skills.
A few months later when I started learning to program a microcomputer, I printed out some
of my code and brought it to him. (Containing simple algebra equations.) The guy flipped.
It wasn't until I had a way to APPLY the math did I start to understand it. The computer
of that era gave me a reason to use it. Today's computers are lost to this.. worthless for
almost everything except maintaining a social life for todays kids.
OBC
heater said...
Is there anyone here who learned to read or write or do simple arithmetic from a computer ?
I'm always wondering how this is supposed to work.
As I said before we are swimming in computers but kids come out of school unable to do mental arithmetic (or on paper) they need a calculator or computer. So much for seeing the relations between numbers. Perhaps they can read but writing seems to be a lost art for many.
heater said...
Is there anyone here who learned to read or write or do simple arithmetic from a computer ?
Probably not, but how much of that is down to people having had parents who were literate with numeracy skills and a well established and well resourced educational system with professionally trained and skilled teachers to help us ?
That computers may not have much of a role in first-world education doesn't mean they don't have more of a role in other circumstances. See the MIT resources and others on the benefits of computer-assisted learning in the third-world.
A computer by itself won't teach anyone to read or write or do maths but it does aid self-learning once basics are grasped and allows a limited resource of teaching staff to leave some on their own with a computer, still learning, while they deal with specific problems elsewhere. It's about maximising the effectiveness of what limited resources there are.
It would be great if all kids everywhere had the same opportunities and access to resources we do but the fact is they don't and while this in itself is not the entire solution to world pain I don't personally understand why there seems to be such negativity towards the proposed project.
Is there anyone here who learned to read or write or do simple arithmetic from a computer ?
I wonder if children are interested enough in the internet to learn to read and write on it.
I think watching Sesame Street probably works better, otherwise this happens:
O hai ppl! Dis iz da tr00f 4 u 2 no.
Or maybe "this is your brain on" a microwave cell phone texting. (1980's:an egg on a frying pan is your brain on drugs)
Man, I'm gone for a bit, and look at you guys talking about this stuff!
Quorum indeed! Count me in.
I'm with OBC on the math bit. Just learning about it is rough. Applying it though --golden!
Re: Learning to read, write and do math on computer. IMHO, the reading and writing can happen easily enough. Just get people to talking and learning, and those two skills improve rapidly. My own kids were kind of slow on those things. Not ability wise, just motivation wise. After putting them on the net, and giving them some activities, like the scavenger hunt, or prove Dad is wrong game, they started reading. (I picked subjects I knew would tease them into learning more) Writing has been a nice progression.
Sure, there is the IM lingo problem. Good god, they will even vocalize the things, actually saying "LOL" at times. Generational thing, and not a big worry, just bizzare to me. However, they do now read and write quickly. Writing well is taking time, but writing at all was an improvement.
The big deal with kids are the connections between them. These up and coming generations KNOW they can be connected far more than we grew up connected. That gets them interested in core reading and writing. Some nudging from parents can push them into using the computer for these things, and I don't see much wrong with it. Look at it this way. If they have the core UI hurdles licked, then obtaining higher level skills is easier. It's working that way for my kids.
One thing I did do was limit them to paper until 8th grade. They could use the computer for research, and could print things out like pictures and quotes if they wanted, but their written works were on paper, and I edited them in the classic style. They hated this, but it worked nicely to establish manual written skills. Composing on paper comes with some limitations that really do force a person to think things through before just writing a bunch of stuff. I don't think the computer really compares to that.
Also, limited the word processor spell and syntax / grammar check early on too. Again, they could use a dictionary, or the Internet to obtain the correct forms. I was more interested in them understanding the forms and being able to recognize when they have to have good form and when they don't. Same with language. There are boundaries on these things. If they know the boundaries and where the tools are, they are going to do fine.
Doing math, for those that just don't do math, requires application and with that application something solid gained. With me as a kid, getting the computer to do stuff was the gain! In fact, at the time I was working on them with my high school peers, NOBODY even understood computer math. The math teacher considered binary a curio that nobody cares about. Ha! Little did that guy know.
We spent hours on blackboards, working out bit masks and boiling down equations into 8 bit chunks we could use to do graphics. Little things like a faster pixel plotter took some serious learning to get done. For us, games and other video and audio activities were the motivator. We would copy and share commercial games, and to do that, we cracked them, one by one, starting with the in memory code and working from there.
I've got mixed feelings about accessibility. On one hand, when we were kids (well most of us), it was possible to obtain a simple computer and then go to the local grocery store to read magazines on how to do stuff with it. COMPUTE!, Creative Computing, BYTE and others were dollars well spent! I couldn't wait for each issue of the month to arrive! Would buy it, then go home and type in the code, watch my computer do interesting stuff, then play with the code, then apply the code to my own projects.
The computers themselves were a lot like the prop. It was totally possible to grok the entire machine! Today, I don't think that's true, but I don't see that as being the major hurdle.
Expectations are the major problem today.
We like the prop because it does a LOT for a single chip. It's also flexible and somewhat unique. Getting it to do interesting video things, or make sound, or sample a sensor are all seriously good fun and learning. Of course, the expectations surrounding that make it great.
People today have much higher expectations.
Getting more than 100 colors on the screen, or scrolling, multiple sound channels, etc... are all well beneath the expectations set for most computing experiences. Put simply, they look lame to a lot of people. Having that bar raised so high also raises the barrier to learning and application as well, making the do it yourself nut more difficult to crack.
Many people will say, why bother doing TV graphics when we've got impressive 3D hardware displays to look at and enjoy. Well, that's valid, but it also takes a small army to produce anything like that, and that brings a barrier to entry with it, turning the vast majority of us into simple users, even though we could do a lot more.
The current retro computing scene is an excellent one and it's attracting some small number of younger people. We have members on this board who are HS age, right? The Atari scene I participate in has a 14 year old who just got done figuring out how to do sound on the CoCO in 6809 assembly language! That's right where many of us were, and I think expectations have a lot to do with getting people there.
So, in these places where many of those expectations are not yet set, putting programmable hardware in their hands is gonna do some serious good.
As for here, we need parents, teachers and mentors managing kids expectations in such a way that makes the learning both possible and rewarding.
The early times are not coming back. Today it's a PSP, Wii, and or other things to compete with. Not gonna happen with anything simple enough to toy with. Taking games as an example though, a focus on the simple art of gaming, can compete! And doing that can happen on simple hardware. Sharing that experience with others is where it's at. Writing a game is fun. Writing it with a friend is more fun, and watching others play it is seriously fun. Playing the works of others helps too.
Extend that to simple and fun projects, and we've got Parallax in a nut shell. Which is why most of us are here.
Sorry to ramble.
I think a simple Prop computer makes perfect sense for these things. We are almost there, but for still really needing enabling technology to make it all happen. Soon, a self-hosting prop environment will be capable of enough to empower that spark. Just supply some core docs, plans or simple kits and users can be off and running with just that. IMHO, getting there is key. The $12 project is about that.
Well, my peers and I didn't have this. There was ONE guy with a modem, and it was used to get games mostly. The rest was doing projects and sharing them with others. Most of those projects were games, but not all.
Somebody mentioned the Apple ][noparse][[/noparse], and I've just got to comment some on that.
In the schools where I lived, we had Apples. Most of us at home had other machines because the Apple machines were expensive and somewhat limited in terms of multi-media capability.
The core learning necessary to really get into the computer was done on the Apples. Why? Because the Apple machines were perfectly open. All of it was documented and that was enough to figure things out. The CoCo was good too in that regard. Other machines, like the Ataris were closed and somewhat hidden, until stuff got published later.
It would have been harder to start with that kind of machine and that's how most computers are today.
Whatever gets put into the hands of people, it needs to just be open and self-hosting. Those start the ball rolling as those interested can then grok the whole thing and apply it how they see fit. If you took an Apple ][noparse][[/noparse] today with it's books and just put it out there, stuff would happen just as it did the first time through.
Publish the core ROM and software bits, with comments and some explanatory text, and that's it. The rest can happen, with NO other infrastructure.
I submit it absolutely will happen too. People see the potential, become engaged and start to want to apply it. From there, infrastructure actually happens!
In this case, I suspect some infrastructure will form that surrounds the platform, then will merge with the rest of the established stuff, potentially bringing all of us new things in the process.
potatohead said...
Many people will say, why bother doing TV graphics when we've got impressive 3D hardware displays to look at and enjoy. Well, that's valid, but it also takes a small army to produce anything like that, and that brings a barrier to entry with it, turning the vast majority of us into simple users, even though we could do a lot more.
Whatever gets put into the hands of people, it needs to just be open and self-hosting. Those start the ball rolling as those interested can then grok the whole thing and apply it how they see fit. If you took an Apple ][noparse][[/noparse] today with it's books and just put it out there, stuff would happen just as it did the first time through.
Publish the core ROM and software bits, with comments and some explanatory text, and that's it. The rest can happen, with NO other infrastructure.
Hardware wise it wouldn't be too difficult, lots of cool chips to choose from - Prop, ARM, Coldfire if you want 32bit power. If you want 16/32 then there's the 65816, the MC68k, etc.
The problem is developing the software from the OS to the development system(compiler, editor, etc).
Comments
My first computer was a TI 99 which cost me a fortune in 19-whatever. Plus the frigging PEbox and eu-land-hairshirt-programming-language-card. (I forget what's its called. Pasgul? Postal? Something. Was too expensive to do more than once and too painful to write in the checkbook.)
All I see that comes from this sort of thing is another acre of spam from parts of the world that are better left to eking out a subsistance with rakes made of cow bones.
Educationalists certainly say there are advantages and don't forget we're talking "their children" not "our children". They are in a totally different environment to what most of us here are. You could say the same about TV which we largely regard as entertainment but certainly does have an educational use and especially where traditional educational resources are thin on the ground.
I've no objection to that ( another worthy goal ) but web browsers are only useful with an internet connection.
Best let them rot then. Or maybe kill them now, save them from their misery ? It's the kindest thing to do.
"web browsers are only useful with an internet connection" Now I think we come to a good point. None of this is helpful without an infrastructure. I guess there is a chicken and egg problem there.
"Let them rot" no. As long as there maybe one more Ramanujan hiding amongst the chickens and goats it's worth the effort.
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For me, the past is not over yet.
Just go to the dumpster of your local public school in the summer time. Get your own Pentium 4 with XP today!
(and, I suppose, if you paid for them with your taxes you can get tax credits by donating them to the needy)
Post Edited (VIRAND) : 8/7/2008 7:40:10 PM GMT
On the other hand, I am glad you like my favorite sentence of that post; it's nice to see it featured so nicely. Kinda like a museum piece.
Tell you what: you be Kyle and I'll be Cartman.
of the 80's. I'm not saying just computer programming, but math, electronics, games, all sorts of things. Those things and the Basic they
came with were extensions of my brain; they let me ask questions and get answers I never would have been able to otherwise.
There is nothing comparable today; the modern PC does not come with an accessible programming environment, and it certainly does not
come with any accessible documentation (for young children). And further, the modern PC with its all-powerful web browser and chat rooms
actually poses a *danger* to children.
I saved up from my minimum wage job to buy my (second) computer, a TRS-80 color computer---and it was the best investment of my
life, in spades.
I just want children growing up to have the same opportunities that I had.
On pearls before swine and from-on-high, certainly they are welcome to throw the devices away; I don't care. There will certainly be those
few for whom the device is a window into a world of intellectual exploration, of curiosity, of the joy of creation.
Those "psuedo-laptops" are a disgrace. Without some sort of rudimentary programming capability, they make kids think computers are
nothing more than multi-purpose appliances, and never introduce them to the world of wonder that is programming.
But we are talking about different things, of course; I am talking about a toy I want to build for kids in my neighborhood and across the
United States; the $12 computer project is trying to save the world.
OBC
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New to the Propeller?
Getting started with a Propeller Protoboard?
Check out: Introduction to the Proboard & Propeller Cookbook 1.4
Updates to the Cookbook are now posted to: Propeller.warrantyvoid.us
Got an SD card connected? - PropDOS
What's the evidence that this plan will help the 3rd world?
It seems like none was presented & or was even asked for. Remember that rhetoric & anecdotes are not evidence.
This seems to me to be a bunch of engineers boasting - they don't have a design. They don't have a plan.
The elephant in the room is that the poor don't need cheap computers. They need personal property rights and economic & social freedom.
As a computer nerd, it's a fun question, though - how useful of a computer can you make with a 6502? It's fun if you like intellectual challenges, I guess. But not the architecture I would choose!
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Concentrate on understanding the problem, not applying the tool
which has BASIC, old fashioned internet connectivity, graphic LCD for games and stuff, and rarely
used expandability. It wouldn't be impossible to upgrade it to a color LCD and make it Y2K compatible.
(Mine still works great, but says it's 1908.)
If someone was going to build a cheap computer, they should consider getting rid of all the extra useless chips,
for example the two chips on either side of the keyboard and mouse and USB connectors. I remember a mouse
that had two variable resistors contacting the ball and that went to a simple joystick port, and keyboards that
self scanned ASCII with diodes, and bit-banged RS-232C ports. Before PC's they had wonderful graphics and sound
without graphics and sound cards, and they worked with TVs, not a variety of peculiar incompatible monitors.
I suppose we use some excessively complex peripherals and drivers on the Propeller because they are cheaper than scat,
and the simpler alternatives are not and never were. But why should the simple ASCII keyboards cost more than the
incredibly complex and illogical junk we have instead? I have a TI/99-4A keyboard and it's got no electronics on it at all.
Get rid of the Java bloatware c**p and a web browser will easily work on a ARM with 4 megs and running say QNX or Bluebottle(a multimedia variant of Oberon for Intel SMP's and ARM systems). Heck I remember web surfing on a Windows 3.1 system with 1 meg of Ram. Of course that was in the days when Java was a cup a coffee.
Virand
Building a cheap computer with design concepts from early desktop pc's like Tandy CoCo, Atari ST or Amiga I think would be a great idea.
I have one idea for a low cost pc that uses a Coldfire(since I know the chip) and a Prop, though it hasn't gotten beyond the planning phase.
Leon
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Amateur radio callsign: G1HSM
Suzuki SV1000S motorcycle
Post Edited (Leon) : 8/8/2008 9:34:57 AM GMT
Some think: let's forget about those... apes ? that sorrily live in "third world" countries, that... ahem we keep that way.
Some others think: A computer like that helped my own curiosity, desire to learn and so on. It is a great idea,
Others: Give them nothing, they are better off with some other basic need covered.
Just as an anecdote: When I was ten I got my first computer, a ZX81 clone made in Brazil. It helped me develop some skills. But it was not till I got a PC that things started to go... faster. I was also a bit older
Here in Germany, 13% of all kids are living under the poverty line (officially... so maybe more) So I ask myself... could those computers be useful *also* here ? How many are in USA ? and in the UK ? So please... get a bit (more) real.
Those computers are tools, that maybe some will think I'd rather have some bread than some useless technological thing I cannot eat does not mean that some others, like me, see it as a useful mean of learning "how to fish". The "I want to save the world and do something BIG" mentality... well it is short fetched. People have to save themselves, give them tools and please: stop oppressing them!.
Games... possibly the most important feature. We have our gamesters that can crank out a game in about a day...
Put them both together and you have kids playing and learning.
AND you can put the EEProm on a card... so that you can check out applications from a library... without programming it at all... Then you get all of the power of the Prop, without the hassle of programming... all you need is a standard configuration and you are good to go.
Oldbit... I think you have a quorum here[noparse]:)[/noparse]
ILMP
Ale : "Those computers are tools"
That's the way the majority of people do use computers and PC's, as multi-purpose or specific-purpose appliances, tools to do a job. Programming of computers is a vocation of a much smaller group.
It is therefore logical to address the needs of the larger market especially when those in that market need basic skills before they can even dream of taking up programming. Not providing a means to program is a lack but not necessarily a debilitating one.
The goal is to help people better and advance themselves, to provide the tools to do that, not to teach them programming. If it encourages them into that field then all well and good but that's not the primary goal.
It's a bit premature to worry about people not having the joys of being able to program when they don't have the joy of being able to read or write or being able to do simple math. The basics have to be addressed first. If a $10 computer can do that then it's a great idea IMO, it can always be bettered once the ball is rolling.
I'm always wondering how this is supposed to work.
As I said before we are swimming in computers but kids come out of school unable to do mental arithmetic (or on paper) they need a calculator or computer. So much for seeing the relations between numbers. Perhaps they can read but writing seems to be a lost art for many.
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For me, the past is not over yet.
simple algebra. He finally got disgusted and transfered me to business math. As a result, I can
function in society and balance my checkbook without special skills.
A few months later when I started learning to program a microcomputer, I printed out some
of my code and brought it to him. (Containing simple algebra equations.) The guy flipped.
It wasn't until I had a way to APPLY the math did I start to understand it. The computer
of that era gave me a reason to use it. Today's computers are lost to this.. worthless for
almost everything except maintaining a social life for todays kids.
OBC
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Probably not, but how much of that is down to people having had parents who were literate with numeracy skills and a well established and well resourced educational system with professionally trained and skilled teachers to help us ?
That computers may not have much of a role in first-world education doesn't mean they don't have more of a role in other circumstances. See the MIT resources and others on the benefits of computer-assisted learning in the third-world.
A computer by itself won't teach anyone to read or write or do maths but it does aid self-learning once basics are grasped and allows a limited resource of teaching staff to leave some on their own with a computer, still learning, while they deal with specific problems elsewhere. It's about maximising the effectiveness of what limited resources there are.
It would be great if all kids everywhere had the same opportunities and access to resources we do but the fact is they don't and while this in itself is not the entire solution to world pain I don't personally understand why there seems to be such negativity towards the proposed project.
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I wonder if children are interested enough in the internet to learn to read and write on it.
I think watching Sesame Street probably works better, otherwise this happens:
O hai ppl! Dis iz da tr00f 4 u 2 no.
Or maybe "this is your brain on" a microwave cell phone texting. (1980's:an egg on a frying pan is your brain on drugs)
Quorum indeed! Count me in.
I'm with OBC on the math bit. Just learning about it is rough. Applying it though --golden!
Re: Learning to read, write and do math on computer. IMHO, the reading and writing can happen easily enough. Just get people to talking and learning, and those two skills improve rapidly. My own kids were kind of slow on those things. Not ability wise, just motivation wise. After putting them on the net, and giving them some activities, like the scavenger hunt, or prove Dad is wrong game, they started reading. (I picked subjects I knew would tease them into learning more) Writing has been a nice progression.
Sure, there is the IM lingo problem. Good god, they will even vocalize the things, actually saying "LOL" at times. Generational thing, and not a big worry, just bizzare to me. However, they do now read and write quickly. Writing well is taking time, but writing at all was an improvement.
The big deal with kids are the connections between them. These up and coming generations KNOW they can be connected far more than we grew up connected. That gets them interested in core reading and writing. Some nudging from parents can push them into using the computer for these things, and I don't see much wrong with it. Look at it this way. If they have the core UI hurdles licked, then obtaining higher level skills is easier. It's working that way for my kids.
One thing I did do was limit them to paper until 8th grade. They could use the computer for research, and could print things out like pictures and quotes if they wanted, but their written works were on paper, and I edited them in the classic style. They hated this, but it worked nicely to establish manual written skills. Composing on paper comes with some limitations that really do force a person to think things through before just writing a bunch of stuff. I don't think the computer really compares to that.
Also, limited the word processor spell and syntax / grammar check early on too. Again, they could use a dictionary, or the Internet to obtain the correct forms. I was more interested in them understanding the forms and being able to recognize when they have to have good form and when they don't. Same with language. There are boundaries on these things. If they know the boundaries and where the tools are, they are going to do fine.
Doing math, for those that just don't do math, requires application and with that application something solid gained. With me as a kid, getting the computer to do stuff was the gain! In fact, at the time I was working on them with my high school peers, NOBODY even understood computer math. The math teacher considered binary a curio that nobody cares about. Ha! Little did that guy know.
We spent hours on blackboards, working out bit masks and boiling down equations into 8 bit chunks we could use to do graphics. Little things like a faster pixel plotter took some serious learning to get done. For us, games and other video and audio activities were the motivator. We would copy and share commercial games, and to do that, we cracked them, one by one, starting with the in memory code and working from there.
I've got mixed feelings about accessibility. On one hand, when we were kids (well most of us), it was possible to obtain a simple computer and then go to the local grocery store to read magazines on how to do stuff with it. COMPUTE!, Creative Computing, BYTE and others were dollars well spent! I couldn't wait for each issue of the month to arrive! Would buy it, then go home and type in the code, watch my computer do interesting stuff, then play with the code, then apply the code to my own projects.
The computers themselves were a lot like the prop. It was totally possible to grok the entire machine! Today, I don't think that's true, but I don't see that as being the major hurdle.
Expectations are the major problem today.
We like the prop because it does a LOT for a single chip. It's also flexible and somewhat unique. Getting it to do interesting video things, or make sound, or sample a sensor are all seriously good fun and learning. Of course, the expectations surrounding that make it great.
People today have much higher expectations.
Getting more than 100 colors on the screen, or scrolling, multiple sound channels, etc... are all well beneath the expectations set for most computing experiences. Put simply, they look lame to a lot of people. Having that bar raised so high also raises the barrier to learning and application as well, making the do it yourself nut more difficult to crack.
Many people will say, why bother doing TV graphics when we've got impressive 3D hardware displays to look at and enjoy. Well, that's valid, but it also takes a small army to produce anything like that, and that brings a barrier to entry with it, turning the vast majority of us into simple users, even though we could do a lot more.
The current retro computing scene is an excellent one and it's attracting some small number of younger people. We have members on this board who are HS age, right? The Atari scene I participate in has a 14 year old who just got done figuring out how to do sound on the CoCO in 6809 assembly language! That's right where many of us were, and I think expectations have a lot to do with getting people there.
So, in these places where many of those expectations are not yet set, putting programmable hardware in their hands is gonna do some serious good.
As for here, we need parents, teachers and mentors managing kids expectations in such a way that makes the learning both possible and rewarding.
The early times are not coming back. Today it's a PSP, Wii, and or other things to compete with. Not gonna happen with anything simple enough to toy with. Taking games as an example though, a focus on the simple art of gaming, can compete! And doing that can happen on simple hardware. Sharing that experience with others is where it's at. Writing a game is fun. Writing it with a friend is more fun, and watching others play it is seriously fun. Playing the works of others helps too.
Extend that to simple and fun projects, and we've got Parallax in a nut shell. Which is why most of us are here.
Sorry to ramble.
I think a simple Prop computer makes perfect sense for these things. We are almost there, but for still really needing enabling technology to make it all happen. Soon, a self-hosting prop environment will be capable of enough to empower that spark. Just supply some core docs, plans or simple kits and users can be off and running with just that. IMHO, getting there is key. The $12 project is about that.
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Well, my peers and I didn't have this. There was ONE guy with a modem, and it was used to get games mostly. The rest was doing projects and sharing them with others. Most of those projects were games, but not all.
Somebody mentioned the Apple ][noparse][[/noparse], and I've just got to comment some on that.
In the schools where I lived, we had Apples. Most of us at home had other machines because the Apple machines were expensive and somewhat limited in terms of multi-media capability.
The core learning necessary to really get into the computer was done on the Apples. Why? Because the Apple machines were perfectly open. All of it was documented and that was enough to figure things out. The CoCo was good too in that regard. Other machines, like the Ataris were closed and somewhat hidden, until stuff got published later.
It would have been harder to start with that kind of machine and that's how most computers are today.
Whatever gets put into the hands of people, it needs to just be open and self-hosting. Those start the ball rolling as those interested can then grok the whole thing and apply it how they see fit. If you took an Apple ][noparse][[/noparse] today with it's books and just put it out there, stuff would happen just as it did the first time through.
Publish the core ROM and software bits, with comments and some explanatory text, and that's it. The rest can happen, with NO other infrastructure.
I submit it absolutely will happen too. People see the potential, become engaged and start to want to apply it. From there, infrastructure actually happens!
In this case, I suspect some infrastructure will form that surrounds the platform, then will merge with the rest of the established stuff, potentially bringing all of us new things in the process.
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DIY omnidirectional 3D projection animation of plane flying over mountains and islands.
Publish the core ROM and software bits, with comments and some explanatory text, and that's it. The rest can happen, with NO other infrastructure.
Hardware wise it wouldn't be too difficult, lots of cool chips to choose from - Prop, ARM, Coldfire if you want 32bit power. If you want 16/32 then there's the 65816, the MC68k, etc.
The problem is developing the software from the OS to the development system(compiler, editor, etc).
"Looks like the Boston Herald got it wrong"
"UPDATE: MIT team working on $12 NES, not Apple II"
full article: http://blogs.zdnet.com/gadgetreviews/?p=320&tag=nl.e539
I've enjoyed the interesting discussion here though.
Duffer