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Comment by zoidb | Hacker News Reader

Sigh, I believe the answer is "no". Cost is not the problem with tinkering. I don't think access to computing gizmos is an issue at all in the US. For me I surfed in on a wave of tinkering and innovation by building things that my friends were impressed by and played with (programming calculators, text adventure games, even some electronics). Where is it now? I'm not sure (and I would love to know) how kids these days are building things that are able to compete for valuable attention span. Especially if they are going head to head with psychologists who design smartphone games.

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I think children having their own general purpose computing devices is pretty important. Time sharing and the obligation not to break "the family computer" make it pretty useless as a tinkering platform, unless your parents are technical and comfortable with it. The individual devices children own are compilation targets, maybe, but they can't run text editors and compilers.

Cost of the actual computer is not the problem. All of these $50, $20, $5 computers conveniently ignore that fact that you also need $150+ for a monitor, USB hub, keyboard, mouse, WiFi adapter, etc. This quickly raises the price from "something a low-income family can easily spend on a child" to "no fucking way." I found OLPC a lot more compelling.

Still, I'm thankful for cheap hardware on which to run pirate AirPlay targets and homebrew IP cameras :).

> Cost of the actual computer is not the problem. All of these $50, $20, $5 computers conveniently ignore that fact that you also need $150+ for a monitor

Chip has an answer to that.[1] Not sure whether it is really usable enough for kids to work on, but I'd did a lot of work on my TI calculator, which didn't even have a qwerty keyboard.

[1] http://getchip.com/pages/pocketchip

I'm not sure about CHIP, but a RasberryPi can hook into our TV and I have several old USB keyboards and mice to plug into it. If you don't, you can get one for really cheap. It's the monitor that is most of the extra cost. (I also have a spare monitor, but I'm a computer guy so of course I have extra parts.) Anyway, if the idea is just to allow a kid to have their own computer to break/tinker with, then sharing the family TV to run it is OK. It doesn't solve the time-share issue. (I remember my little sister monopolizing the TV to watch Dumbo The Flying Elephant over and over again.)

> Time sharing and the obligation not to break "the family computer" make it pretty useless as a tinkering platform, unless your parents are technical and comfortable with it.

I follow the logic here, and intuitively agree, but anecdotally it was almost the exact opposite experience that started my interest in computers.

We got a computer mainly to help with personal accounting type things. Beyond what my mother knew of Excel, my parents were not at all technically savvy. Probably because of this (that is, that they didn't know how to restrict/follow what I was messing with) they gave me relatively free reign to tinker on our family computer from the age of about 8 on. After a few years I just fell into the de facto IT of the house.

I wonder if the problem now is that computers are used for so much more by adults? As long as I could fix/hide whatever I broke before my parents needed to update their budget or check their email, hardly even a daily ritual at the time, I was in the clear.

No need to spend $150 plus on a monitor/keyboard/mouse.

The tech stall in my local market was selling a 17" TFT that had DVI for £15 the other day (about $22.50), mice, keyboards etc are a few pounds, You could get everything you needed for about the price of the RPI if you shopped around for it.

I was tempted by the TFT, removed from it's case and built into something it would have been a useful thing.

About the cost:

A $9 C.H.I.P. (virtually un-google-able name, btw, absolutely terrible for noobs) comes with a standard RCA video cable. It has built-in WiFi and 4GB of NAND storage.

You need peripherals. Using USB stuff means you'll need a powered USB adapter (<$10 on Amazon). You can also use bluetooth. I like the bluetooth keyboards with a built-in trackpad. That's $20 and great for ease of use and flexibility. You can pop the chip on an empty video input (because most other devices are using HDMI) and just keep the keyboard on the coffee table. No cables, no mess.

You'll need a USB power supply for the device itself. I find it hard to believe that most people can't scrounge one up from an old smartphone, or is able to find one at Goodwill, but let's call that $10.

For monitor, used is definitely the way to go. CRT displays are practically free, as well as older liquid crystals. If you really need a new device, you can definitely spend less than $50 as the resolution of the device is still going to be the limiting factor.

So, with shipping for the CHIP, that's $35 for the average person that does have a USB power supply and junky TV.

> Where is it now? I'm not sure (and I would love to know) how kids these days are building things that are able to compete for valuable attention span.

I'd say it's videogames. I got into programming through glitching games, then scripting games, then programming games. I know a lot of other people my age (mid-20s) who had similar experiences.

Look at kids making various contraptions in Minecraft -- and look at how many of them go into the modding scene.

I don't think that tinkering experience has been lost; people just forget what a small fraction of the population was interested in this stuff in the first place.

Continuing on your thought; one thing I've noticed is that, even being only a couple years removed from the "kids these days", it's hard to appreciate how ~big~ things like minecraft are. Talking with my older coworkers, the same spark the parent comment spoke of is now being channeled into these shared digital creative experiences.

I know a 12 yo who made a simple game in Unity. I think he plays with making games in Python and Scratch too, though I haven't seen them.

Tools change, but interested kids still find a way to tinker.

>Sigh, I believe the answer is "no". Cost is not the problem with tinkering.

More to this point, my first tinkering was on an outdated, free, hand-me-down 286 from a neighbor. It was enough, though, to probably set in motion what has become the majority of my income later in life by working in computers throughout the years

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