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conz

Recommend you look at something like the Raspberry Pi 400:

https://www.raspberrypi.com/products/raspberry-pi-400-unit/

These are about USD100 a pop and need a HDMI screen and you're all set.

And then configure it to run a Basic or Python REPL on boot, to give that 1970s home PC feel.

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I also think the raspberry pi 400 is your best bet right now. It has that feeling of being an 80’s computer, but it boots to a modern graphical desktop with lots of open source educational software that they can do explore freely.

If you want your kids to dip their toe into the field of programming, show them around scratch for 10 minutes and let them explore on their own. Set them up with a scratch account and they can work on their projects on any computer with web access. My 10yo started with scratch a few years ago and is now starting to learn javascript. The real challenge to getting them into this stuff is the lack of boredom. Kids have so many options to keep themselves entertained nowadays that they tend to not be bored long enough to start tinkering.

I bought one of these for my kid. He’s not quite old enough for it yet. Key challenge: what software do I put on it?

My main ideas are:

(1) touch typing instruction game

(2) some way to interact with a very controlled group of people… maybe a mastodon or matrix server I run in the homelab and limit to our immediate friends.

I get this same sense. I really want to need an RPi 400 out of nostalgia. My original machine was an Atari 400. It's not much to justify, but I can't think of what I'd actually do with it, other than put it on a shelf like a hipster.

I think the closest recreated retro-experience is the Commander X16[0]. The thing I like about it is that it specifically isn't a modern computer. Everything is simple right in the hardware. Other choices are often capable of running a full Linux but then used to run a script or emulator. There's definitely the realistic possibility of getting to fully know your machine, especially given that there's extensive documentation and a community.

Here's some hardware specs from c64-wiki[1] and it 'boots to basic'

    CPU: WDC 65C02S, a static descendant of the 6502
    Speed: 8MHz
    Video: The VERA module generates VGA (and other formats)
           tile and bitmap modes; 128 sprites; 128K video RAM;
           palette with 256 colors selected from a total range of 4096
    Sound: Yamaha YM2151 sound chip.
           16-channel stereo Programmable Sound Generator
           PCM audio playback up to 48kHz 16-bit stereo
    RAM: 40K "low" or "BASIC" RAM
         An additional 512K SRAM (expandable to 2MB) in 8K banks
    ROM: Banked in 16K groups; contains an upgraded Commodore KERNAL,
         DOS functions and a 16 bit ABI, and an upgraded BASIC 2.0
    Media: An on-board SD card with native FAT32 support
    Outputs: Two SNES controller ports, plus two additional SNES port headers
             PS/2 keyboard and mouse. VGA. Stereo audio. I2C bus
    Inputs: SD; four expansion slots with access to the CPU databus;
            IEC port; SNES ports; I2C bus
    Operating System: Commodore KERNAL and BASIC
    Battery-backed Microchip MCP7940N real-time-clock chip
    Form Factor: Micro-ATX

[0] https://www.commanderx16.com

[1] https://www.c64-wiki.com/wiki/Commander_X16#Hardware_specifi...

At this point I think it is questionable whether the X16 will ever come out. There have been a lot of technical and supply issues, a lot of scope creep and drama in the community and there seems to have been no real significant progress updates in a long time.

An alternative that is finished and can be pre-ordered today is the MEGA65:

https://mega65.org/

I don't necessarily think a kid would be interested in a glorified recreation of the Commodore 65, but it's roughly equivalent to the X16 in a lot of ways. Just thought I'd mention it.

I have faith in David Murray. He's got a good track record of pushing things through and seeing them to the end.

Second the suggestion of a raspberry pi.

The book getting started with raspberry pi was the best introduction to computing I’ve ever seen.

>The book getting started with raspberry pi was the best introduction to computing I’ve ever seen.

I just wanted to second this comment. I was skeptical that the book included with the Raspberry Pi 400 kit would be good or useful, but it is amazing. If anyone remembers the old Usborne introduction to computing/electronics/programming books, it feels a lot like those in some ways. If I was nine years old again and got that book, I'd probably be buried in it for weeks, trying out all the different projects.

The Raspberry Pi foundation also published a book on game development, which is also very much like a lot of the old Usborne books. Really great for kids who are a little older.

The hardware is the easy part. It's the software that's the tricky part. That Apple II software was something a 5 year old could have fun with, which a REPL would be hard to do. It had enough rails to be usable but enough user input to be creative.

If it's just software, you could always cheat; Apple II emulators exist - you could have exactly that, if you want. (Granted, with worse boot time and hardware integration)

An Apple II emulator is an interesting approach. Would something like LinApple [1] work or are there other options out there that could work better?

[1]: https://github.com/linappleii/linapple

Virtual II[0] is paid software and requires a Mac, but it’s probably the best. One of the neat things about sticking with the Apple II is the community that still organizes around it at KansasFest[1].

[0] http://virtualii.com/ [1] https://www.kansasfest.org/

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