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Comment by Theodores | Hacker News Reader

Sometimes you have got to let things go. Clinging onto the past doesn't make sense in tech. Teaching kids today the wonders of that useless language called BASIC on 8 bit micros from the eighties amounts to cruel and unusual punishment. What next, slide rules?

If I had money and social media clout then I would buy SGI (Silicon Graphics) and get kids to learn the MIPS instruction set on refrigerator sized machines that needed their own power station. But no, got to let it go.

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Blasé comment. This isn't clinging onto "the past" like proverbial nostalgia. It's history and culture.

"Teaching kids today the wonders of that useless language called BASIC on 8 bit micros from the eighties amounts to cruel and unusual punishment."

I beg to differ. BASIC is a great introductory language for teaching kids the fundamentals of programming.

> Sometimes you have got to let things go.

Yes, but it's too early for Commodore. Commodore is fondly remembered by Gen X, and Gen X is still alive and has the means to indulge its nostalgia.

I can easily see a new generation of Silicon Graphics machines powered by something like a MI300R (R because the amd64 cores would be replaced by RISC-V ones, which are the natural heirs to MIPS).

Or we could repurpose the SGI acronym to be Silicon Graphics and Intelligence to catch the AI wave.

And, of course, publish OpenIRIX under GPLv3. Including the screensavers.

For those interested by the Irix desktop, Maxx Intercative is a free autorized clone https://docs.maxxinteractive.com/

It's pretty good. I tried it some time ago and got strong O2 vibes.

I think BASIC is not that bad. It is not so bad to learn a slide rule either, even if you do not use it very often and do not need it very often. Even if you use newer stuff, the older stuff is not worthless and sometimes avoids some of the disadvantages of newer stuff, so it is worth to learn many things.

In a world where quality content or products disappear at an ever quicker pace, replaced with generic slop with no emotional attachment, functioning as just a way to extract something from you, the consumer, nostalgia becomes ever more valuable. Maybe not let everything go? Maybe letting things go is why we're at the current state of toxic consumerism that nobody likes.

Well said.

I like retro computers as much as the next person but selling dead technology and brands just doesn’t make sense.

I like to think that the enthusiasm for retro computing can make a clearing for innovative things to happen. I imagine such an environment can support values that aren't normally represented in fashionable, modern, commercial technology of today.

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