
Ask HN: What is today's equivalent of knowing how to set dip switches and IRQs? - samstave
Since the thought of anyone not having access to a fully formed idea of what was a dream for computers back in the day, what is today&#x27;s niche knowledge equivalent for a teenage nerd to know which would he on par with knowing dip switch settings for an IRQ to get something to work?
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ohiovr
There is a lot of diy spirit in single board computers. The other day I helped
a local tv station utilize a raspberry pi 3 as a video stream mirror. The $35
dollar computer can replace a dedicated machine marketed for this purpose
costing $900 dollars. It only took about 12 lines of bash to make it work.

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karmakaze
Computers today are almost always networked but not many know just how that
happens. The equivalent today I'd say is knowing about ethernet, TCP/IP, http,
wifi, bluetooth and being able to connect things. IoT will make this feel like
dip switches again.

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throwawaybbqed
That world doesn't exist anymore. Computers in the 80s was far smaller a field
and had less societal impact. Today, pretty much every human in the developed
one has access to a computer (a cell phone). The ecosystems are lot more
closed today than they used to be.

I like what the other person posted (webpage) but it isn't obscure. I'd say
compiling your own Android image and putting it on a phone.

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DanBC
Maybe HardMod or SoftMod of a games console to run homebrew and play pirate
games. That's usually a one off process though.

Some of the emulators have some settings that people can noodle around with,
and so if you're running it on limited hardware (RPi, RPi Zero) they can be
useful to get better performance.

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db48x
Building a webpage, or programming if any kind.

