
Building the MacPaint for hardware - divy
https://medium.com/inside-wattage/building-the-macpaint-for-hardware-8632c9e64b83
======
Gracana
It's interesting how he talks about the raspberry pi:

> The first was listening to Eben Upton, the brains behind the Raspberry Pi,
> describe that the number of qualified applicants to study computer science
> is dropping. Rather than learning how computers work at a more fundamental
> level, students are applying only with knowledge of webpage construction and
> high-level scripting languages. He argued that this is emblematic of a
> larger generational problem and the Raspberry Pi was his solution.

>> “Our idea was to build something cheap, powerful and available for
children’s bedrooms so they could have the same experience we had.”

My impression of the Pi is that it's too complex for this sort of application.
It's cheap and therefore easy to procure, but it runs a desktop operating
system that is arguably more difficult to work with than the one on your
regular desktop PC, and it has a weird architecture consisting of a CPU as a
coprocessor of a proprietary GPU, with an inscrutable binary blob managing
everything underneath. That's just too much to deal with if you're aiming for
the 80s bedroom computing experience. I think there's still room for something
that fills that niche. A modern "Commodore 64" needs to provide the same
unfettered access to the internals, with similar simplicity, but with modern
performance and amenities (better editors, better languages, built-in
documentation, flexible communications and control options, etc).

~~~
joezydeco
Agreed, the system isn't the "C64 of the 2010s" that it's been proclaimed to
be. Unless there's a wave of success stores out there that I haven't seen.
Mostly it's people using them as beefier Arduinos for their projects.

But I wouldn't go as far to say all the Broadcom blob-nonsense is the
hindering factor. That's completely a non-issue if we're talking about
education. The reason the C64 and Apple and BBC Acorn were they way they were
was because they booted right into a programming environment.

Where's the autostart environment for the RPi?

~~~
DanBC
It's not just booting into a programming environment, but being supplied with
documentation that had memory maps in and taught people how to link assembly
language routines into their BASIC programmes or how to POKE or PEEK.

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moe
Isn't this more like "Lego" for hardware?

In MacPaint I can paint anything. In your toolbox I can only assemble
something with the parts that you give me.

The MacPaint analogy would hold water if you'd let me draw _any_ shape that I
want (to be 3d printed), and merely assist by enforcing the basic constraints
required for my device to be manufactured and functional (e.g. enough space to
put the electronics in, etc.).

~~~
divy
To be fair, there were many constraints in MacPaint - color being the most
obvious example. It was a limited drawing program. Put into context, I do
believe the analogy works - you start simple (box, few components, limited
layout) and evolve to include malleable 3D printed materials and generated
electronics.

Disclosure - I wrote the post.

~~~
hga
Quick question, perhaps: what's the maximum computing power, especially RAM,
you're thinking of offering?

If it's just microcontrollers, my interest in somewhat limited. Something I
reasonably put a Lisp on (code as data wants RAM, even if a lot can live on
flash) ... well, looking at Wikipedia's list of Arduino CPUs, 96KiB is a very
qualified maybe, 64MiB is a lot more like it.

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fit2rule
I think whats needed is a revival of the Denshi Blocks paradigm, but with a
lot of rPi, 3d-printing, eurorack-modular-synth, and a whole lot of open
source mixed in:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gakken_EX-
System](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gakken_EX-System)

Imagine a new attempt at making something similar in the modern era ..

~~~
andymacd
It sounds like your basically describing what littlebits are doing
([http://littlebits.cc/](http://littlebits.cc/)) - modular electronic blocks
that can be arranged in a multitude of combinations

~~~
fit2rule
Sure, thats pretty close. But .. take it up a notch. Make it an open spec that
anyone can manufacture. Make the block stacking standard really work ..
littlebits has its virtues, but the whole thing is quite delicate and really
only suitable in the lab/workbench. A 21st Century Denshi Block system would
have to be a lot more resilient to spills and bumps.

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delish
> Retro-computing is a weird hobby of mine.

I hate to criticize the very first sentence, but I want retro-computing to be
mainstream, and calling it "weird" seems to cover for the author's lack of
confidence in his hobby. I'm trying to find a rationale for calling one's own
hobby weird--I can't find one.

I have technical hobbies--resurrecting a Lisp Machine, collecting 80s and
earlier computer keyboards, duplicating websites in Emacs--that I call
"hobbies", not "weird hobbies".

Related examples (especially to my "covers for lack of self-confidence"
point):
[https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/1mspk9/reddit_wh...](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/1mspk9/reddit_what_is_a_common_hobby_that_you_just_dont/)

[https://www.reddit.com/r/teenagers/comments/1e6pzh/rteenager...](https://www.reddit.com/r/teenagers/comments/1e6pzh/rteenagers_what_are_your_weird_hobbies/)

~~~
ThomPete
i think you are taking it too literally. What I normally mean when i say it in
this context is fetish. Something other people might find weird but i enjoy
immensely.

~~~
delish
> i think you are taking it too literally.

If you're making a spectrum between "taking something literally" and
"accepting something as a throwaway comment", and saying I went too far in
taking something seriously or literally:

I'm looking at the /effects/ that word has on its readers. The author (are you
the author? hi) doesn't /intend/ those things I said in my grandparent post.
But the effect is (in my estimation) the author looks unconfident in his
hobby. And the secondary effects are: people are /less/ likely to feel invited
to join in. I would prefer the author invite me into his hobby by confidently
showing me how cool it is.

(I'm stating my preference in order to make my point understood; I understand
the author didn't ask for it.)

------
randomflavor
littlebits.com as software and more professional.

