Re:The decline of computers as a general-purpose technology
by Lio on Thursday February 25, 2021 @11:02AM
(#26264264)
Isn’t that the wrong comparison though? If you want to run scratch just use something other than an iPhone.
When I was a kid we had 8bit micros. They were programmable but they were also eye wateringly expensive. So it was a struggle to own anything you could program at all.
Also they all came with closed source, proprietary OSs.
I used to spend a fair amount of time just starring at adverts for things I couldn’t afford and that would be obsolete before I could.
Now you can get a whole computer given away free on the front cover of a magazine and it will do a pretty good job of running scratch for you.
When I was a kid we had 8bit micros. They were programmable but they were also eye wateringly expensive. So it was a struggle to own anything you could program at all.
Also they all came with closed source, proprietary OSs.
I used to spend a fair amount of time just starring at adverts for things I couldn’t afford and that would be obsolete before I could.
Now you can get a whole computer given away free on the front cover of a magazine and it will do a pretty good job of running scratch for you.