Kids React To Old Computers

Yes, well. About that.

Consider how your great-grandparents would react if you were given the reins to a horse-drawn wagon. Or a steam train mechanic would react to you being put at the controls of a steam train. Some skills are just... lost with time. It happens.

Pretty funny...my favorite was when the narrator asked "How do you get on the Internet?" and one of the kids types "GOOGLE" into the command line.

Lated,

Very informative and very funny.
I wonder how many of the kids went home and told their parents about it?

Steven

The thing about that video that was a little distressing to me is that most of the kids obviously have no idea at all how a computer works, ancient or modern.

It's just a magic box to them.

Only one of them even mention the concept of "programs" (they asked if the Apple ][ "had any programs" on it).

I suppose it shouldn't bother me that much. Most people have no idea at all how, say, a car works; and I've met intelligent professional adults who honestly did not understand how an incandescent light bulb works (worked).

Can't blame them. These things are way older than the kids in the video. I can only find it amusing. At least these kids were trying...

I myself grew up with Win98, PS1, and Gameboy Advance. I was born in 1993 (comparably younger than most of you guys)
Even with this, the first time I saw my grandpa playing Digger in his Pentium 1 DOS PC, I wondered how people can deal with graphic so low in resolution.
I mean, there's Gameboy... But it is WAY smaller than the thing in front of me.
At that time, I had never seen in my life digital technology older than 1996 and MS-DOS was not on my list.
It has 5.25" floppy while I was used to the 3.25" disk.

That was my perspective on an experience similar to what's shown in this video.

TKH,

Now imagine someone born in 2000.
They are now 14 years old.
They may or may not know about Windows NT, or XP.
They definitely would not know about the Command Line, unless they are using Linux based software.
They do not know what a "Rotary Phone" is.
They would not know that cars did not have computers not so long ago.

They missed out on all the innovation and it is up to each and every one of us to try and show them where we came from.

Steven

I beg to differ. A 14 year old may know command line, but it's actually the command line inside of Minecraft they use to give instructions.

My teenager asked me how I remember all the cryptic commands for the multiple machines I have (Apple, Sol, CP/M, Altair, OSX,...) and then I see him typing cryptic commands into a minecraft session.

I was like, you are learning to program in Objective C this summer, you have no excuse!!!

Then again this is a kid who soldered half of the Mimeo on display at the Infoage science center in NJ when he was 11, so he knows what an Apple II is, It is funny that the TRS-80 pocket computer keeps throwing him off, he keeps thinking its a programmable calculator.

Cheers,
Corey

At that time, I was 11...

That was a scripted show. In real life the interest level in our classic hardware is much lower and less comical.

Nice! I myself am planning to inherit my Apple II to my children