18 Sep
1998
18 Sep
'98
12:14 p.m.
On Fri, 18 Sep 1998, Francois wrote:
What I'm getting at is that what we dreamed of as
kids is not, by todays
standards, dream material anymore: you have those programable cars and all
sorts of talking toys (some of them animated) so the novelty and feeling of
innovation or creation is not the same. Dreaming of building a robot that
Sure. But that's what I was getting at. There's so much advanced
tinkering that can be done very cheaply that we didn't have available to
us.
can pile blocks or solve the hanoi towers is not quite
as fascinating as
beating the big bad dude on level four of the latest nintendo game.
I don't think that's true at all. I think the really creative kids would
much rather build their own robot or program their own computer than sit
on their ass all day and play games. The problem is the atmosphere is
different. Everything is so nicely packaged that you don't need to get
inside your machine and learn about it. I think this needs to change.
But I still go and build stuff from spare parts, still
keep steppers and
gears in neatly ordered cabinets and still dream that one day, when I have
the time, I'll build that robot or one of the numerous projects I have
recorded in notebooks.
Me too. But my parts are all stashed in thrift stores, waiting for me to
pick them up :)
In 1994 I started working on one "project"
thinking to bring it to market,
built a prototype thought of a better way to do it and wanted to make a
second proto but it involved much more money than what I had at the time and
it got filed with the rest. That is until I saw my idea in a catalog earlier
this week. So I fired Quake II and logged on a server and fragged for the
rest of the evening.
What idea was that?
Anyway there is not much that prevents from building
the stuff you want, you
just need to know what you want and how you want to do it and stick to it.
Or did you loose that drive, that desire to build and bring innanimate
things to (artificial) life?
I'm not talking about me. I'm talking about the fun the nerdy kids these
days could be having if they discovered classic computers.
Actually, there is one kid I've been talking to in e-mail (although he's
19 now so "kid" may not be appropriate anymore). He built some sort of
digital logic contraption with relays out of an old elevator controller!
It sounds wild. He said it can do actual useful work, such as image
processing. I don't know the total details, but I'm trying to get him to
exhibit it at the Vintage Computer Festival. He said its very large and
would be a burden to move, but I'm trying to figure out a way to help him
get it to the venue. That sort of project should inspire many people
around his age to embark on similar projects of their own.
Sam Alternate e-mail: dastar(a)siconic.com
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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September 26 & 27...Vintage Computer Festival 2.0
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[Last web site update: 09/12/98]