Kids React to Old Computers

Kids encounter an old Apple II computer with floppy drive. It’s very insightful. They’re part appalled, part intrigued.

Yes, technology has progressed. But back then we did know what components made up a computer, we had an inkling (or more) of how it worked. And most kids now don’t know, and I reckon that’s a bad thing in this otherwise awesome evolution.

In the era of the Apple II, growing up in The Netherlands and able to watch BBC 1 on TV, I wrangled my parents into acquiring an Acorn BBC Micro, model B.

I learnt about programming, did some hardware hacking, actually added new components to my machine and built interfaces to other equipment. Over the years computers have been harder to play with in terms of hardware interfacing. Now though, there are awesome new products such as the Raspberry Pi, which once again make it much easier to, for instance, attach extra bits of electronics and learn more.

What I find particularly interesting is that the Raspberry Pi uses an ARM processor. Do you know what ARM stands for? Acorn Risk Machine. That’s right, it’s a direct descendant of the ground-breaking work done by Acorn Computer in the 1980s in the UK.

Most mobiles (including Android and iPhone) also use ARM processors. They’re literally everywhere. Interesting, isn’t it!