Andrew (Television Executive)Apr 5, 2024

I haven't done fun silly computer things for their own sake in a really long time, and it's nice to be getting back to that.

Trying a thing to see if it's possible. Doing a thing to see what works.

I've especially been enjoying my soujorn in to palm pilot land!

There are a lot of roads not taken in computing, and the palm ecosystem really represents the signpost for the last one of those.

Show threadAndrew (Television Executive)Apr 5, 2024

I very much like the idea of computers as tools to accomplish tasks. Sometimes the task is Play.

Sometimes the goal is to learn what's possible.

Show threadkelbot ◖⎚∠⎚◗Apr 6, 2024
@ajroach42 It is fascinating and also maddening that a number of the really nice aspects of Palm Pilots just do not exist anymore in any device.
Show threadChris [list of emoji]Apr 6, 2024

@kelbot @ajroach42

Hmmm. FOSS project idea.

(No, really. Build a PalmOS-like environment that runs on top of a Linux kernel, then install it on any rooted Android device. Somebody other than me should really do this.)

Show threadMatt Gauger
@suetanvil @kelbot @ajroach42 related: a replacement OS for Chromebooks that is centered around kids playing and making things up, vaguely modeled after the OLPC interface but not as rigid about what it can be used for.
Apr 6, 2024 at 1:11pmWeb
Show threadMatt GaugerApr 6, 2024
@suetanvil @kelbot @ajroach42 for example when I was in elementary school I remember an early PC program for making comic strips and animating them with simple sound effects. In the era of Roblox that might not get kids totally excited, but maybe? And then turtles-all-the-way down, make it really a Scratch system with inspectable code blocks if you choose to dig into how things work.
Show threadChris [list of emoji]Apr 6, 2024

@mathiasx @kelbot @ajroach42

The original Scratch was written in Squeak Smalltalk, which *will* run as a monolithic app on a mostly bare Linux system, so something like that might be a starting point. There's also EToys and Croquet, both of which ran in the same system.

Definitely a turtles-all-the-way-down thing.