Well, they are easy to use as long as you use them in the prescribed way. As long as you let them tell you what you want to do, instead of the other way around.

That, IMO, is the distinction.

I think that many of the steps towards demystifying the computer of the 80s and 90s did good work, but ultimately, the computer industry left the whole idea behind, in favor of making some tasks Very Easy while making other tasks Practically Impossible, and turning everything into a surveillance device.

When I was a kid I was brought up with computers that showed you how they worked.

You booted in to a command prompt or a programming language, or you could get to one, if you wanted to.

I got to play with GW Basic and qBasic and, a little, with hypercard.

I got to take apart software and put it back together and make things that made people happy.

I got to make things that I needed. I got to make things that make me happy.

Today, the tools to do that are complex to compensate for the vast additional capabilities of a modern computer, but also to reinforce technical elitism.

I often wonder why Hypercard had to die.

It was because Jobs wanted the Computer to be an Appliance. A thing only used in prescribed ways.

Letting people build their own tools means letting people control their own destiny.

If I can make what I want, or if someone else can make what they want, and then I can take it apart and improve it, why would I pay for an upgrade? Why would I pay you to build something that doesn't meet my needs?

I'm mentioning hypercard specifically because I've been relearning hypercard recently, and it is *better* and more useful than I remember it being.

It's honestly revelatory.

Hypercard, if your unfamiliar, is powerpoint + instructions.

Here's a great introduction/example: http://www.loper-os.org/?p=568

The author walks you through building a calculator app in about 5 minutes, step by step.

Warning: There's a bit of ableist language tossed around in the last paragraph. Skip it, there's nothing worth reading there anyway.

You use the same kinds of tools you would use to build a slideshow, but you couple them with links, multimedia, and scripting.

Want a visual interface for your database of client data? Great! slap together a roladex card, and drop in a search function.

Go from concept to presentation ready in an hour or two (or less, if you've done this before!)

Hypercard was easy to use. Everyone who used it loved it. It was integral to many businesses daily operations.

Jobs killed it because he couldn't control it.

Microsoft doesn't ship any tools for building programs with their OS anymore, either.

They used to. There was a time when you could sit down at any windows or DOS machine and code up a program that would run on any other Windows or DOS machine.

But we can't have that anymore.

In the name of Ease of Use, they left out the Human aspect.

Use your computer how you're told to use it, and everything is easy.

Do anything new or novel and it's a struggle.

My nephew has an ipad.

He asked his dad how to write games. His dad didn't know. His dad asked me how to write games on an iPad. I told him not to bother.

My nephew asked me how to learn to write games.

I gave him a raspberry pi and a copy of pico 8.

Now he writes computer games.

He couldn't do that on his iPad.

Hypercard would be a perfect fit for the iPad and iPhone.

Imagine it!

Imagine the things you could build.

But we aren't allowed to have computers that are fun to use, that are easy to build for, that are human centric, or human literate.

The last 10 years of development in computers were a mistake. Maybe longer.

Instead of making computers Do More, or making them Feel Faster, we've chased benchmarks, made them more reliant on remote servers, and made them less generally useful. We brought back the digital serfdom of the mainframe.

In the first episode of computer chronicles (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wpXnqBfgvPM) the mainframe guy is real adamant about how mainframes are good and micros are bad.

The host, a microcomputer legend, disagrees pretty strongly.

Later, when they talk about the future of networking, the mainframe guy talks about it as a return to mainframes. The micro guy talks about BBSs, peer to peer networks.

The mainframe guys are winning.

(this is not to say that I think mainframes are bad. I don't. Mainframes can be really good and interesting! Plato was wonderful, as were some of the early unix mainframes.

But IBM style Mainframe culture is The Computer as a thing you Use but don't Control culture, and I am very against that.)

I have to step away for a while. I'll continue this later.

@ajroach42 I want to respond, elaborate, & discuss at length here. I spent about 10 months some years ago immersed in the computing literature around the history of debuggers, during which I went from EDSAC to Visual Studio, but also all the other half-dead ends ends of computing history such as, e.g., Lisp machines.

Naturally, I came out of it a Common Lisper, and also naturally, with Opinions about modern computing.

Up for the discussion? It could get wordy and over a few days. :)

@pnathan for sure.

I haven’t gotten in to lisp machines yet, but I’m always down for discussion.

@ajroach42 @pnathan
This thread is going to be gold :)
(I'm replying here so that I won't forget about it...)

@ciaby @pnathan I hope you enjoy! I'm looking forward to the discussion as well.

@ajroach42 @ciaby
OK, so, I'm about a decade older than you, Andrew: I taught myself QBasic in the mid 90s, got online late 90s, never really looked back.

First, I want to say this: older computer systems - considered as systems - were generally more capable.

But to be clear, they were limited in use for those who didn't take an interest in learning them. I'm talking about things that weren't Windows 3.1+.

@ajroach42 @ciaby This was the Great Debate that was largely won by Microsoft. "Everyone can 'use' a computer.". That is to say, everyone can operate the appliance with preinstalled software. *everyone*. Apple pioneered the notion, but it turns out to be the preferred mode for businesses, who really rather don't like having specialized experts.

@ajroach42 @ciaby It is my contention that Windows (& *nix) computer systems are designed to be administrated and managed by sysadmins, and the user experience in this case is great.

When you have sysadmins, there are no driver problems. There are no printer problems. There are no problems, as a matter of fact: it's all been taken care of by the admins.

This is exactly how executives like it.

Apple does the same, with their iPhone.

Apple is the sysadmin, metaphorically.

@pnathan @ciaby This is a good point, but I think it deserves scrutiny.

I am employed as a support engineer and a sysadmin, and I still run in to driver issues, printer issues, etc.

I take care of them, eventually, when I can.

But, even after doing this for 10 years, I still encounter problems that I can't solve (because there isn't a solution.)

but the metaphor of Apple as sysadmin, I'll accept. I disagree with someone else admining my phone, but that's another issue.

@ajroach42 @ciaby your users pay you so they don't have to care about sysadmin issues. their world is great!

@pnathan @ciaby Except for when it isn't, yeah.

@ajroach42 @ciaby I'm glossing over the 1% failures to get at the core point: sysadmins are designed into the windows and unix world so users can focus on their core competency.

@Shamar @pnathan @ciaby I never said people can't learn to program.

I'm saying that some people don't want to learn to program, and that what we call "programming" is needlessly difficult for some tasks, in the name of corporate profits.

@Shamar @pnathan @ciaby I feel like you think this was a clever point, but I don't understand what you mean.

Programming is a specialty, and some people have other specialties. Expecting them to also become expert programmers because our current expert programmers can't be arsed to make extensible and understandable tools is unreasonable.

@Shamar @pnathan @ciaby

Some kinds of programming (just like some kinds of math) will remain hard.

But better tools are what I'm after, yeah.

@Shamar
I feel that it's not only a matter of research, but also a point of throwing away some tech that we take for granted (x86, for example) and rebuild from scratch with different assumptions in mind. In the current economic system I find it quite hard to do...
@pnathan @ajroach42

@Shamar @ajroach42 @pnathan
That's possible, and somehow is already happening.
What I'm talking about, however, goes much deeper than that. I'm talking about open hardware infrastructures, where every component is documented, there are no binary blobs or proprietary firmware .
Very important is also the instruction set, because what we have now (x86/amd64) is incredibly bloated and full of backward compatibility shit.
RISC-V is a step in the right direction. If only the hardware wasn't so expensive... ;)