My nephews & nieces aren’t currently allowed much computer access because their parents worry about screen time, inappropriate content and the like. But their mother was sharing concerns with me that they won’t have the basic computer skills and understanding that we learned growing up in the 80s and 90s. Having to make computers work before you got your reward of a game was such a big motivation for me as a child. We learned to program in BASIC on spectrums and Amstrads (typing code for a game out of a magazine didn’t require much knowledge but taught me a lot) and about memory management by fiddling around with AUTOEXEC.BAT/CONFIG.SYS to get DOS games running, and so on.
Are there any good educational computers / distros / OSes? Searching online mostly shows simplified GUI to access educational “games”. But I was wondering if there was a Raspberry PI or linux fork or something, that was geared to create a challenging but supportive environment for learning the fundamentals.
The way I learned was by setting up Minecraft or GMOD servers for me and my friends. I would say this is a very good way to learn the basics since it is a project with a concrete end product.
I also played a LOT of Minecraft, which has commands to “cheat” with the game, like setting the time of day or giving yourself items. That also helped me massively understand the way commands and arguments work.
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The way I learned was by setting up Minecraft or GMOD servers for me and my friends. I would say this is a very good way to learn the basics since it is a project with a concrete end product.
I also played a LOT of Minecraft, which has commands to “cheat” with the game, like setting the time of day or giving yourself items. That also helped me massively understand the way commands and arguments work.