Will there be a "Next Atari Generation"?

[fibrewire]

I am 31 years old. I practically lived in a library growing up, and I still have an unquenchable thirst for knowledge. It is my addiction to learn about things.

 

Some of you may not realize this, but with every successive generation the gap of IQ vs general population is growing - in both directions. There are fewer smart people per generation, but they are smarter than earlier smart generations. The rest of the population is becoming overwhelmed by what smart people can produce, therefore becoming more resistant to learning new things. Where smart people once rubbed off on others by hanging around the less fortunate (and vice-versa) the present-day general population is not mentally stimulated to find intellectual activities entertaining.

 

This is a problem.

 

For example, look here and listen to what this kid says about a pair of high quality vintage Pioneer speakers. The sound quality of a speaker is not based solely on the size of a subwoofer's magnet...

 

This information falls on deaf ears, doesn't it? I guess I'll just clap softly while keeping my fingers spread so wide it hurts, and grin so big its ridiculous. Time to join the masses...

 

 

Our beloved Atari hardware will end with this generation.

[flashjazzcat]

Well - the noble FJC gene pool will die out in thirty odd years. By then I reckon the world will be as depicted in the Luke Wilson movie "Idiocracy".

[fibrewire]

Well - the noble FJC gene pool will die out in thirty odd years. By then I reckon the world will be as depicted in the Luke Wilson movie "Idiocracy".

I don't know what's worse:

a) When I laughed my ass off at that movie, and realized "This could really happen"

b) When I watched this movie with some friends, and noticed similar attributes between characters in the movie & my friends

c) When I watched this movie with a really hot girl that turns to me and says "I don't get it"

[+orpheuswaking]

a) When I laughed my ass off at that movie, and realized "This could really happen"

b) When I watched this movie with some friends, and noticed similar attributes between characters in the movie & my friends

c) When I watched this movie with a really hot girl that turns to me and says "I don't get it"

 

a) It already is

b) see a

c) like you know any hot girls

[Bryan]

For example, look here and listen to what this kid says about a pair of high quality vintage Pioneer speakers. The sound quality of a speaker is not based solely on the size of a subwoofer's magnet...

 

This information falls on deaf ears, doesn't it? I guess I'll just clap softly while keeping my fingers spread so wide it hurts, and grin so big its ridiculous. Time to join the masses...

 

Well he's not stupid, he's just ignorant. I'm 41 and I grew up learning about hi-fi equipment and building my own speakers and amps and whatnot. I recognize that it's not something anyone learns about today. He has the interest so if someone sent him a couple books on speaker building and driver technology he could well become the next Henry Kloss, James B Lansing or Matthew Polk.

 

There r much moor stoopider peeple on youtoob!

[Rex Dart]

Will there be a "Next Atari Generation"?

Our beloved Atari hardware will end with this generation.

 

Have You Played UNIVAC Today? All things end.

[+DarkLord]

There r much moor stoopider peeple on youtoob!

 

If you really want to see the bottom end, check out any local Topix site.

[+DarkLord]

Have You Played UNIVAC Today? All things end.

 

Things are bad, but I don't believe are beloved Atari's will

end with this generation...

 

I've got 3 children, 2 of them know about, and play Atari. One

(stepson) could care less. So hopefully, even after I'm gone,

at least one of them will do something with my Atari collection,

carry on, and hopefully pass some knowledge of Atari on to *their*

children...

 

I can hope.

[roland p]

He has the interest so if someone sent him a couple books on speaker building and driver technology he could well become the next Henry Kloss, James B Lansing or Matthew Polk.

+1 for mentioning the one that made my speakers.

[ACML]

The culture of curiosity in our youth is dying out. Gone is the inquisitive nature of 12-20 years olds that embraced the Apple II, TRS-80, Atari and C64. A home computer in 1981 was cool, even awesome and not the "black box" it has become. You had to have the curiosity to create something for it to do that you needed done, cause the current way was too slow and cumbersome (i.e. manual). It developed your deductive reasoning skills and taught you discrete logic and debugging skills. You learned how to solve problems on a much larger scale than you could wrap your head around with a Ti-55 or HP-41 calculator. Obviously, this only appealed to a small percentage of the crowd, but that percentage of inquisitive, curious youth has dwindled. The computers of today are all wrapped in GUI's that intimidate the user into thinking he is just that, a user. I am an Aerospace engineer and I am a good one in part due to my exposure to 1980's 6502 Atari computers. My children can use PowerPoint, but they can't code. Yes, I see many 22 year olds that are cyborgs with Matlab, but if take away their very expensive Matlab license, what can they do on their own? I plan on introducing my children to my 1200XL and teaching them how to code in BASIC, then progress to VB on the PC. My fear for tomorrow is the same fear I have for my children, that I'll raise overly privileged 18 years olds that don't really know how to do anything.

[Rex Dart]

The culture of curiosity in our youth is dying out. Gone is the inquisitive nature of 12-20 years olds that embraced the Apple II, TRS-80, Atari and C64. A home computer in 1981 was cool, even awesome and not the "black box" it has become. You had to have the curiosity to create something for it to do that you needed done, cause the current way was too slow and cumbersome (i.e. manual). It developed your deductive reasoning skills and taught you discrete logic and debugging skills. You learned how to solve problems on a much larger scale than you could wrap your head around with a Ti-55 or HP-41 calculator. Obviously, this only appealed to a small percentage of the crowd, but that percentage of inquisitive, curious youth has dwindled. The computers of today are all wrapped in GUI's that intimidate the user into thinking he is just that, a user. I am an Aerospace engineer and I am a good one in part due to my exposure to 1980's 6502 Atari computers. My children can use PowerPoint, but they can't code. Yes, I see many 22 year olds that are cyborgs with Matlab, but if take away their very expensive Matlab license, what can they do on their own? I plan on introducing my children to my 1200XL and teaching them how to code in BASIC, then progress to VB on the PC. My fear for tomorrow is the same fear I have for my children, that I'll raise overly privileged 18 years olds that don't really know how to do anything.

 

 

 

Baloney.

[kskunk]

The culture of curiosity in our youth is dying out.

I think that curiosity is just being spread out, instead of all concentrated in one place.

 

When we were kids, making squares move around on the TV set was just about the only programming a kid could do, and it was considered a technical triumph. So all of us with the 'programming itch' had the same experience.

 

Nowadays BASIC is a museum piece, and hobby computing has grown up into a million different disciplines with different languages, and different kids are attracted to different parts of it.

 

These days, kids are programming robots for competition, they're writing iPhone games, they're developing web sites and running forums, they're learning how to hack database servers. There's no 'one shared experience' because the field is just too big to learn everything.

 

The curiosity is still out there. At a hacker party last month, I met a 12 year old who had taught himself assembly language to improve the interrupt latency on the stepper controller in his homemade 3D printer.

 

We had a great chat about counting cycles and techniques he used to save on instructions. But I was a little disappointed to find out he wasn't really interested in assembly language. What he cared about was motor control theory, a huge technical discipline of its own. Assembly programming was just a tool he used to improve his solution, not an end in itself.

 

That's the difference between our generation and the latest one. The new generation is specializing. Resources on the internet are helping them go further and faster than we did. They're not going to waste an entire summer with one ratty copy of 'Learning 6502 assembly language.' They're going to pick up assembly in a weekend or just copy somebody else's example code - so they can keep going deeper in their chosen discipline.

 

- KS

Edited August 11, 2011 by kskunk

[ACML]

Baloney.

 

 

I beg to differ. I'm in my 40's and I work with a lot of young people as well as those of my generation and I'm sorry, we old fogies collectively have better skill sets solving problems. Yes, we have experience they haven't had the chance to acquire yet, but we got most of our "been there, done that" foundations usually before we reached the age of 30. Don't get me wrong, there are many extremely bright young people out there, smarter than me, but out of a random sample of 100,000, there are fewer than the last generation. It's not that they are less intelligent, just less inquisitive in a culture that has so much more to compete for their attention. We were/are no smarter, we just had less distractions or options with our discretionary time. Darn it, its official, I'm old! When did that happen? My comment is that the ranks of the "unwashed" are growing and the number of folks who pull the wagon and make the world turn is shrinking.

[Hatta]

Old people have always said the same sorts of things about young people. You can find this as far back as Plato.

[svenski]

Yep, and Plato was concerned at the widespread use of the abacus and its impact on a child's education.

[candle]

why you're ranting as if you were at your 80's?

shut up and code something for a change

[Bryan]

why you're ranting as if you were at your 80's?

shut up and code something for a change

 

I'd vote for the RetroComputing Party: "Code Something for a Change!"

[+wood_jl]

The question is too broad. "Next Atari Generation" is not clearly defined. We have to draw an analogy to other technologies, which have been around longer.

 

There will always be a few geeks fiddling with this stuff, that's for sure. Will it count as a "generation?"

 

I look at old automobiles, for the analogy. How about the Model T? Will there be a next generation of that? Do you know anybody who has one? Is there a "generation" of those enthusiasts? I know a guy (my Dad's friend) who has a pristine Model A Ford. It was his grandfathers, and these guys grew up with those cars. I think it's cool, and I'm kind of thrilled with it, but I don't really constitute a next-gen; it was before my time. These guys are all nearing 80 years old, and DO REMEMBER these cars as mainstream, while I do not. I think it's cool, but clearly, it means more to them, as it should.

 

In 50 years time, there won't be anybody alive who remembers the Atari era. It will be like the model A is, to me. Someone's going to own some Ataris, but it'll just be extreme vintage stuff, with considerably less meaning to them, than it has for me. So first the Model T/Model A generation will go, and then the Atari generation will croak. Just because there will be a few geeks who have it in their collection - but who are WAY TOO YOUNG to know it as we do - does that constitute a generation? I think not. Ataris and Model As will always be cool, even after the original enthusiasts for both are long-dead, but it won't constitute a "generation," as it can't. So "NO," there will not be a next generation of Atari - just some dorks who like to tinker with ancient technology that they have no formative memories of.

[+save2600]

I likes creating new memories with olden things. Especially rumble seats.

[+poobah]

Baloney.

 

 

I beg to differ. I'm in my 40's and I work with a lot of young people as well as those of my generation and I'm sorry, we old fogies collectively have better skill sets solving problems. Yes, we have experience they haven't had the chance to acquire yet, but we got most of our "been there, done that" foundations usually before we reached the age of 30. Don't get me wrong, there are many extremely bright young people out there, smarter than me, but out of a random sample of 100,000, there are fewer than the last generation. It's not that they are less intelligent, just less inquisitive in a culture that has so much more to compete for their attention. We were/are no smarter, we just had less distractions or options with our discretionary time. Darn it, its official, I'm old! When did that happen? My comment is that the ranks of the "unwashed" are growing and the number of folks who pull the wagon and make the world turn is shrinking.

 

Not sure I agree with all that, however, I will say this:

 

Fewer kids are getting an education in the underlying basics of how things work.... Consider the 'baloney' link. What pops up today is an Ardunio board... Give them a bare AVR or PIC and they are lost... they need a prebuilt board with C libraries. Many of them can code in Visual Studio or Eclipse with lots of libraries. Give them gcc and basic text editor and they are lost.

 

At work I see people who have taken programming classes who don't really understand what happens underneath the pretty GUI, the OS message loop and the vast pre-built libraries. Sure, we don't write much machine code these days, but it is still important to understand the how and why of the 'underneath' bits.

 

We have more people writing code USING tools, but fewer people able to build those same tools.... That is the scary part.

[thorfdbg]

Fewer kids are getting an education in the underlying basics of how things work.... Consider the 'baloney' link. What pops up today is an Ardunio board... Give them a bare AVR or PIC and they are lost... they need a prebuilt board with C libraries. Many of them can code in Visual Studio or Eclipse with lots of libraries. Give them gcc and basic text editor and they are lost.

 

At work I see people who have taken programming classes who don't really understand what happens underneath the pretty GUI, the OS message loop and the vast pre-built libraries. Sure, we don't write much machine code these days, but it is still important to understand the how and why of the 'underneath' bits.

 

We have more people writing code USING tools, but fewer people able to build those same tools.... That is the scary part.

Well, on a percentage level, I would believe that there are as many smart people that *are* really able to program than years ago. The trouble is that many people *do* some "sort-of" programming today that would have never touched a computer back then. And those people do some kind of "smash tools together" type of programming. That is, they have a very elementary understanding of what is happening, and then slam code together by code pieces from the internet, from tool libraries and other sources, and then get programs that "sort-of" work. Maybe that's an improvement, at least in the quality of the tools, namely that you're able to do "programming" without "understanding programming". Of course, as soon as such programs must be maintained or updated, they are lost. Result: Low quality software.

[Rex Dart]

Consider the 'baloney' link. What pops up today is an Ardunio board... Give them a bare AVR or PIC and they are lost... they need a prebuilt board with C libraries. Many of them can code in Visual Studio or Eclipse with lots of libraries. Give them gcc and basic text editor and they are lost.

 

What pops up today, and every day, is an archive of various projects, many of which use bare programmable chips & even more basic parts, and many others being more high-level projects. There's a computer made of 555s if you'll bother to click beyond page 1.

[Joey Z]

I plan on introducing my children to my 1200XL...

 

this is the only way the Atari generation will live on, not as the people actually there for it, but as the people who have any fond memories of Atari fond enough to produce nostalgic feelings.

 

Take me for example, I am 14 years old and was first introduced to Atari's at a very young age (maybe 2 or 3 years old). Ever since I have been interested in Atari consoles, both computers and game systems. The only way the Atari age will live on is through current Atari enthusiasts children. Even then, theses children would need to be introduced to Atari at a young age so as to have fond memories of it. So, if any of you have any more children, make their first game system a 2600 or their first computer an xl or xe so that the Atari generation will live on.

[+DarkLord]

All 3 of my children, ages 9, 17, and 20, have played:

 

Lynx

Jaguar

800XL (cart games)

Atari ST's (various)

 

up to and including exposure to my BBS.

 

I surely hope that when I'm gone, at least -1- of them

will keep my collection and do something with it. Kinda

breaks my heart to think that it would just be sold off,

or given away.

 

Even to this lot...

[+save2600]

Kinda breaks my heart to think that it would just be sold off, or given away.

 

Even to this lot...

Better than being chucked in the dumpster or "lost", which is exactly what my ex-wife did when I left my original TI collection to my son.