This post is probably not for for the business oriented people in the Amiga community as the perspective I'm basing this on are those of 10 and 8 year olds.

I'd like to tell a story of something that occured here about a month ago and because of that I'd like to start at the beginning.

Why post this on the "Amiga OS4 Software" forum if I'm about to refer to the general Amiga and AmigaOne in 2017? The answer is 2-fold:

1. AOS4.1 has a distinct feel which triggered the response in the title.
2. When you check various smart devices of today you don't always get the feeling of a main component driving it. A streamer can have a custom-made and streamlined Linux and that can be the factor while a tv can be smart and responsive and have the right chips to enable it certain functions.

This question is important at the beginning of the story because this is a first time/first reaction review of a mature 10 year old that grows up in today mediated and technological world where you sometimes cannot "see" the software or os.

________

I've been trying to get my nephews to come and check out a different machine which they almost don't believe can exist in this day and age. Their parents like so many others are closed up about this so I took advantage of my sister-in-law and my older nephew (14) visiting relatives in California... I invited my other nephews over.

Stemming from my way of thinking and what interests me academically I chose to study first responses to encounters. What happens when you first see the AmigaOS of today running on native hardware? Not only have I tested this I also began the experiment without them knowing what I was doing... They simply looked at the tv and I don't know what they were expecting or thinking as this wasn't a really rigid and by the books experiment in behaviour. My 10 year old nephew simply looked at the hdtv and said "wowwww you have the cooooolest tv ever!"

That's just blew my mind as when I was at her age (and having a very good memory) I never expected anything but a computer to be able to do that. For them everything is a potential. I then continued and asked them to just look at the screen while I used the graphics tablet to do all sorts of actions they should be able to recognize from their day-to-day usage. The response was about the quickness of what was unfolding before their very eyes. They didn't menage to observe it properly it was too instant for them. They didn't believe at first I was doing something with my hand under the covers moving it on the graphics tablet.

That tells me something important about what we think about advances and the way those kids use those advances: they are used to a very specific way of accomplishing stuff. They aren't always quicker to respond or even grasp the situation because of what they are used to.

The fact that she (10 year old) thought it was a tv started me thinking about something I thought, before That spontanious test about the relevant relationship a computing machine has with all sorts of fucntions in the computerized and mediated world. Long story short - maybe the amiga is a tv... maybe a part of it can function on its own in dealing with specific functions not just like amigas were used in railway stations but also, today, in your home. Maybe it's an opposite direction where the amiga computer/os is what people might call a variety machine or an all-around machine - beyond the title of multimedia. What is smart? What is cool? to me it was the identification of the AOS4.1 as a tv because I think that's a big compliment and can show us that we are still good in our place and in our way of doing what we do. It simply needs to involve more people so we can navigate this and the community better.

After that time was running short so I wanted them to want to return so with little kids that means games. I loaded up the e-uae and tried out some Super Hang-On. It was interesting to me what those kids would view as an ancient way of doing a racing game. They are not used to pixels or blips and blops. That presented an upside-down picture: the younger nephews reacted well to Super Hang-On and appreciated the spot-on gameplay with the music while the older one kinda had trouble overcoming what her eyes wintessed. Well I don't know if girls can relate to motorsports gaming so maybe that doesn't say much (to be honest it's not my cup of tea either)

That's it. I'll leave further inquiry about conclusions, a discussion and implications open as it can really mean all sorts of things and it seems more about possibilities at this point than of a single way or road to empowerment and usability.

Last edited by Srtest on 19-Oct-2017 at 10:40 PM.
Last edited by Srtest on 19-Oct-2017 at 09:00 PM.
Last edited by Srtest on 19-Oct-2017 at 09:00 PM.
Last edited by Srtest on 19-Oct-2017 at 05:59 PM.

@Srtest

Very interesting! Any young relative who has seen the two Amigas in my study is impressed. We play with 4-player / null modem games and it's a great social interaction 'event' at a time when many children just stare at their screens communicating with friends with school even when they are away from school! Graphic tablets and animation also impresses. The Amiga appeals and nurtures them in a creative way that Smart Phones and Social Media are in contrast numbing them to. All children should have a Raspberry Pi or a preferably access to an Amiga compatible computer! The world would be a better place

Last edited by BigD on 19-Oct-2017 at 08:13 PM.

_________________
"Art challenges technology. Technology inspires the art."
John Lasseter, Co-Founder of Pixar Animation Studios

@Srtest

Sounds very interesting and tempting to do... for me it was a very interesting insight!

@whose

OMG they will say I'm insighting to experiment on kids!

@BigD

I really don't want to pass judgement on their world because maybe you've seen a previous discussion I was a part of where I said that. I mean, if you think about the phrasing regarding the amiga being a tv, you might have a flashback to the amiga being a games machine back in the day. A teacher once said to me that those kids actually use a lot more words than we did at their age. We might not like what they are saying and where they are saying it but it's still happening. I mean, you can also view using a remote controller and a tv or streamer as a primitive way of doing stuff, while they can see it as a streamlined no hassle approach. I have a love/hate relationship with the word streamlining because while I think it did a lot of bad things to the gaming world I love, the old Workbench and the people who made it knew when to just streamline ceratin components and when to present to you a different way of viewing something and acting upon that.

What does it mean that the amiga was a games machine? sure, it can mean what it's sounds like, while it can also mean it is very responsive, that you're able to just turn-on an go, etc. We had a similiar mini-discussion on fb about that. I think the point was missed and just like you can't just discipline your kid to like football or chess and the motivation has to come from them, you can't just throw painting programs at them and make them "creative". Creative is as much as looking at the big picture (like a game) as being interested in the way its parts come into place. At least that's the way the amiga worked for me. I won't elaborate further here.

A gui can be for kids who only know a single way of doing something a way to go further than pushing a button and getting a response (like a remote or fb) and it can also mean exactly that.

Last edited by Srtest on 19-Oct-2017 at 11:53 PM.