DOS for kids

Find out why my kid is learning DOS in 2018...

There are many great options to learn how to use computers. You could get any excellent Linux distribution, and install it on a spare machine. You could teach a child Python or Basic256. My kids use Linux laptops, and that works out well for most of their needs.

Recently, my son took an interest in other operating systems. His hard disk is going bad after years of use, and we started experimenting with alternate operating systems on USB sticks. He saw me reading about Haiku; we booted it up and played with it. We already used Dosbox to play a game that I really enjoyed as a child, so we installed Freedos on an SD card to play with it.

He loved FreeDOS better than I had expected. It is a very simple system: single user, no access control, no hidden or magic directories. Everything is right there in front of you. We installed QuickBasic and a typing tutor, and he loves the system. He even loves the spartan look of the default editor, which looks like edit.com.

Today, he practiced typing on a typing tutor from 1992.  Then we wrote a simple Basic program together, and compiled it to an EXE file. He loved every minute.


That made me reconsider tech's love of the new. The computing world is a slave to hot trends: Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality, Internet of Things, Blockchain, ... Everyone wants to learn about new technologies, the old is an embarrassing relic.

But are new systems always the best to learn?


There are scores of videos showing how old systems booted up faster, and got the job done just as well. There's a hint of truth to that.
FreeDOS boots on a decade-old computer in less than a second. Quickbasic probably takes a second to start up. Compilation is quick. Everything is instant. Fast. No clutter. No notifications, no icons, no buttons, bars. The whole interface has been run through an optimizing compiler.

The system cannot connect to a network, so everything is child-safe. And there is no chance of my kid goofing off and playing a game, or being distracted by some pictures. My son said that FreeDOS was "an Xterm that became your full computer."

And to top it up, my son can modify whatever he likes and experiment to his heart's content. When he ends up messing up the system, we can reinstall FreeDOS in a minute by wiping the SDcard clean, and copying again. I have a stack of old SD cards.

All the knowledge gained is valuable in today's world: hierarchical file systems, writing source files, compiling, touch-typing. It is a simple system and a person can truly understand the fundamentals. Learning DOS might be easier than learning a very complicated architecture like Linux, where there is a kernel, but also userland utilities, X-Windows, browsers, multiple users, access control...

In the past few days of playing with FreeDOS my son has asked insightful questions, which make this experiment very satisfying for me.

Image: Courtesy Me.

Autobiographies ...

I haven't read a lot of autobiographies, but here are a few that I've read in the last couple of years that made an impression.

1. Breaking Trail by Arlene Blum

Books about high-altitude mountaineering are exciting by definition.  But there's more to this one than just that.  It's the story of a woman who wants to climb high mountains in a time when it's mostly men who do that sort of a thing.

2. Tender at the Bone by Ruth Reichl

Ruth Reichl is a restaurant critic / cookbook author.  This is the story of her unusual childhood (dysfunctional family included), and her love of cooking.  It's peppered with recipes that I didn't really want, but I loved the story.

3. God's Hotel by Victoria Sweet

The author writes about her years working at San Francisco's Laguna Honda Hospital, which is one of the last few almshouses (a free hospital for poor and often chronically ill people) in the country. Dr. Sweet also talks about her research of pre-modern medicine (and be warned - those sections are not as interesting).  But overall, I found this book to be very insightful and very fun to read.

The three books above were all surprise finds.  I picked them up at the library and brought them home because I liked what it said on the back cover.  Didn't have them recommended to me by a friend.  Didn't look up the Amazon reviews.  What joy to run into a good book accidentally like that!

Game Review: TIS-100

TIS is a new game by Zachtronics. tl:dr; Geek? Buy it.

Earlier, I had written about the lack of diversity in games. The world doesn't need another action adventure first person shooter. What it needs is creative games, games that make you evaluate, to think new thoughts. I loved a game that made you burn stuff, and a gem by Zachtronics called Space Chem. I have been interested in Zachtronics' catalog since SpaceChem. For background, SpaceChem was about splitting and combining atoms to make new molecules.

TIS-100 is about parallel programming. But that's as vacuous as saying Chess is about moving wooden pieces on a board. TIS is about writing good code, about making magic with very little, about learning how best to utilize a small instruction set.

It is about reliving 80s computing: complete with a ratty manual, an uncertainty about what to make. Walk away with an appreciation that you can do a lot. Learn the system, and you can bend it to your will.

You write assembly language programs for a computer that has multiple stream processors, where multi-processor communication is a one-cycle primitive, and you choose how to achieve the objective.

You don't need to know assembly, you don't need to know programming. You don't need knowledge of Chemistry for SpaceChem, you don't need to know programming for TIS-100.

But at the end of it, you appreciate programming and you learn how much fun programming can be.

TIS is an absolutely amazing game. A game that I will be recommending to many friends, and their young kids.


Here's a video showing the different processors (little square boxes). The highlights are on executing lines, and the left side shows inputs and expected outputs.

Video courtesy: me.