The lack of experience in a child can lead to some funny situations. I want to say this happened in first grade or so, had a teacher, Mr Macintosh, who had several of his own Mac computers available in his classroom, and Kid Pix was loaded up on them (amongst other classics of the time). I was obsessed, particularly with the Bomb, thought it was just the coolest way to clear the screen, this ostensibly serious concept of a program made fun.
I also had difficulty connecting with my classmates, combination of untreated ADHD, and issues at home. For some reason I got it into my head that the bomb was cool, so if I told the others I had a bomb in my backpack I'd be cool! This was very shortly after the Columbine massacre, and of course the policy at that moment was to immediately call in the police. They talked with me, impressed upon my young mind the seriousness of such claims, and we all thankfully just moved on.
My family isn't religious but I used to go to church with a friend on Wednesday nights.
There were a bunch of new kids at the Bible School thing that Wednesday for some reason, and so there was a game where you'd say your name, use the first letter of your name as a pretend occupation, and a place, also with the first letter of your name. An example might be something like "My name is Jordan, I am a Janitor from Jamaica".
I guess I was a bit of an edgelord even at age 10, because I said "My name is Tommy, I am a Terrorist, from Tennessee". For context, this was September 5th, 2001. Everyone kind of laughed, the teachers rolled their eyes, and we moved on.
The following week, September 12, the teachers pulled me aside and gave me a very long, very stern lecture about why you can't joke about these things. I know they meant well, but to be honest I don't think I ever went back to church with my friend after that.
This is such a charming and human story about one of these whimsical things that I miss about software development these days. Sure, a few people might be annoyed by this, but for so many it would just bring a smile on their face amidst a dull working day. Too bad they didn’t get to implement him properly.
Also fyi, ours run it on their Raspi 400 via dosbox, they love it too. The DOS games library is full of educational-ish gems (they really like Lemmings and The Settlers, too).
I set up an old Mac Mini G4 with a patched version of Mac OS 9 with the sole purpose of allowing my 3 year old son to play point and click games, Kid Pix being one of them.
According to its wiki page, it's still under active development by Software MacKiev since 2004 (Kid Pix Deluxe 3), with Hickman serving as a consultant since 2011:
The UI really was easy to use like the article says. Part of this was there were so many fun options that we put extra effort into understanding the menus.
Oh man, Kid Pix takes me back. That was my very first interaction with a Mac back in 2nd grade in my school's computer lab. It was definitely the favorite app amongst all the students back then, and a helluva improved experience over using the old Apple IIs we had access to prior.
I’m sure we had kid pix studio for windows, may have come bundled with something like a graphics card. Definitely unusual, although I don’t remember my kids engaging with it as there were a lot of other kid oriented programs when the whole multimedia PC was in vogue. Hard to compete with Reader Rabbit. Great story though.
I remember playing Kid Pix on Windows as a kid. Back then, many programs required you to switch to 256-color mode and wouldn't run unless you did. But somehow, Kid Pix would still let you use it without having to switch modes.
This is my 4-year old's favorite. It's the only thing we've let her use the iPad for and I have it set up so that saves of her artwork end up in my iCloud.
Found Cosmic Osmo on there, one of my favourite games as a child. All black and white and very trippy, but so full of creativity, exploration and wonder. Also my gateway to the Myst series.
S.F.'s California Academy of Sciences used to have an open room near the lobby with a ton of Macintoshes loaded with children's software. I always remembered trying out Kid Pix.
My dad's Mac had it - I remember some versions of Kid Pix had a sort of "I don't know what to draw" menu item, which would generate complete nonsense like "[An astronaut] [on the surface of the Moon] is [riding horseback] but he needs [someone to take a photo]. Try that". Makes me wonder if it inspired the AI image model prompting modality.
I think my elementary school had Kid Pix 1.0 when I was in kindergarten, but they upgraded to Kid Pix Deluxe 3 pretty early on, and I ended up convincing my parents to buy a copy of that on DVD, which I still have. The bright, glossy colors and sound effects from that version are what I remember the most.
(I actually spent a lot of time just sitting on our home computer browsing the webpage for a Mac-only "3X" edition[1], which had a fire extinguisher instead of the bomb, among other minor differences. But one day, we got a mysterious email making an offer of the normal version for Windows on sale. In hindsight, I have no idea where that email came from, and it's a small wonder my parents didn't get scammed buying through it.)
Yet another reminder to begin with the thing that sparks joy, and go from there. Thanks for posting. His photography in the deep archive section is great.
The lack of experience in a child can lead to some funny situations. I want to say this happened in first grade or so, had a teacher, Mr Macintosh, who had several of his own Mac computers available in his classroom, and Kid Pix was loaded up on them (amongst other classics of the time). I was obsessed, particularly with the Bomb, thought it was just the coolest way to clear the screen, this ostensibly serious concept of a program made fun.
I also had difficulty connecting with my classmates, combination of untreated ADHD, and issues at home. For some reason I got it into my head that the bomb was cool, so if I told the others I had a bomb in my backpack I'd be cool! This was very shortly after the Columbine massacre, and of course the policy at that moment was to immediately call in the police. They talked with me, impressed upon my young mind the seriousness of such claims, and we all thankfully just moved on.
Odd to think back on now.
The bomb was awesome. I loved how you could pause it and start another to create really cool moire-like patterns.
I remember kids maxing out the sound on the Performas until the teacher got justifiably annoyed.
This triggered a memory for me: I’m pretty sure we weren’t even allowed to click the bomb in first grade for the same reason.
Now we're adults and we're not allowed to use the gun emoji
You can, but it's a water gun now
Similar story.
My family isn't religious but I used to go to church with a friend on Wednesday nights.
There were a bunch of new kids at the Bible School thing that Wednesday for some reason, and so there was a game where you'd say your name, use the first letter of your name as a pretend occupation, and a place, also with the first letter of your name. An example might be something like "My name is Jordan, I am a Janitor from Jamaica".
I guess I was a bit of an edgelord even at age 10, because I said "My name is Tommy, I am a Terrorist, from Tennessee". For context, this was September 5th, 2001. Everyone kind of laughed, the teachers rolled their eyes, and we moved on.
The following week, September 12, the teachers pulled me aside and gave me a very long, very stern lecture about why you can't joke about these things. I know they meant well, but to be honest I don't think I ever went back to church with my friend after that.
I was completely focused on the fact that the name was Mr Macintosh, and thought the story was gonna be about that
For those unaware: https://www.folklore.org/Mister_Macintosh.html
This is such a charming and human story about one of these whimsical things that I miss about software development these days. Sure, a few people might be annoyed by this, but for so many it would just bring a smile on their face amidst a dull working day. Too bad they didn’t get to implement him properly.
Kid Pix was the very first program I ever used on a computer when I was around 5 years old. Good times. Still remember the dynamite.
Ding dong.... uuuRRRRRhh... woooooooow. We had this on a really old mac a long time ago.
oooopsss. Uhohhhhh. I can still hear those sounds in my head.
FYI there is an iOS port of KidPix that my kids throughly enjoy as much as I enjoyed playing it at that age.
Also fyi, ours run it on their Raspi 400 via dosbox, they love it too. The DOS games library is full of educational-ish gems (they really like Lemmings and The Settlers, too).
Yes, old dos games are perfect for young kids. The Castle of Dr Brain, the humongous games, Incredible Machines to just name a few.
I set up an old Mac Mini G4 with a patched version of Mac OS 9 with the sole purpose of allowing my 3 year old son to play point and click games, Kid Pix being one of them.
This (along with Oregon Trail and Carmen Sandiego) were the things to use at my school.
I had no idea we had basically the first commercial version but the timing lines up.
As an adult I now feel for those teachers who had to hear a whole bunch of computers making constant sound effects though.
We had Kids Pix, then later Zoombinis, then after the Mac OS X update it was Marble Blast Gold (Nanosaur 2 was banned) and Kids Pix Deluxe 3
Oh man, what a throw back. The bomb to clear the screen was something else. In later versions they had a slideshow thingy, similar to hypercard.
Took Prof Hickman's Digital Arts class when I was at UofO. Just a truly awesome human being.
And Prof Hickman, if for some reason you are on HN and reading this, thanks for giving me access to the Apollo Domain workstation.
According to its wiki page, it's still under active development by Software MacKiev since 2004 (Kid Pix Deluxe 3), with Hickman serving as a consultant since 2011:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kid_Pix
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ClB2DbKHElM Entertaining video from Dank Pods using Kid Pix on Windows, with lots of the sound and visual effects
The UI really was easy to use like the article says. Part of this was there were so many fun options that we put extra effort into understanding the menus.
Oh man, Kid Pix takes me back. That was my very first interaction with a Mac back in 2nd grade in my school's computer lab. It was definitely the favorite app amongst all the students back then, and a helluva improved experience over using the old Apple IIs we had access to prior.
I’m sure we had kid pix studio for windows, may have come bundled with something like a graphics card. Definitely unusual, although I don’t remember my kids engaging with it as there were a lot of other kid oriented programs when the whole multimedia PC was in vogue. Hard to compete with Reader Rabbit. Great story though.
Essay is from 2013, been shared on HN before but not much discussion: https://hn.algolia.com/?q=http%3A%2F%2Fred-green-blue.com%2F...
I remember playing Kid Pix on Windows as a kid. Back then, many programs required you to switch to 256-color mode and wouldn't run unless you did. But somehow, Kid Pix would still let you use it without having to switch modes.
So much hours spent with Kid Pix at our macintosh back in the days! Still remember all the sounds and effects, especially this weird magic gum thing.
Kid Pix 3 and Kid Pix 4 were foundational computing experiences for me.
I remember wasting way too much time with the rudimentary speech-to-text
What a paradigm shift it was when us kids in the computer lab found out you can change the stamp size/stop the animations with shift, command, opt etc
We can bring Kid Pix with the bomb back. Someone Show HN tomorrow Kid Pix ported to wasm
You're in luck!
https://kidpix.app/
I let my 6 year old play on this all the time and they love it. The amount of stamps in the library is insane!
This is my 4-year old's favorite. It's the only thing we've let her use the iPad for and I have it set up so that saves of her artwork end up in my iCloud.
My kids love using it on the family ipad!
you can already run the real thing in a browser on infinite mac https://infinitemac.org/1994/System%207.5
Tried playing A-10 Flyer.
Emulator Crash: Memory out of bounds (bummer).
Found Cosmic Osmo on there, one of my favourite games as a child. All black and white and very trippy, but so full of creativity, exploration and wonder. Also my gateway to the Myst series.
Perfect reminder to play a little kid pix to get my mind right.
oh man I loved Kid Pix in like grade 1!
S.F.'s California Academy of Sciences used to have an open room near the lobby with a ton of Macintoshes loaded with children's software. I always remembered trying out Kid Pix.
the picture galleries on that site are great, I wish I had chronicled things that way.
My dad's Mac had it - I remember some versions of Kid Pix had a sort of "I don't know what to draw" menu item, which would generate complete nonsense like "[An astronaut] [on the surface of the Moon] is [riding horseback] but he needs [someone to take a photo]. Try that". Makes me wonder if it inspired the AI image model prompting modality.
"Oh no!"
I've wanted this as my business-hours pager sound for a very long time...
I think my elementary school had Kid Pix 1.0 when I was in kindergarten, but they upgraded to Kid Pix Deluxe 3 pretty early on, and I ended up convincing my parents to buy a copy of that on DVD, which I still have. The bright, glossy colors and sound effects from that version are what I remember the most.
(I actually spent a lot of time just sitting on our home computer browsing the webpage for a Mac-only "3X" edition[1], which had a fire extinguisher instead of the bomb, among other minor differences. But one day, we got a mysterious email making an offer of the normal version for Windows on sale. In hindsight, I have no idea where that email came from, and it's a small wonder my parents didn't get scammed buying through it.)
[1] https://www.mackiev.com/kp_big_screen.html
Yet another reminder to begin with the thing that sparks joy, and go from there. Thanks for posting. His photography in the deep archive section is great.
That's a link going unclicked.