Comment by xattt
2 days ago
> You can use Tulip to make music, code, art, games, or just write.
Am I wrong to think statements like these are just aspirational warm-and-fuzzies about the product without any real substance?
You could do all those things on anything, but they are typically incongruent with one another. If you are a beginner or a pro, you’re going to be better off doing it on a “more-standard” device.
Here's a few I care about:
* Boots almost instantly into a usable system
* I can read and understand every line of code that is running
* I can understand all of the hardware it's running on
We've gotten so used to computers not working. Weird stuff breaks all the time and even experts can only guess why beyond turning it off and on again, which takes minutes for most devices.
I dream of a world where we trust computers to work and be fast. It's completely possible, but step one is reducing complexity by several orders of magnitude.
You're wrong, it explains what you can do with this pocket computer. Of course you could do the same and more with any standard device but the point here is to have a small cheap device to play and hack, not be a replacement for a MacBook.
Agree with the above. As someone who has never heard of this before, the description of "a portable programmable device for music, graphics, code and writing" reads to me as "a computer". I'm kind of unsure why I would want to use this instead of the computer I'm typing on right now.
This seems to be targeting the market of users with the following intersecting interests: * DIY hardware enthusiast * musician * python developer * maybe also wants graphics...? Seems a small segment to me, but I assume I'm missing something here.
An immediate benefit I see is that they're cheap enough to use once - you could make/find/buy a software instrument that you like, then put it in your gear bag and never reflash it. Now it's just like any other synth. Then you can get a second Tulip and do the same thing later if you like. You could do this with laptops of course but it starts to get expensive.
The Pocket Operators have something similar (the KO at least, maybe the others). If you've written samples into them you want to preserve for playing live, you can snap a tab off and then they're read-only - no surprises on gig night.
What's wrong with having a small community? Not everything has to be done in the hope of becoming the next Apple
Do you have a more substantive critique?
I'm particularly sensitive to shallow critiques of new ways of computing, particularly those that encourage and enable people to be creative. Whether a project is successful or not, it's nice to see something that isn't a "bootup your general purpose comouter and then immediately open a browser" style of computing.
Attempting to get people to interact with the real world and also be creative should be commended.
It’s the “You can do anything (… at Zombo.com [1])” angle.
I’ve been lulled into novel only-limit-is-your-imagination work environments that try to convince me to think they will be “transcendental” in my abilities.
A little while later, I run into software or hardware limitations only to face a physical malaise because I’d been troubleshooting a hardware or software problem for hours.
Take the “just write” angle. I do technical writing. I don’t trust that the built-in dictionary for that device is ever going to meet my spellcheck needs. I need mah Microsoft Word that I know how to navigate like the back of my hand, and I’m set.
Don’t promise a “Zombocom” device that doesn’t actually deliver.
[1] https://zombo.com/