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Comment by GFK_of_xmaspast | Hacker News Reader

> Even a C64 or a ZX Spectrum would be a better choice than an RPi for teaching

This is the strangest opinion I've seen all day. My teen programming years were on a c64 in the late 80s, and in retrospect that was a really tough learning experience (and when I got to college and had access to 'anything else' I never looked back).

Also how was the c64 not a 'closed proprietary system'?

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Also how was the c64 not a 'closed proprietary system'?

It's been completely reverse-engineered, emulated, and documented, a lot more than can be said of the SoC in the RPi. Maybe in 30 years the same will happen to the latter, but I'm not too optimistic about that.

That means it was a closed, proprietary system that was reverse engineered & emulated. Different from an open system that doesn't require that. Also more efficient in hardware if any clones port original design.

You are incorrect. The documentation supplied with the C64 detailed schematics and ROM routines:

C64: http://www.classiccmp.org/cini/pdf/Commodore/C64%20Programme...

C128: http://www.pagetable.com/docs/Commodore%20128%20Programmer's...

Did they give you copyright and patent licenses allowing you to do whatever you wanted with their tech? Or did a cloner have to hope the company would take no legal action?

Because that's still not equal to an open-source design where the licensing eliminates such risks.

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