Computer for a 9 yr old

He has Down Syndrome and doesn't even talk much. The computer has been the greatest thing! It all started when, every time I would walk away from my computer, when I came back, he would be sitting there trying to do stuff. For a child who needed physical therapy for fine motor skills, I was amazed at how well he handled the mouse. I got some kid's games and loaded up. He very quickly learned to recognize & click the correct icons for whatever he wanted to play. Then he started repeating the words he heard on the computer and even counting! We picked up a used computer at a small flea market and set it up just for him. He loved the computer, but he also loved playing with toys and never miss an opportunity to go outside. Still the computer was essential enough that when it went out about a year ago, we had to replace it right away. I went to Tiger Direct & got a refurbished eMachine for about $250. I didn't need a monitor or any extras, we just used the same monitor he already had.

...is that your son's website? Wow!!! Your son and you have every right to be proud and happy about it and the state of affairs. I liked the way the sentences were simple and straight.

And the neon lights and clear case are great ideas for kids.

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Message was edited by: The Trivia Geek

I was not exactly doubting him. I was just expressing my "awe" :-) at the site.

This may have been mentioned already but Edubuntu is pretty good and it is built on Ubuntu which seems poised to be around for a little while longer. It seems to be enjoying some popularity. It's Linux so any of the programming apps that are available for Linux will also be available for this. The migration path is pretty obvious here as the child gets older and the Edubuntu starts to seem too juvenile. Just upgrade them to Ubuntu or Kubuntu.

I think your 9 year old would do fine with any pc capable of running Windows XP, probably a P3, with 512mb of ram. There are lots of companies that sell refurbs, namely http://www.pcsurplusonline.com.

I started my daughter off at 4 years old with a Compaq 486 100mhz, with 64mb of ram running Windows 98, then upgraded 2 years later, to a Dell P3 1.4ghz with 512mb of ram running Windows XP, and a DVD drive, and a tv tuner card. She enjoys watching her dvd movies, and her vhs movies on her vcr through the tv tuner, and she loves going to disney.com or nickelodeon.com. After watching me play World of Warcraft, she wanted to play a game like that, so I installed ToonTown for her, and she loves playing that, and it is very safe, as the chat only allows ToonTown approved phrases. She listens to her music collection on her pc, and also on her Nintendo DS Lite, using a device called a Max Media dock, http://www.walmart.com/catalog/product.do?product_id=5131557.

She is already asking to help setup/upgrade her next computer which will be my current one once I buy a better one, and, of course, to build her own website.

He is just one of the personalities that inhabits this virtual place. His explanations are frequently long, his punctuation can sometimes be somewhat creative but he is consistent.

We are what we are. I try not to get into discussions with Max because I know he will hit me over the head with his hammer until I submit. I try not to bug JD because I am a bit too dictionary literal for his taste (as well as a bit to liberal ;) ) but sometimes we agree.

Col has a L-O-T of experience in far too many areas for any one mortal. That is just the way it is. He will probably get under your skin again in a different thread. I don't agree with everything he says either but I won't tell him that (and I hope you don't tell him either).

Col is Col and there you have it.

I used to ask my 9-yr old "What did you learn today". After too many times of him saying "Nothing" I finally figured out what to ask him. "What did they try to teach you today?" That started the conversations. He would say that they were still teaching some 2nd and 3rd grade math, some of the same language stuff from the previous semester, etc.

My 2nd grader came home once with a worksheet of 100 " + 4" and another " + 5" problems. He was taking forever on it. I remembered him doing more difficult problems somewhere so I turned the paper over and gave him 2 2-digit numbers to add. He did those and then he created a 2 6-digit number addition problem. I followed that up with several other multi-digit addition problems to break the boredom of the single digit homework and he was able to finish it.

Sometimes we just have to add in stuff that the schools won't provide to get them to do the stuff that the schools do provide/require.

doesn't mean you should post it in yet another place and one that will be far more widely read than the "whois" directory.

I brought home from work some old redundant equipment that was being tossed out and my son who was eight at the time, built his first working PC out of it. (an old 486 which still goes). Since then he has built every PC. he has had. We have a local technology recycling center which has bee a good cheap source of parts, as well as redundant equipment from work. He has assembled machines he has sold to finance building better machines. fixed up his freinds machines and has a better machine than I do at home. Along the way he has had many successes a few failures learnt lots. He has become proficeint with linux installations, wired a network in the house (set up as a samba server). He is now 15 and playing around with a pile of old junk has done him more good than me purchasing his own machine would have done

Anyway he was only the beginning of the rot as now all 3 of my sisters sons are avid players of PS2 and computer games and are constantly fighting over their now restricted time that they are allowed to use the Game Console & or Computer.

The problems started out because the child was left to play the games recommended by the Social Worker who insisted that there would be no harm in him using the computer. Then as the other children got older they naturally felt left out and now the youngest which is 5 this year is a [b]Computer Junkie[/b] with only his older brothers and their friends to observe when they use a computer. :D

Between the PS2, Computer and TV they don't get out side too much and even then the eldest one hams it up to get attention. The last time that I was over there they had been giving the goats molasses sticks to lick on and it ran down their arms and literally everywhere. The eldest one went into where the Miniature Pig lives and allowed the pig to lick off the Molasses that he had over a lot of his body till he decided that he wanted none of this and it was at that stage where the pig who wanted more forced him into a corner and kept him there. Till this day if you listen to him tell the story there was this [b]Giant Carnivorous Pig who was out to kill him[/b] when the poor little pig stands all of about 14 inches high and is fully grown.

As I've said elsewhere he doesn't take account of now but either looks back to where he was or thinks about whats he's going to be doing and forgets about what is [b]Happening Now.[/b]

Col

http://freecycle.org/

or

http://www.craigslist.org/

are good places to find an older but free computer.

general bad parenting. These things don't happen just because you give a child a window to the world. It's the parents responsibility to make sure their kid doesn't jump out of it. Hal, it sounds like you have some real issues.

Actually, for a 9 year old an Amiga of whatever ilk wouldn't be a bad start to things. Lots of games, an easy Basic to program on (with graphics commands built in), neato screen effects (multiple resolutions at the same time - all visible), Really good sound - lots of freeware still floating around - including keyboarding stuff that still works well for learning midi etc. oh - and did I mention games? A 9/10 yr old can always find a way to have fun with lots of games - and they would have something different to show their buddies too... new game every week till they're 14?).

Sometimes I have to pry my grandsons off the Amigas still around here - even Arkanoid stil demands some time :)

In America, we call jam jam, and we call jelly jelly. Jam has seeds in it, jelly doesn't. That's why you have strawberry jam and grape jelly. Neither should be confused with preserves, which have actual chunks of the fruit in them.

Is that backwards from you gents down there or just more complicated? We don't have as many words for snow as eskimos do.

We also have a saying to help you remember the difference:
"Must be jelly, because jam don't shake like that!"

Ok, maybe that's not the purpose of it...

We bought a Dell Desktop refurb with LCD monitor and SB sound card (she's hearing impaired or we would have stuck with the integrated sound) for our Granddaghter when she was seven now she is nine and it's still going strong. I recently added a Dlink card to it so she can surf as well. Windows access controls on XP is all we use at the moment for access control but I expect we will have to go to something that she can't bypass soon

We grabbed a very cheap, older, eminently disposable Mac from eBay for the kids. ($29 for an imac 300mhz.) If you buy in town you can pick it up and save the shipping cost, it comes with an OS license, there are lots of older cheap educational titles, etc. Our oldest is only eight so it isn't even on the internet. The younger ones can beat it up and there's very little at risk.

Now that the oldest is starting to be interested in going online I created an account on my machine for her that's closely monitored to keep her out of trouble and her screen time contained. Eventually we'll need a homework-grade machine for them, but for the 4-10 years this is perfect.

KPL's been replaced by Phrogram. KPL is the old version:
http://phrogram.com/Default.aspx

For as little as $50 you can still find usable 1GHz boxes with 512 Mb RAM that you can load with PCLinuxOS or SAM Linux and have great safe machine for 9-year old.
True, there are no big names in gaming for Linux but still dozens of good games are available for Linux.
KDE desktop environment offers good K-educa software too ( typing, wocabulary, stelarium,chemistry...)
Couple hours of sharing the computer with your boy you can spend for creating useful shortcuts/bookmarks for:
http://encarta.msn.com/
http://www.britannica.com/
http://www.m-w.com
and so on.
Linux certainly can be enjoyable box for 9-year old.

is that joke!

In fact ALL kids misbehave on some level. And anyone who claims they never lie to their parents is just lying some more. But I do believe kids will lie, misbehave, or do more terrible things for a REASON. And that reason, at least before the child hits those teen years, is usually the parents. Parents have a real problem trying to blame their kids' problems on computers or video games, when it was the parents who decided to use those things as babysitters in the first place.

And it concerns me that anyone would talk the way you have about family, terror-child or not. Your sweeping generalizations about children returning to you the investment you made in them made me want to barf. Do your kids know how you feel? If I knew my dad said that kind of thing I wouldn't just stop asking him for help fixing stuff--I'd never talk to him again.

We are always replacing systems (at least since I started) and will sell 3 or 4 yr old systems cheap to get them out of our storage. Another local Community College has annual sales. My 9 yr old just has my last version of desktop with an upgraded video card so he won't be on mine to play BF2! :)

It appears to me that you don't know Col very well. There is lots to know and not very hard to find. I say this for 2 reasons: 1) the assumption you make doesn't match the impression I have of him from the hundreds of his posts that I have read; and, 2) if you had actually read what he writes then you would see that his moniker is "HAL9000" and he signs his posts with "Col".

One of the biggest mistakes that people can make when it comes to relying on the written word is to infer intent or emotion. Especially if the inference is from a small sample of writing.

Would you, possibly, be willing to get off of you apparently high horse and ask a question instead of making an accusation?

Try something like this:

Col, are you suggesting that the kids' problems were due to the computers? Usually situations like this are more related to the people raising the kids.

That this one was from this world as it was at best totally insane. :D

But I did like the explanation that [b]Mothers Can Not Sexually Molest[/b] their children when that week there had been 3 cases where women had been found guilty of this very action. :D

Seems that it was all [b]Girl Power[/b] where Men are [b]Bad[/b] and Women are [b]Good.[/b] :^0

My comment was that if you get turned on by changing a dirty nappy you have some real issues that need working out and you really need help. Pity that mine by that stage where way too old but I could have used that as an excuse to never change a dirty nappy ever again if I had babies around the house. :D

Col

Will you edumicate them for me? Yes they know exactly what I say and they even where aware of the fact that I would tell them to [b]Go and Play on the road in front of an oncoming semi when they where young.[/b] They never did as they where told but always insisted on doing the opposite.

Currently I tell both of them that I plan on living long enough to be more of a problem to them that they where to me. And do you know what happens they just [b]Laugh At Me![/b] :(

Sorry but I've tried everything possible to rid myself of them and they are not interested perhaps when you get a bit older you'll understand the way that peoples minds work. Having sat back and watched parents drive their children I decided that I would ever do that to mine now instead of appreciating that fact they complain. My son who trained with a swimmer you may have heard about called Kerrin Perkins loved to swim is still great friends with Kerrin as am I because we helped out there all the time is now insisting that he could have been as good as Kerrin if we had of pushed him. The fact that he wasn't interested and even the Coach was appalled by the fact that he was a better swimmer than Kerrin but lacked the [b]Killer Instinct[/b] to achieve so he just had fun in swimming and it was pointless to attempt to force him to do something that he wasn't interested in. Anyway neither of my children will desert me because they want what we have when we die or sooner as they are currently dividing up the spoils. :D

But as Family is the most important thing in our lives we have always instilled this into our children and even if they may not see some relatives for 10 years they can pick up a conversation where they left off all that time ago.

As for expecting a valid return on my investment in my children I think that every parent expects this I just don't hand it to them on a sliver platter and they had to work for what they got so they appreciated it that much more.

From your posts here it seems to me that you just expect things to be given to you by your parents because they are your parents. The trouble with this is that once you start working you can not expect a job with high pay because you think that you deserve a good living. You need to work for it. Your postings here show the attitude of the expectation of Expecting everything handed to you without any effort expended on your part.

And that from my prospective really is [b]Child Abuse[/b] as the children never grow up and continue to expect to be given things regardless of weather they deserve them or not.

Col :^0
[i]Edited to add[/i] Actually i wouldn't give you my children's E-Mail addresses as I don't think that you could handle their responses when you told them to walk or better still run away as fast as possible. They would just tell you where to get off in no uncertain terms and that would most likely upset you and make you cry yourself to sleep. :D

Actually the scary thing is that I understood most of that I must be speaking to my Cousin's new Husband way to much as he's a Mad Scott who stands about 7 foot 28 inches and that's just across the chest. :D

Took about 12 months to understand him properly but now I don't have any problems. Now all I've got to do is make it worth while for them to use Skype to save the phone bills as they are currently in London working.

So TTM do I need to send someone up to have a quite word with you? :^0

Col ]:)

I used to have one and tried it out a few times. It never seemed to work right. Then I tracked down the author of it and found out it was a guy. He thought of himself as a "modern male" but was still sadly out of touch.

Turns out his wife left him for some muscle beach type so he sold everything and started following Arnold Shwartsteenager around. Then Arnold did that movie where he gets pregnant and the guy committed suicide. I haven't heard much of what he has done since then.

And all I can say is that every parent worth anything expects to see a ROI in their children. Some may prefer to call it something else and some may not like the way that I describe things but every parent who loves their children expect this in some form.

The bottom line which you have yet to learn is that children are nasty, noisy, demanding things that get worse as they get older. Things for the first 41 weeks start out as Hell and only get worse from that point on. The older that they get the worse they get till they eventually totally leave home and then return to visit at a much latter point. A year or 2 ago my youngest went around the world and insisted on taking a digital camera that belonged to me with her, not because she wanted it but so that I could have pictures of all the places that I had not been. At least that was her excuse. :D

This year she's going to France for 6 months to play up like a second hand lawn mower I suppose. :^0

Both of my children haven't been unemployed a day in their lives unless you wish to count when my son was told to stop working by the Heart Specialist till he could undergo an operation for a heart problem when he was about 29 or 30. Even then he cost us a recently restored Mercedes as it was destroyed taking him to the Meat-Works and he couldn't say a single word as the truck that rear ended it flew around the corner. He just looked and tried to cover any exposed skin to prevent any cuts.

Till the day that I die I'll be constantly expecting an ROI for all the trouble and expense that those children have cost me and my wife over the years and I'll get exactly what I want from them because that is how they where brought up and they consider it their duty to do as well.

If anything I might say that you have [b]Issues[/b] by not believing that you owe your parents anything at all and your expressed attitude that if you where spoken to like that would make you walk away shows just how inconsiderate and selfish you actually are.

The only thing that you have in your favour is the fact that you don't believe that children and [b]Little Angels Who Can Do No Wrong.[/b] So there is some hope for you yet. :^0
I really bet that you'll feel differently when you have another 25 to 30 years under your belt and a couple of screaming children who are demanding immediate attention at your feet. :D

Col

OK, not exactly. Kids are all over the place and it'll depend on the individual. But ours could handle the mouse and ideas at three as long as they were using software designed for that age. Reader Rabbit Toddler and Reader Rabbit Preschool, for example, are fun and easy for the 3-5 set. They're pretty old titles, so they're even better suited for the old cheap hardware.

From experience with this age group, Phrogram is good and Sketchup from Google is great, if you want the kids to do something else than games. Also, a program to introduce touch typing may benefit them for life. The hardware hardly matters for the 9-year-olds. Computers get thrown away at work that are good enough for these kids.

Kudos for keeping your kids employed, but I'm pretty sure that's all anyone can really expect. Most people in this country can't even break even financially, much less have some great surplus to return to mom and dad just because of some abstract sense of duty to people who chose to raise you.

It is possible, after all, to just not have kids. I'm not having kids. You're right--a couple of screaming children is simply not part of my picture of happiness, and it saddens me that most like-minded people will eventually give in and have kids for the sake of some mythical American dream. Having kids in the first place can itself be a bad choice.

Your story about the Mercedes is curious. It's unclear just who was driving it, but I'm going to guess it doesn't matter. That kinda thing is just a fact of life. Accidents happen, and that's the risk you run putting a car on the road. If you're not willing to risk your Mercedes then it probably shouldn't be driven. Simple, really.

I'm also curious, though you certainly don't have to comment: have you returned your parents 'investment'? Would they even accept such a gift?

My parents would be thoroughly shamed if they felt like they had to take my money for any reason, like their impressive debt, much less go *expecting* me to fix the results of their bad choices. They might still accept. I'm not sure. It's very possible that I'll be able to do that for them someday, but we'll cross that line when we get to it. But I know for a fact they don't *expect* me to cough up what I'll earn for being a generally bright person. Or maybe the fact that I'm doing well enough to pay for my own continued education, automobile, living expenses, etc., is part of what you mean by a return?

Fair enough, perhaps, but it was definitely my brother, and not my parents, who taught me to love math and logic and got me to a point where I could earn a huge scholarship from a standardized reasoning test. There are a lot of influences on our cash. Mom and dad encouraged me to work through high school, and I did. And that's the best they could do for me on that front. I appreciate that, and I would never throw it back in their faces by *not* working.

I happen to think the bottom line is that there is no bottom line. Family isn't business. It's the people most likely to help find some joy in life. Talking about family in terms of investments and returns is like ruining the big holiday gathering with a full gift exchange: depressing tokens of I-clearly-didn't-know-what-to-get-you and wracking up some credit card debt in the process. When my mother's family finally stopped that nonsense you could just feel the tension around the holidays lift, and we could focus on what was really important: eating way too much food and catching up with the family we don't get to see often enough.

It's actually at those gatherings when I get to babysit my cousins' brats for a while and remind myself why I'm not having kids. My aunts question the finality of my decision. They only good reason they can come up with to have kids, however, is that it's "soooo rewarding." Everything I've seen (and everything you've plainly told me) indicates otherwise.

My current boyfriend is trying to convince me that we have a duty to pass on our brains and good looks. I told him in that case we should adopt an adorable child and provide an enriching environment. He said it wouldn't be the same, and I had to say that if we have any duty at all it would be to help kids who already need us, not just create more. We're still talking through this one. I might be willing to compromise and make the sacrifices necessary to keep him happy and help a child in need. Maybe. But I certainly won't be expecting a return. I'd be perfectly happy to give everything I have and see a needy child flourish and never actually see a dime. That's why they like to call it a sacrifice.

Granted I did say above about a 9 year old that if they could keep him away from computers they could hit him for a loan when he was a Brain Surgeon but other than that I don't remember making any reference to money just a Return on Investment which doesn't necessarily mean money.

As for the Merc it was destroyed because it was being used to do something for one of the kids and while I'm not the slightest bit happy about loosing a car that took 5 years to find and then 2 to totally restore I'm much happier that I was driving that than one of the new ones as everyone in the back seat would have been dead and most likely the people in the front seats trapped in the wreckage. But the reason that it as taken is because I was asked to drive the newest car that I had just finished restoring as he wanted to travel in something with [b]Class.[/b] For some strange reason a Fully Loaded Refrigerated 10 ton truck is always going to do much more damage to a stationary car than the car will ever manage to do to the truck.

In that case as he had to be awake for the procedure there was a running conversation between the OR where my son was and the ER where his parents where as he was far more concerned about what injuries his parents had got than about himself. Then when the Surgeon lost the shunt instead of getting worried he said I trust you and went to sleep. You just don't have a spring loaded 1.2 inch thing with big barbs on it floating around in your blood stream and expect to live too long.

But as far as my parents where concerned they where quite happy with me very unhappy about the fact that my younger brother died at 26 and here I'm only talking about my now dead father he was ecstatic when his daughter who was born 13 years after me when he was 64 passed out of Uni as a Qualified Speech Therapist. Now she is like her mother and speaks down to every one and those are her Mothers words not mine along with the following "I trained her way too well." :D

I hate to state the obvious but if everyone was to work along the same way as you and not want children where whould the next generation of people in your country come from?

As for me I work 24/7 and don't have an ounce of trouble dropping everything when my Mother calls and needs something. I don't think twice about her living in my house as I consider it hers I just Pay the Rates and the like. I can get called over there for anything from something major to her wanting me to go On Line to look up an answer for a crossword puzzle though I do get a laugh when she attempts to insert Toner Cartridges into the Photocopier that she uses the wrong way and gets then stuck requiring the machine to be pulled apart to get it out without breaking anything.

I actually got a mate who is the Service Manager of Cannon here to look after her Photocopier and even he didn't believe me when I told him that I had to partly pull it apart to remove a new black toner cartridge because it was in the wrong way. I was just told that it couldn't be inserted that way so it was impossible to get it in. I did love the look of total disbelief on his face when he watched her push in another one without any effort and it couldn't be removed without pulling apart everything that I had to remove to get it out. :^0

You are right in one of your opinions you can not expect a fresh out of college person to be able to pay money to their parents as they don't make anywhere near enough but that doesn't mean that they have to totally ignore their parents till they want something either. Get the picture?

But much more importantly I didn't believe in giving my children everything just because they wanted it. If they wanted something they had to work for it just like I have to and I don't expect people to give me things just because I want them I have to pay for what I want so I don't see this as a great idea to teach children to just ask for something and they get it, I don't think that teaches them a great way to live or what to expect from the [b]Big Bad World[/b] when they eventually get out there and have to fend for themselves. I guess that's why so many now are not and are staying at home mooching off their parents while buying investment complexes or paying for overseas holidays rent free.

That idea just doesn't sit well with me either so my children had to pay their way or at least think that they where so they got an education on what would happen to them when they didn't do as was required of them. My sons wife doesn't have an idea about how to spend money properly she spent well over several K on a wedding dress and didn't bother to pay Rent or Registration on her car for 3 months and then thought that it was outrageous that she was served an eviction notice and that she got a Ticket from the Police for driving an unregistered car. If she had of hurt someone she would be paying off that stupid mistake for the rest of her life but to her paying her bills wasn't important as she wanted something else so all the other stuff could wait till she wanted to pay it.

That attitude drives me crazy as obviously she has never learnt how to deal with money and what needs doing with it. Got any idea of where I'm coming from yet?

Col

I am going to go out on a limb here and say that Col loves his kids. Probably more than many folks can fathom. What he doesn't do is go around claiming that he loves them and showing it with the words.

He has taken the hard route which involves teaching the hard lessons of life. I expect that his parents may have taken this route as well, from the sounds of it.

It is not clear, crabby, from your input here if you understand this aspect of it all. It is only in the last couple of decades that we, in the good ol' USofA, have decided that love needs to be stated and stated often since that is the only proper way to indicate love. We need to legislate protection as opposed to teaching good sense.

Who knows. It may be that the world will be a better place if you don't take the role of parent. Then again, maybe you, in your cynical stance, will have something invaluable to offer. That isn't for us to decide. But, please, if you choose to raise any kids, don't give them everything that you never had in your youth. Nobody ever appreciates free stuff. They just figure it is worth what they paid for it... nothing.

Here's a fun tangent... my sister's whole wedding was only a few thousand. And if I ever marry (marriage is another concept I'm fairly cynical about, but that's another story) I intend to follow her lead. Maybe I was lucky... my parents were always very good about making me pay for my own non-essentials, and my big sister was an excellent example of responsibility.

On that note, maybe I wasn't clear what I meant when I said I'd sacrifice everything. I meant, everything for what my child needs. I definitely understand the difference between that and spoiling a child with everything he or she wants.

That's very sad about the, um, "totally ignore their parents till they want something" part. Lucky me, again: I took off to college just a few towns over and still live very close. Every couple of weekends or so I head home to collect mail that's still sent there and have a chat. I'll admit It might be less than that if my parents weren't so anti-IM. But still, I enjoy a closeness to my parents that I never really had before leaving town.

As far as people following my lead and not having kids... I don't know. All I really know on that topic is how as IQ and income go up in a country, the birthrate slows down. I kind of suspect that a lot of people already think like me, and I just don't know enough of them. There will always be people who have kids for the sake of having kids and not really know why--that's the survival instinct. What's mildly depressing to me is that intelligent people, the ones who can think through and judge the validity of their instincts, who both recognize and reject that train of thought, eventually give in.

Another tangent: I once read an article by a conspiracy theorist who said the government is behind the dumbing down of America's schools (particularly the ineffectiveness and harm No Child Left Behind is causing) because more educated people have fewer babies--fewer sons to send to war, and fewer people willing to send their sons to war. Interesting, if a little far-fetched.

Dave, it's interesting you say that about something to offer with my cynical perspective. It never ceases to amaze me that about 2/3 of the people to whom I rant like this wind up saying that it sounds like I'd make a great mother, for exactly the reasons I think I'd be a bad one.

Some of you might be aware that I am originally from India. The culture is little bit different :-)

My parents, coming from a middle-class background, raised three kids and paid all the educational and living expenses from their own pocket till we kids got the job or got married. My father's job provides him a pension, now that he has retired.

Maybe it was our lifestyle, but we kids never realized how rich or how poor we were. Parents never discussed "money" when we were young. When we asked for things, either we got it or did not get it. Kind of boolean - yes or no :-).

But as we grew older, we started realizing our financial situations - where did the money come from and how and where did it go.

As a housewife, my mom did all her best to take care of the house and kids and manage the budget. She was the rules-keeper of the house. I am still wary of upsetting her :-)

As years went by, all the little things here and there made us realize the sacrifices and hard work they put in for us. This made us love & respect them. This does not mean we did not fight or there were no tense moments. Which family does not have?

Now, I think the onus is on me to take care of their needs in their old age. Of course I need to balance it with the needs of my kids. Well if my parents could do the balancing act, then so should I be able to do. No excuses. There will be conflicts, no doubt. Well that is how life goes.

just rambling....

Hi Onbliss

i don't have kids myself, but i remember beeing interested in electric stuff. My dad had no idea about it, except selling it.(He worked as a accountant at a utility company)
So when i got a electric toy for christmas or birthday, it didn't take very long until i took it apart. I wasn't a unthankful brat, like Hal900 might possibly see it, but i was more interested in the inner workings than seeing it turn circles on the floor and burning up batteries.
Since my dad was more into woodworking, gardening and hiking, a neighbour who worked at a phone company introduced me to electricity and gave me my first multimeter (a analog type of course). When i was around 10 years old, i got a electronic experiment's kit so i could build amplifiers radio receivers and so on. After that, there was no turning back. I met a guy at our lokal electronics store who helped me on my way into electronics design and repair. (He was/is a real "geek" (in the positive meaning))
I bought my first computer at the age of 14, it was a used "challenger superboard". It took me a couple of weeks of my vacation time to be able to buy it. So i would certainly not touch it with with jam/jelly on my fingers.
But to come back to your question, i would start with a microcontroller like a AVR AtMega or a PIC. Build a motor driver and some sensors and build a little robot. If you're not into electronics, you can buy these pretty cheap. The controllers are quite easy to program and debug even with a old PC running windows or linux.
Since these chips are not as complicated as the pc hardware, it's easier to teach it. If you burn a AVR you lost 2-5$.
To me (and most kids younger than me ;-) it's more interesting if something moves, than only seeing a output on a screen.

good luck

Thomas

I definitely plan to pick up one of these for my son's 10th birthday. BUT, in the mean time, I want some stuff for me to play with on the workbench (also known as the "dining room table" when my wife is around). I still have to get the lights working on my [b]Darth Vader[/b] outfit. :D

I'll tell you what I used to make when I was in High School Chemistry. :D

But I did get expelled from one private school for supposedly blowing up a Chem Lab but it wasn't my fault and I did absolutely nothing wrong as I did exactly what I was told to do. Now if I had not of opened the windows that explosion would never have happened as some silly git turned on all the gas taps at the back of the room and as they where on different Bottles to the rest of the class they ran out of gas and left a blanket about 3 feet up from the floor I think. Anyway I did as I always did opened up the room and the windows lit a Bunsen Burner and then when a breeze came through everything went dark. Granted I was slightly singed and very deaf and I was picking myself up near the centre of the wreckage but that was my job. I still maintain that I wouldn't have been thrown out of that place if I didn't hang out with a guy who wore his school Blazer & Tie on stage playing a guitar. His name was Angus Young and with a brother and Bonn Scot where the basis of ACDC who at the time where just starting out. I drove a sound board for them at the time and I swear that if I didn't associate with Angus I would never have had a single problem.

They actually found the kids responsible for turning on the gas taps and they got expelled quietly but Angus & myself where made an example of. But if that didn't happen I never would have learnt how to make Ammonia Tetra Fluoride as very stable explosive that should never be used for anything what so ever as the slightest bit of energy that hits it will set it off. :D

Makes the Gun Powder look positively safe in comparison. :^0

What can I say I got worse with age and as I couldn't drop out of grade 1 I just had to infuriate my father and get 3 Ph D's. :0

Col

[i]Edited to Add[/i] While we are playing chess I'll tell you some of the better things that I managed to do and you'll be laughing so hard that you'll be unable to concentrate and [b]I'll Win The Game![/b] :0

The system that I have is from parallax. It might be this one:
http://www.parallax.com/detail.asp?product_id=27205
except that the chip is soldered to the board rather than in a socket.

I doubt if I will be able to use the programmer from that set.

Thanks for the links! I hope to be playing soon! (copias time permitting... :) )

That was the time when IBM launched the Microchannel and the "compatibles" launched VESA slot's. As you put it Col, headache squared.
When i started, we had NCR Decision Mate's with 64-256K and for 1500$ you could have a 10 Meg HD instead using 2 5.25" floppies, one for data the other one for the program and dos. Remember when hd's had 2 flat cables? I have a Seagate ST4096 opened beside a "modern" notebook hd. What a monster that gave you some 68 MB formatted space, that you had to split into 3 partitions because of the dos 30 MB limit. And of course you needed to know the drive geometry (cyls, heads, precomp, landing zone) and before you could partition it with fdisk you needed to lowlevel format it with a tool like ontrak's diskmanager. All this got easier with IDE.
This was the time when hd's had stepper motors to move the heads. Seek times from outer to inner track in the 200ms range.
But then, we earned more money then....

Thomas

I hated them with a vengeance probably because I got hit with so many of the things but I still have a couple here stored in Anti static bags because I can't bring myself not to store things properly even if they will never be used again. Probably even have a few controller cards for them as well if you want to look, they should still have the cables on them and be in anti static bags as well.

And because they still work are no good as a paper weight. Beside that Piston that I have from my Old Racing Ducati with the head of a titanium valve stuck in the hole in the top looks so much better anyway. :(

OH Yes the Good Old Days Thank God that they are gone or I would probably be even crazier than I am now. :D

Col

That's my site, and that's my dad.
My name is Edwin Aston Ringle IV, but everyone who knows me calls me Eddie.

I do love computers, and when I was younger, I even fried a couple... (oops). I turned 13 on May 5th, and am saving money to build a nice gaming rig.
Everyone at school thinks I'm a genius because I am a wiz at computers (and I think the straight As contribute to that).
I am starting to get into SEO and Internet Marketing, and my site is now really a blog about... stuff... I visit http://www.carlocab.com almost daily, which is where I learn about internet advertising and that stuff.

Well, thats it for now.

i just read your post and had to reply, your doing the right thing by teaching your son hardware and software basics at such a young age, my girls aged 9 & 7 have recenty moved into their refurbished school with each class having access to laptops and a dedicated classroom full of desktops, they are loving it, as im a practicing pc technician they are always bombarding me with questions so i eventually splashed out on a bare bones project that they could help me build to see whats inside and what each component does, my eldest loved this, she is now a great wee xp user and can tell you what pci card is what and recognise different ones, she can work her way through the main board telling you what bits are what and basic networking such as ICS, shes into graphic editing with Ulead PhotoImpact XL and often uploads her creations to her windows live space, both girls have their own windows live space of which they manage thereselves uploading their graphics and posting the odd blog (under my supervision of course) the system they helped to build is a socket 370 VIA board with an 800mhz cyrix processor, half a gig of sdram, 20 gig hard drive and 32mb pci graphics card with cd writer, they helped to build this while i bought another barebones system for me only, they watched me build this too, interrogating me on the way (of course), mine is a ECS EZ-buddie2 2.4ghz celeron with 1 gig of ram, 128mb agp graphics, dvd multiburner and an 80 gig ide hard drive, my youngest is into dance music so she likes to experiment with sony acidpro, she watches me using it amongst other programs i use for my music at myspace.com/orillasound and shes hooked, my eldest is now writing her own songs with notepad to put to my youngest girls music which i found amazing and we have our pcs networked via ethernet, they have access to the web with filters in place as well as: Ashampoo Firewall, AVG Free, Adaware, Spybot, Firefox and cCleaner which may i add are all freeware, my photoimpact xl was free on disc with pc adviser magazine and i get my music software from ebay, i wouldnt have it any other way, kids need to learn about hardware and software as our lives are now more or less run by it from all angles, god knows what future technology will be around when it comes to our kids leaving school and i wanted to take the step of showing them now seen as i left it too late, when i was in school we had bbc computers running comal programs which i found extremely boring so i lost interest, computers are more appealing to kids nowadays and my two have grasped it really well without the need for a fast expensive machine......

Finally....in the summer of 2008, I went and bought an iMac for my son. He now just loves it.