Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!uoft02.utoledo.edu!desire.wright.edu!sbishop
From: sbishop@desire.wright.edu
Newsgroups: comp.windows.ms
Subject: Re: Problems with children using Windows3
Message-ID: <1990Nov19.143201.1834@desire.wright.edu>
Date: 19 Nov 90 19:32:00 GMT
References: <719@retix.retix.COM>
Followup-To: comp.windows.ms
Organization: University Computing Services, Wright State University
Lines: 26

In article <719@retix.retix.COM>, garry@retix.retix.COM (Garry Star) writes:
> I have a 4 year old son that uses my PC for games.  He has
> learned to 'get around' in windows and play his favorite games
> (minesweeper, paintbrush, and solitaire).  In general I think it's
> great and am very proud of his abilities.
> 
> The problem is that he is just as happy clicking and dragging any
> of the icons he sees.  I don't want to discourage his curiosity,
> but I have found that windows will no longer run in enhanced mode
> [yes a four year old on a 25mhz 386 ;-)].  I will probably end up
> just re-installing windows but the larger concern is how to limit this
> powerful environment so that he can't do any real damage (format
> hard disk, erase all files, etc.).
> 
> Any ideas would be greatly appreciated!

Get him a Commodore 64 for his very own computer.  There are lots of 
neat games, it's a cheap computer and will take huge amounts of abuse.  
You can get an entire set up, computer, monitor, and disk drive for 
under five hundred new, much less than that used.  My kids wore out
two C64s over ten years and are now graduated to the IBM.  They had 
so much fun with the C64.  It was funny to see them using the flight
monitor program.  One would do air speed and direction, the other would
work on stablization.  This was at seven and ten years of age.  The
flight simulator is really fun and they usually crashed in flames after
about ten minutes.