Vincenzo Jon - IL wrote:
[clip]
> appear(at least initially) unfriendly. Remeber the first time you sat down
> to the command prompt. A 'Trash-80' was a useless hunk of junk the first
> time you sat down at it. It would have been nice to be able to press 'F1'
[snip]
I have to say this does not fit with my experience.
Admittedly I was only 4 in 1979 when my father booted up our
first '80, but he showed me the rudiments of BASIC within a
matter of days (my first program printed my name over and
over on the screen in an infinite loop--I was SO
proud--heh). Of course, I have to admit it was far
friendlier than the Altair we had, or, UGH, that Heathkit
with the eight dip-switches and enter button.
Chase-the-Eight was my favorite hex-only display game when I
was three. What an exciting life I lead. Then again, I
guess most kids my age had no idea what an 8 was in the
first place. Maybe that's why I had so few friends.
But to concurr, if even one 4-year-old with a ressurrected
486 gets ahold of the GUI install of a Linux distribution
and can begin learning the workings of a REAL operating
system, I say it's worth it. Wouldn't it be nice for our
preschoolers to understand what RAID is at a hands-on
level? I know I would have killed for the chance at that
age... Just my half-nybble.
--
Jeremy Stanley, Network Engineer, Trend CMHS
"I program my homecomputer; beam myself into the
future."
Kraftwerk, 1981
