Congratulations Hugh!
Karl Kuras
----- Original Message -----
From: "Hugh Falk" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Friday, August 31, 2001 12:05 PM
Subject: RE: [SWCollect] Shrinkwrap again
> That's great stuff...thanks, Jim. I haven't been responding the last
couple
> of days because my wife and I just gave birth to our first child (on the
> 30th). He's a big boy (9 lbs 9 oz.), but he still hasn't gotten the hang
of
> touch typing yet. Oh well, hopefully by tomorrow. :-)
>
> Hugh
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Jim Leonard [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
> Sent: Wednesday, August 29, 2001 9:13 PM
> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Subject: Re: [SWCollect] Shrinkwrap again
>
>
> Chris Newman wrote:
> >
> > > Congrats! I recently played Time Pilots with my 2-yr-old (he plays
> > > better than my wife!) and my 4.5-yr-old enjoys playing Pac-Man,
> > > Pac-Mania, Marble Madness, and Crystal Castles, so old games
definitely
> > > come in handy. :) Corrupt them when they're young, that's what I
say!
> >
> > When did you start weaning your first on a computer? I don't think
neural
> implants are
> > yet a viable technology so the pedestrian route it is.
>
> Ever since Sam (my firstborn) was 16 months I had been amusing him on
> the computer by starting up DeluxePaint and making a big brush (usually
> a circle) and just moving it around the screen in a funny way -- it made
> him laugh. When he turned two, I remembered I had an old pirated copy
> of Putt-Putt Joins the Parade (first game from Humongous Entertainment,
> founded by Ron Gilbert, uses SCUMM in fact) that I had kept because I
> was struck at the time (1992) by how good the music was. 7 years later
> I dusted the disks off and started it up one day to amuse Sam (then 2
> yrs old) and "played" with the cursor again. But then I clicked on some
> object and made it do its thing, and he immediately stopped laughing
> and wanted to see more -- he was fascinated. So that's how it began.
>
> The first month (maybe doing this for 15 minutes a day) I moved the
> pointer. The second month, he tried to make it move but he had trouble
> with the mouse, which was exactly the excuse I needed to buy a Kingston
> $99 trakball (I prefer trakballs infinitely over mice), which he loved.
> It was immediately obvious to me how much more appropriate it was for a
> kid -- it has a big ball and can be lifted out for easy cleaning (of the
> ball). The third month, he was moving to something, then clicking on
> it. The fourth, he figured out dragging (with my help). So, at 2.5 yrs
> old, my son was playing Putt-Putt Joins The Parade by himself. I was
> elated -- I was hoping I could always teach him to read at age 2.5 like
> my Dad had done for me, but this was just as good -- both are viable
> skills needed for the future ;-)
>
> For those thinking of introducing their kids to educational games, I am
> more than happy to give advice -- hell, I should probably write an essay
> on it. For those interested: Sam has his own "gaming rig" now, an old
> Pentium Pro 200 that I'm not using. The Kingston Trakball is mine, but
> I got him a $29 Logitech optical trakball that is a much better choice
> for him. The ball is smaller, but the advantages outweigh that fact:
>
> - It's cheaper
> - The unit is optical, so the only moving part you have to clean is the
> ball itself, which lifts right out
> - Being optical, there's no slipping due to, oh, say, peanut butter and
> jelly gunk on it ;-)
> - Being USB (high sample rate) and optical, you can get an exact 1:1
> movement ratio if you disable pointer acceleration, which is the most
> natural method of using a trakball and he just flys with it (I have
> since moved to an optical+USB+no pointer acceleration setup myself and
> love it)
>
> He also starts his own games. This magic was created by installing Win
> 98, turning ON the "single-click-to-launch-an-icon" option, and buying
> CD Copier (Daemon tools does the same thing and is free, but limited)
> and using it to dump all of his educational games to CD images on the
> 4GB disk I stuck in there. I then mounted all of the CD images (which
> act as real CDs) to about 15 drive letters and stuck the installed
> games' icons on the desktop. He sits down, clicks on an icon once, and
> the game starts.
>
> > > > I have about 200 or so other games I haven't yet
> > > > listed for that reason. I suppose I could list them w/o a proper ad
> but I'm too
> > > > compulsive to do that.
> > >
> > > Ah, more fuel for my fire of "all software collectors have a
> > > neurological disorder". :-D
>
> > I agree with you about the disorder too. At least it's a happy one, not
so
> much a crack
> > addiction
> > but closer to a Ned Flanders belief in an optimistic world.
>
> Now that's a quote.
> --
> http://www.MobyGames.com/
> The world's most comprehensive gaming database project.
>
>
>
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