This'll probably offend many.
I think that an 8 year old would be best off with a machine with CD-ROM
capability. And a good size stack of reference disks, including
Encyclopedia Brittanica, atlases, and several collections of literature.
There should also be WWW access, preferably with at least minimal
graphics capability.
If you really want to splurge, a cheap color inkjet printer.
For programming, I would recommend BASIC, TO START WITH, followed by an
introduction to C and assembly as soon as basic principles are understood.
In the PC world, that would call for 386SX with VGA video, and DOS 3.10
or above. (preferably 6.2x) I would also recommend Windoze Notepad and
Windoze Write for word processing.
Once the kid has gotten thoroughly into it, THEN maybe a birthday present
of a set of Linux disks?
How much more than a C64 would a generic 386 AT cost? Do you need some
of us to contribute some parts?
--
Fred Cisin cisin_at_xenosoft.com
XenoSoft http://www.xenosoft.com
2210 Sixth St. (510) 644-9366
Berkeley, CA 94710-2219
Received on Tue Jan 12 1999 - 16:34:08 GMT