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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