What makes a good educational toy computer? - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: technix
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 23, 2019, 07:32:48 am
content: A friend of mine had a baby, and he is soliciting gifts for his son. (I am still unmarried at 25 and he is already a father... He ain’t that older than me!)I think an educational computer might be a good idea, as it is a good toy and it can teach the kid STEM basics early on. I don’t want to give the kid something that is capable of modern Internet yet, so no Linux please. Any ideas?Is it a good idea to give the kid a toy computer based on the WDC W65C02 CPU?

author: technix
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 23, 2019, 07:54:00 am
content: Quote from: blueskull on January 23, 2019, 07:36:24 amI started with a kit somewhat similar to that too.The kid’s father has a degree in computer engineering so I don’t think he will be confused.I am thinking about a slightly modernized version of VIC-20 really, with beefed up RAM, some EEPROM for permanent storage, UV EPROM for core software and some basic IO like a PS/2 keyboard and a dot matrix display.

author: Doctorandus_P
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 23, 2019, 10:24:15 am
content: A sister in law was complaining a bit about not drinking beer while pregnant. After the the baby was born I gave her a crate of beer amended with a bunch of pots of babyfood.New parents can also never have enough diapers. It would be funt to arrange with some friend to give them each some big boxes full of diapers. They are bulky and they'll need them for years to come and it would be fun to give them so many that they do not know where to store them, especially when they have a small house to live in. That will teach them to make another shit factory on this shitty world.For weird computer project thingies, you can browse through the hackaday archive. Hundreds or thousands of computer gadgets have been listed there.

author: Berni
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 23, 2019, 10:42:40 am
content: I think these days its very hard to get a kid interested in retro computing such as a Commodore.When there perception of a computer is a modern Win 10 machine or Android tablet they would barely even think of a Commodore actually counting as being a computer. Today typical computer users don't even know what a C drive is and have no idea what a hard drive actually looks like and where it is. No longer is programming or writing scripts part of using a computer, these days using a computer is most of the time opening Facebook in a browser.I think electronics kits are a better way to get a kid interested in technology.

author: Canis Dirus Leidy
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: January 23, 2019, 02:04:01 pm
content: Quote from: technix on January 23, 2019, 07:32:48 amThe most important question:how old is the child?

author: technix
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 23, 2019, 02:53:09 pm
content: Quote from: Canis Dirus Leidy on January 23, 2019, 02:04:01 pmHe is almost 2 years old now.Quote from: Berni on January 23, 2019, 10:42:40 amI don't think his dad will be allowing his kid on the Internet anytime soon. This is supposed to be a restrictive machine that can be used for learning and non-addictive kid-friendly gaming, but no easy access to the Internet. I will be giving the machine some TCP/IP capability, but only for it to use TFTP to access files on the parten's computer.Quote from: Doctorandus_P on January 23, 2019, 10:24:15 amThe kid is almost two already. And as Chinese education is top priority even when the kid is young.

author: Berni
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 23, 2019, 04:35:14 pm
content: Hah TFTP. A lot of adults i know can't even insert a table of contents into a word document.But if you are going in that direction then just use an old laptop running linux without X11.

author: rstofer
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 23, 2019, 09:54:11 pm
content: What kid doesn't like "frog green"?https://www.adafruit.com/product/3116

author: technix
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 24, 2019, 03:17:38 am
content: Quote from: Berni on January 23, 2019, 04:35:14 pmThe dad doesn't want the kid to have anything that have easy access to Internet yet, and a laptop certainly can and thus unlikely to pass his scrutiny.Quote from: rstofer on January 23, 2019, 09:54:11 pmWay too expensive... Also Pi has Linux too.

author: cdev
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 24, 2019, 03:38:47 am
content: If anadultcan't figure out a way to keep a 2 year old kid from bypassing his security measures to access the net, that is not a problem, celebrate, that little kid isreally smart.

author: Circlotron
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 24, 2019, 05:48:38 am
content: Quote from: Berni on January 23, 2019, 10:42:40 amThose things were exciting back in the day because they enabled you to do stuff at home you never could before. For those who were there at the time, nowadays it reminds you somewhat of the excitement. For those that were not there, it would only appeal to a tiny percentage. If the kid isn't allowed to come in contact with any other kind of computing device it might be exciting.

author: technix
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 24, 2019, 07:30:08 am
content: Quote from: Berni on January 23, 2019, 04:35:14 pmTFTP as a replacement of the Commodore Disk Drive. “LOAD *, 8” becomes a TFTP fetch from xxx.xxx.xxx.8 (high bits comes from local IPv4 address) and “LOAD *” goes to either the address sent by the DHCP server or the default router.

author: technix
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 24, 2019, 07:30:46 am
content: Quote from: cdev on January 24, 2019, 03:38:47 amHe want to prevent it from ever being bypassable.

author: technix
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 24, 2019, 07:34:13 am
content: Quote from: Circlotron on January 24, 2019, 05:48:38 amHe is open to the idea of introducing the kid to computers early on, but only with age-appropriate hardware.

author: Berni
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 24, 2019, 07:54:53 am
content: Well in that case just plug said linux machine into a isolated network.If you have anything more than a consumer toy router doing your LAN then you can easily configure a port on it to not route traffic to the internet, but still allow routing to any IP that is in the home LAN network. So that way it can get to your TFTP server where im guessing you want to keep downloadable files, but never out to the internet.I suppose he could get onto the internet by remotely compromising a machine on the network. But i think less than 0.1% of professional IT technicians would be able to pull something like that off out of a linux prompt and no access to the internet. You would need to create your own hacking tools from scratch using GCC or Python, reverse engineer the protocols the other machines on the network are using (Remember you have no internet to even look up how HTTP works). If all the found exploitable machines on the network are Windows hosts then you also need to remotely reverse engineer how that OS works so that you can get it to download you a file from the internet and put it in a place where you can get it. From there you can then clumsy extract info from the internet by reading raw HTML code of websites. This lets you bootstrap yourself to figure how how to get/create a Win32 TCP/IP forwarding app to let you send packets out to the internet directly from your linux machine. At this point you have functional internet on that linux machine.If your kid can do that then the only way to keep him from getting to the internet is to lock him up in a jail cell and not allow any interaction with electronic devices. And i think we all agree that would be a 'little bit' too extreme.

author: technix
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 24, 2019, 08:00:40 am
content: Quote from: Berni on January 24, 2019, 07:54:53 amI still don’t feel easy just giving the kid a Raspberry Pi and expect him not to fall into bad hands.

author: Berni
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 24, 2019, 08:25:13 am
content: Well given enough effort you can also eventually get a Comodore 64 to display a crude web page.Tho the monumental software effort is stacked on top of a hardware problem of how to interface a C64 into a network. Extra electronics are required to even make it talk to a simple dialup modem. Again the kid likely grows up before he can figure this out (Otherwise he is an incredible genius).So the only sure way to make sure its impossible for the device to show a webpage is to give him a Tamagochi instead.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TamagotchiThe thing has so little computing power and memory that it can't do it in any reasonable way other than external electronics feeding it screenshots of webpages.

author: technix
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 24, 2019, 11:08:44 am
content: Quote from: Berni on January 24, 2019, 08:25:13 amThat hardware does have proper Internet hardware in both wired Ethernet (DM9000A on system bus) and Wi-Fi (ESP8266 on one of its serial ports) connectivity, however it doesn't have a browser or enough memory to hold one (32kB SRAM, 16kB EEPROM. The 8kB UV EPROM is not programmable in system.)

author: Berni
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 24, 2019, 11:49:08 am
content: Yeah exactly extra hardware is needed to get it to connect to a modern network. Even if they have the hardware they still need software to make it do something. on the internet. If they are not given the software on floppy or cassette then they have to write there own before they can do anything with the internet.And yes the C64 is a very constrained system in terms of computing power. Especially since the same RAM has to also hold graphics. Of course its impossible to create a modern fully functional browser with support for HTML5 or even simple javascript, But its possible to create a browser functional enough to navigate simple pages like Wikipedia.The limitations of the C64 just make it so that you have to be good at programing to make it work, likely working in assembler since you don't have a C compiler and BASIC is not gonna cut it. In fact given that the C64 comes with no assembler editor means you would likely have to first write your own assembler IDE in BASIC before you can even start coding the network drivers and browser.If anything this sounds like a cool challenge for someone who is already a programmer. Can even come in nightmare difficulty mode where you are not even allowed to look up stuff on the internet with a separate PC and are only given the official C64 user manual as documentation. On nightmare difficulty you are going to have a hard time finding someone in the world who can complete the challenge in under 1 month (Without having prior C64 coding experience).In the hands of a kid the C64 is just a glorified gaming console if they are given access to the complete list of all officially released C64 software.

author: ralphrmartin
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: January 24, 2019, 12:36:16 pm
content: A friend of mine gave his young daughter a kit where you solder the bits to making a flashing Xmas tree decoration, which was also somewhat programmable via switches. Nice mix of software and hardware! The girl's now doing a STEM PhD at Oxford, so something clicked, I guess.I suppose in China you can get equivalent things for Chinese New Year.But beware of getting something "too old" for the kid. My dad got me some Meccano when I was too small, and it was too difficult. I year later my grandma got me some Lego, and it was just right (much to my dad's annoyance!).

author: technix
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 24, 2019, 12:49:32 pm
content: Quote from: ralphrmartin on January 24, 2019, 12:36:16 pmThat machine isn't going to make it to this Chinese New Year. However I do want to give him this machine as a birthday gift for the baby.Is 5C02 with some modern amenities too old?

author: legacy
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 24, 2019, 01:54:31 pm
content: Lego computers.

author: Canis Dirus Leidy
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: January 24, 2019, 03:39:39 pm
content: Quote from: technix on January 24, 2019, 12:49:32 pmMore precisely, the child is too young for this "grandfather's Arduino". I'm somehow not sure that a monochrome screen with incomprehensible symbols will cause great interest of a preschooler (and even more so for two-years baby).

author: rsjsouza
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 24, 2019, 04:51:56 pm
content: I know that kids are different, but Arduinos... C64s... Disassembled computers... For a two year old? At that age my girls loved gadgets from Vtech, Leapfrog...https://www.amazon.com/LeapFrog-My-Own-Leaptop-Green/dp/B0038AJYSShttps://www.amazon.com/VTech-Tote-Go-Laptop-Orange/dp/B00K89KU4YWarning: they tend to be quite irritating for the parents, but help them learn a great deal of basic knowledge.

author: battlecoder
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: January 25, 2019, 01:15:21 am
content: Quote from: rsjsouza on January 24, 2019, 04:51:56 pmI have to agree with this. I've seen some very sophisticated "kids laptop" that pack a surprisingly lot of "software" for what they are.They can include anything from guided maths and spelling lessons, games, music-oriented apps, calculator, "notepad", etc.I once bought one for my little sister, and I'm pretty sure that for the first couple of days (weeks?) I was the one primarily playing with it. I was amazed by the amount of content packed in what seems like a very basic toy.Some even offer two languages in one machine, making them also a language-learning tool:https://www.amazon.com/Liberty-Imports-Bilingual-Advanced-Learning/dp/B001QKQJEO

author: rsjsouza
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 25, 2019, 11:09:08 am
content: One thing I used to do with them when they were a bit older (3yo) is change the batteries of their own toys (by that time they were a long way from the phase where they put everything in their mouths).They had a blast picking the screwdriver, twisting the screw with the appropriate amount of force pushing down on it, fit the tip on the screw gap, twisting it in the correct direction and learning something so simple as to find the correct sides of a battery (butt, nose), inserting it in the correct way (butt first on the spring) and pushing down but holding it so it doesn't jump back at you. They took quite some time to get this right, but it helped a lot with something I only learned existed after I had kids: fine motor skills. A two year old needs that as well - that's why they tend to be so destructive with delicate things, since they don't have precise control over their own hands (I picture a poor electrolytic cap being ripped apart from a dev kit because it is bright yellow and shiny...)Another thing I used to do with them is to grab a small power supply (or sometimes batteries), a bunch of LEDs and small computer fans, a few switches and put together simple stuff such as turn on a lighbulb or the fan. We don't think anout it, but it takes a great amount of skill to properly press the J clips or alligator clips with their tiny fingers, have the appropriate amount of strength and control to press it without skipping from their hands and properly put it in the wires.Anyways, I learned that so many things we take for granted are learned and not innate (such as knowing where your nose is, for example) that I have a lot of fun developing the firmware and programming this empty flash memory of my kids' brains.

author: ehughes
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: January 25, 2019, 02:18:32 pm
content: An Abacus.Also get a pine board with some screws and basic screw driver.There are infinitely more simple machines that develop spatial and numerical cognition skills.Seriously... a 2 year old does not need an Arduino.

author: cdev
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 25, 2019, 02:30:20 pm
content: What that would require is a computer with no USB or wifi or Bluetooth in addition to no Ethernet. I can't think of anything like that thats not purpose built to be a toy and expensive.You know what might be good. There is a Linux SBC, the $9 CHIP computer, one of the Pi look-alikes, thats very cheap and can be bought with a case (PocketCHIP) that encloses it and gives it a (small) touch screen display that has just enough resolution for a c64-like screen, and a chicklet keyboard. So its almost like a laptop, but without the high price. It likely would remain useful as a kid grew up because it could be incorporated in lots of projects.Here:Oops, it seems itis no longer availableand its makers are no longer in business. Sorry!https://hackaday.com/2018/04/03/is-this-the-end-for-the-c-h-i-p/Quote from: technix on January 24, 2019, 07:30:46 am

author: manzini
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: February 06, 2019, 12:42:50 am
content: RPI, and try to write games or demo's (demo-scene is alive) for old 8 bits computers with an emulator (apple, commodore, sinclair, trs, amstrad, msx)