There is a good book called "The Chip" by T.R. Reid. Mostly it's the story of Noyce and Kilby (which is well-told and worth reading on its own), but there's a chapter for laypeople about how a chip actually adds two numbers together. Way too simple for cctalk'ers, but great for a 9-year-old. -----Original Message----- From: Scott Quinn <compoobah at valleyimplants.com> Subj: Re: Teaching kids about computers... Date: Wed Nov 21, 2007 11:09 am Size: 1K To: cctalk at classiccmp.org Perhaps not right now, but the biggest "leap forward" I had from books was looking at the 8080/Z80 microcomputer design and operation books (such as Ciarcia's "How to Build Your Own Z-80 Computer" and "Microcomputers and Microprocessors" (8080, 8085 and Z-80) from the hardware standpoint. Probably not a good book until Junior High or High School, though. When I was learning S/W, I remember starting with Logo in 4th grade and using Brainpower ChipWits at home. the ChipWits manual had a small section on programming theory, perhaps I can find it. That's a good game if you have an older Macintosh around (I had issues on machines with over 1MB of RAM - it was written for the 128K, 512K and XL per the disk. Some other people don't seem to have the issues, perhaps there was a revision). In middle school we moved on to BASIC (because it was in the ROMs of Apples). Perhaps not the ideal progression, but nowadays students in the elementary schools don't seem to be learning programming at all- it's more "how you use application software on the computer". In the early '90s Macworld had a 3-part article on how computers work that wasn't too in depth. If you want I can find it and scan it., but it's probably not too much more in depth than David Macaulay's "The Way Things Work" in the new edition. (actually it is)