On 30 July 2010 06:55, Chuck Guzis <cclist at sydex.com> wrote: I'm looking at doing something similar (but simpler) with my 7yr old. It struck me that the end product should actually 'do' something, having a finished product that is a computer is great but being able to get it to control something - eg r/c car, robots, bedroom lights, model railway might well fire a child's imagination even more. -- Pete Edwards "There's a man with a mullet going mad with a mallet in Millets!" - HMHB

Tony Duell wrote: This discussion reminds me of a little thing I wired up when my daughter was small. I don't recall all the details, but I probably have a hand drawn logic diagram somewhere. I just took a single 2102, a 555 timer or two, a couple of counter chips, etc. and made a thing that would display M x N blobs on a scope. I intentionally mis-adjusted the focus and astigmatism on the scope so that each blob pretty much touched its neighbors. Each blob represented a bit in the 2102 and the 555's generated the V and H deflection drive. The sweep and the address counters were obviously in sync somehow. I gave her some paper forms with M x N squares where she could draw a little picture by filling in some of the squares. I had some crude way of entering the bits one at a time. And no, we did not use all of the bits in the 2102 - more like 128 or so as I recall. When done entering, one could switch to run mode and admire the results on the scope. It was a pretty fun father/daughter project. No software required! Though she grew up to be a teacher, I'll bet she still remembers it. Though I think I wire-wrapped mine, it ran slowly enough I think it would work fine on a solderless breadboard, and that might be a real advantage for something like this. i.e. Dad could gently back away and allow the victim (errrrr I mean child) to easily modify/enhance/experiment if they were so inclined. Later, Charlie C.