Talent

Here at the office, there is now a computer available for Sadie to use.  It’s a 486 with DOS, and has a bunch of DOS games installed.  My nephew found her a keybanger program and added that for her benefit.

So we fire it up, type in the command to run that, and she can bang away.  Different stuff goes on the screen, moves, and makes sounds in response.  It’s very simple and repetitious, but it’s hers.

Trouble is, the Escape key exits, and naturally she lasers in on that key as a preferred one to press.

So I edited the batch file that runs the program.  The first line is the original command that runs the program.  The second line calls the very batch file to run again.  Now if she hits escape, the program exits and immediately starts again.  Heh.  I figured no big deal; we could hit Ctrl-C to break execution of the batch file.  Or simply turn off the machine.  Which is on the table, out of reach, with the monitor and keyboard on the floor where she can abuse them.

Today she managed to press something that broke the batch and made it offer to end, yes or no.  The kid is talented.  Which reminds me, earlier in the day, I hit reply on a client e-mail.  She banged on some keys and I decided I’d let her do it for a minute, then joke that that part was Sadie’s advice, and say what I had to say.  Instead she managed to type away, then hit the right keystroke to send what she had typed.  That was funny.

1. Sadly, that’s the computer I grew up with.  Sadly, that’s the computer she’s growing up with.

   C’mon, get her a Palm Pilot or something!

   Posted by Pauly D  on  07/27  at  08:41 PM

2. Not to worry.  This is just a temporary measure and when she’s a couple months older she’ll probably get a home computer that’s a Pentium to beat on for as long as it holds up.  Then we’ll go from there.

   When a keyboard banger program is all she can use, what’s running it doesn’t much matter…

   Posted by Jay  on  07/28  at  12:00 AM

3. The problem with making something childproof and foolproof, is that kids and fools are so dang ingenius.

   Posted by  on  07/28  at  08:22 AM

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