Back in the late 70's, my Dad owned his own company and had a PDP-11 that he kept at our house. As you can see in the background of the picture to the left where I am getting my own copy of "Dune" signed by the author, Frank Herbert, the thing was huge. It looked like three refrigerators and two dishwashers stacked next to each other. It took up a whole room. I remember the power company having to come out and run special wiring to the house. We also had a huge air conditioner required to keep it cool. I was 10-years old at the time and remember spending countless hours playing games and learning how to use computers.In our house, my wife and I have always had a computer for the kids. We started with a Pentium running Windows 95. I used Visual Basic and wrote a program to teach young kids how to use a mouse. The screen would have several different shapes and each shape had it's own color. I then recorded my voice to correspond with each of the shapes and colors. The program would play one of my voice messages asking the kid to “click on the blue square” or “click on the green circle.” When the correct color and shape were chosen, my voice would come on and say “good job!” After ten shapes the user's score was given and the kid was given an option to play some more.
It was a good thing the computer program only took me about an hour to write because it held my kids' attention for about 5 minutes. Once they got the hang of the mouse, they were off to play other games. We raided the local CompUSA every couple of weeks for educational games that managed to keep everyone occupied for several years.
As soon as your child is coordinated enough to use a mouse and understands basic shapes and colors, he or she is ready for properly supervised computer usage. For some, that can be at a very early age. So that leads to the question: What age is too old for a computer? My experience is that you are never too old to begin using a computer.
I am one of those lucky individuals that still has a complete set of living grandparents. My grandmother is in her mid-80's and owns 7 computers at last count. She started using them to help my Grandfather who is a criminal defense attorney. It began with word processing but has continued progressing to the point where last year she converted all of her videotapes from her camera to DVDs. Now she is in the process of scanning all of her old photos onto the computer and turning them into DVDs. She also reads e-mail, browses the web, and pretty much stays on top of the latest computer trends.
Now it sounds like 7 computers is a lot for an older couple. You might think that they still have an original 8088 PC (my first personal computer from 1985). Nope, my Grandmother replaces her computers frequently and gives the old ones other members of the family. My aunts, uncles, and cousins have all been recipients of Grandma's constant upgrading process.
For the record, my Grandmother has more computers than I do. Yep, you are never to old to use a computer.
