Kids Computer Part 1: The Hardware

Last week, upon returning from a trip to New York I told my daughter to make a list of fun things we could do together. It was daddy and daughter day. Her number two item on the list, the Apple Store. She loves hanging out in the kids area while daddy drools over new gear. Needless to say, she is very computer savvy for her age.

Determining what computer a kid should have and at what age is a very tricky and personal matter. It varies from kid to kid and from parent to parent. For example, my daughter(5 years old) has yet to break anything on her iMac. However, my son(2 years old) has gone through 3 keyboards, two mice and has filled up the DVD drive with coins (a common trait amongst boys i’ve found). They each have had their own iMac since day one. These old iMacs are sturdy and durable. And although 12 gigs is not that much hard disk space, it can hold a good 10 to 15 game CD images.

This is Part 1 in a series for a kids Mac setup.

The Kids Gear

iMac G3 SE 400 MHz ($200 @ eBay), 256 RAM, 12 Gig Drive, Airport Card

iSkin Keyboard Protector ($27 @ Amazon, fits only the new keyboards not the original iMac keyboards)

Ikea Round Table (not available online)

How long will the iMacs last?
Right now these old iMacs serves us good. They recently got updated to the latest Mac OS X Tiger and they zip along just fine for having only 256 of RAM. They chuck a bit during some new games like The Incredibles, but for the most part, kids games like Dora the Explorer are a lot less demanding than grown up games. For a couple of hundred dollars the iMac could be upgraded with more RAM and bigger Hard Drive, but I personally wouldn’t spend any more money on them and rather use that money towards a replacement in the next year or so. My daughter is about to turn six and I recently set her up with email and aim (with parental controls). She uses these (under supervision) to communicate with her grandparents and aunties who live in other states. This is where the iMac starts to drag. Because of the processor speed, she can do voice chat but not video. She can receive pictures through email, but accessing my shared iPhoto library to send some images is impossible. Next year I want her to learn to edit some videos but she will have to do that in mine because her iMac is not up to the task. So most likely she will be getting a faster computer in a year to handle all these new tasks. As for Dante, well, he will be looking at a Graphite iMac for a few more years to come or until his iMac dies.

The Setup
I have saved all their games into the computer as disc images. This has required some mad CD ripping skills I will be sharing in my next post. Armed with an array of custom icons, no docks, a very cool app launcher and parental control for mail, chat and web, this kids computers are very cool indeed. Not swapping discs(not an option for Dante anyway) needed, all disc images get loaded at startup so all they have to do is click on an icon and play.

Next post: disc imaging secrets

p.s. I’ve tried to track down the flash based launcher used at the kids computer Apple Store with no luck. Any leads are appreciated.