malis@bbn.com (Andy Malis) (07/29/89)
Does anyone out there know of any shareware or freeware games for
4 or 5 year-old kids on the Mac? They may be educational, or
just fun. Pointers to games in an FTP-able archive would be just
great. Please mail replies to malis@bbn.com.
My 4 1/2 year-old son thanks you.
Andy Malis <malis@bbn.com> UUCP: {harvard,rutgers,uunet}!bbn!malisrjc@cup.portal.com (Bob J Carlson) (08/01/89)
Try NumberMaze. Cheers, Bob
cetron@wasatch.utah.edu (Edward J Cetron) (08/01/89)
Ok, so that I don't set off the 'fanatics', I love my Mac, and I realize how great the user interface is, etc, etc. BUT, I want to use it about 50% of the time for my 7-year old to learn with. I'd hoped when I bought it (Mac SE, 1MB, dual floppy) that there would be lots of great educational software out for it. Well I found Math Blaster (with copy protection which only lets it run out of the lower drive), Kidstalk, and Reader Rabbit. And that's it! Everything else runs on Apple II series or IBM PC's. At this juncture, I can either: a) upgrade an old Apple II+ to a IIe and get it a color mon. Lots of edu-stuff, but a VERY old machine which I figure Apple is soon to discontinue. b) fix up the Mac with a color monitor (which is VERY important in educational programs) a hard disk, etc. or upgrade (via trade-in) to a Mac II. c) scrap the Mac and buy and IBM Clone. A) is the cheapest, but I wonder about the life-expectancy. C) is actually cheaper then b) and has a DAMN sight more edu-stuff available (I've even found whole BBS's of stuff). I know the Mac is easier to 'run' than MS-DOS but since my son has been hacking on both for a while, I rather think this is somewhat unimportant at this point. SO: my request for the net is: Is it worth keeping the Mac? Is anyone ever going to support all that neat edu-ware on the Mac? Can someone, anyone give me any reason to keep that Mac? Thanx in advance, -ed cetron@wasatch.utah.edu
jfw1@cbnewsh.ATT.COM (james.f.whitehead) (08/02/89)
I can heartily recommend NumberMaze for ages 4 and up (maybe 3) and (somewhat less heartily) Kids Time (ages 3 and up). The Carmen Sandiego programs are aimed at 9-10 years or more, so my kids will have to wait a few years. To find more titles, I go to my local Egghead store and look around; generally the mail-order places beat their prices by quite a bit. Anyway, even though the selection isn't huge, it seems better than one of the posters has been able to find, and it correlates well with good reviews. Also, go to your local library and look through MacWorld, MacUser, MacWeek, and Compute back issues. Still not the selection that you see for IBM and Apple II computers, but better than you might think. BTW, be careful about letting young kids finish - my 6 year old managed to turn an 800K disk into an empty 400 (I re-initialized it; thank god I happened to have bakced it up recently). He apparently got mad (all games can be a little frustrating) and was sloppy about shutting down. Now my policy is that I turn the computer off. Jim Whitehead "So what"
funk@ellington.SRC.Honeywell.COM (Harry Funk) (08/03/89)
Well, not shareware, but not outrageous:
There's a group called
Family Guide to Educational Software
484 Sunrise Highwya
Rockville Centre, NY 11570
1-800-848-0804
They publish a catalog of games/educational software for PCs, Apples,
Commodores, and Macs. They identify award winning packages, and accept
returns from 15 days for exchange or refund (I've never tested this).
Some offerings for Mac (all are award winners - Parent's Choice & such):
Title | Type/Description | Publisher | Price | Age
-------------------|-----------------------------|-----------|-------|-----
Cotton Tails | Story creation/publishing | MINDPLAY | $50 | 4-8
Mastertype/New Impr| Typing skills game | Mindscape | $50 | 8+
The Print Shop | What it sounds like. | Broderbund| $60 | 11+
Reader Rabbit | Early reading skills |Learning Co| $60 | 5-7
Speed Reader II | Reading skills drill | Davidson | $70 | 10+
The Toy Shop | Modelling/design tool | Broderbund| $50 | 11+
Word Attack | Vocabulary builder | Davidson | $50 | 9+
There are 20+ that run on Macintosh. I don't buy into the age ranges for
some of this stuff.
Harry.