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From: flowers@CS.UCLA.EDU
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: PC software for children
Message-ID: <9750@shemp.UCLA.EDU>
Date: Mon, 7-Dec-87 20:49:20 EST
Article-I.D.: shemp.9750
Posted: Mon Dec  7 20:49:20 1987
Date-Received: Sun, 13-Dec-87 09:12:38 EST
References: <437@xios.XIOS.UUCP>
Sender: root@CS.UCLA.EDU
Reply-To: flowers@CS.UCLA.EDU (Margot Flowers)
Distribution: na
Organization: UCLA Computer Science Department
Lines: 41

"My ABC's" is great.  Has six games:
	- one finds letters on the keyboard
	- one finds single letters in a given word
	- one finds letter pairs in a given word
	- one has dancing pictures in response to hitting the right
		letter or number
	- one is a counting game
	- one is a match-up game (what you probably played as a kid
		with a deck of cards called "memory")

The graphics are amazingly good under CGA.  The music is too.  The
game has a sense of fun and delight that my daughter enjoys.  The
author of the game did a really good job.  It lists I think for about
$30 or $35.  My two-1/2 year old now knows where most of the letters
are on the keyboard, and can navigate from game to game using space
bar, escape, return, and can read some of the words (with some help
from the pictures).  

Paperback software, who distributed it, were real asses when I called
them for help.  It is distributed on 5-1/4 inch disks, and my machine
has only 3.5inch diskettes (with an external 5-1/4 disk at work that I
use to convert).  Well, it only runs on A:.  So I called them for
help.  Totally unhelpful, and they refused to refund my purchase price
even though the fine print specifically says their liability is
limited to refunding purchase price (which should have allowed them to
do that for me).  Fortunately, CopyIIPC was able to make a runnable
copy on the smaller disks that allowed me to run it.  

For a child who has outgrown My ABCs, Reader Rabbit is pretty
reasonable.  It is not quite as well done, and the graphics are cruder
and look like something done on graph paper.  Most of the games
involve various aspects of letter recognition in various three-letter
words, and one "memory" game also with a slightly larger grid, and a
variation where you match a picture to a word.  It seems pretty good
and a reasonable value.  (That one is also copy protected, which
presented problems for running on my system, but I was able to figure
a way around it).  It is a little harder and requires a bit more
concentration (which is probably appropriate as a kid gets more skilled).
		
Margot Flowers   Flowers@CS.UCLA.EDU   ...!{ucbvax|ihnp4}!ucla-cs!flowers