[taylodl]

> The vibe of the whole thing felt a lot like the old things we had in the 80s and early 90s

Except back then you were doing all the discovering and figuring stuff out without any help from your parents. At least that's the way it was in my circle of friends. When a 10-year-old is able to do everything you did without any assistance from an adult, then we'll have the spirit of the Commodore 64.

[hoistbypetard]

I appreciate that. I would add that she might be able to do everything I did (with my 8-bit micro when I was 10) with the pi I set her up with. The thing I was impressed with about the pi was how little I had to help her interface with sensors that touched the real world, like light sensors and temperature sensors. The GPIO there is much more accessible to her than the user port on the C64 or the expansion slots on the Apples were to me.

I had to help find the references and explain some of them to her, but I've been pleased with how little help it's required from me. Probably only a little more help than I needed to learn how to connect cables and format a floppy before I ran off on my own as a kid. But she's getting more independence at the end of my help than I got with the hardware of my day.