I'd have given my right arm for this when I was 6.

July 29, 2000 7:30 PM

I'd have given my right arm for this when I was 6. Of course, in 1959 there was no such thing as this. (A lot of research scientists would have given portions of their anatomies for this in 1959; this thing is comfortably more powerful than an IBM 7090, which was state of the art then. I think it cotains more disk space than existed in the world in 1959.)
posted by Steven Den Beste (14 comments total)

Hell, I'd give my right arm for it now - it's better than what I'm using. And it comes with a Cozy Coupe mouse.

posted by the webmistress at 8:02 PM on July 29, 2000

I lost my right arm when I was 6. Can't remember what I got for it.
posted by netbros at 8:48 PM on July 29, 2000

woah... it beats my system in all aspects except memory and monitor...

should that scare me?
posted by y0bhgu0d at 9:23 PM on July 29, 2000

Oh God yes, an Easy Bake oven for the kitchen! I've been laughing about that for ten minutes, off and on. Every time I read it, I start laughing again.

Really tho, this is exactly the type of product designed to appeal to adults. Most respectable four year olds would much rather have a set-up that looked just like mom's or dad's than that thing. Even little kiddies can tell the difference between a toy and the genuine article, and they always seem to want the real thing.


posted by the webmistress at 9:44 PM on July 29, 2000

I don't see the appeal of this product, except maybe for parents who want a ready-made computer for their kids, or have a lot of money and buy something like this on impulse. Maybe the kind of family where both parents are working well-paying but high-maintenence middle management jobs and don't have time to actually put a decent computer system together for their kids. This is just ready-made out of the box. Spend one sleepless night putting it together for a birthday or next Christmas or whatever and voila!

It doesn't look very upgradable. And the kid may grow out of the chair and tabletop anyway, so you'd end up buying a whole new system including chassis within a year or two. Not very cost-effective or forward-thinking.
posted by ZachsMind at 9:56 PM on July 29, 2000

And the integrated Young Explorer{tm} browser comes pre-configured to filter out nasty "adult content" sites, so you can rest assured that your young explorer is viewing only healthy, nutritious kiddie pr0n...
posted by quonsar at 10:44 PM on July 29, 2000

it's a gimmick, pure and simple.
posted by cheaily at 3:40 AM on July 30, 2000

Anectdotal evidence this won't work: I bought a "laptop" made by VTech from Toy'R'Us for a 3 year old because every time he came to visit, he wanted to use my laptop. He's pretty computer literate (which is scary in and of itself) and it's actually not a bad little computer circa 1988, feature for feature, but it's certainly not usable as a "real" machine. But oh! the disdain that dripped from his voice as he pronounced his new VTech "just a toy!" Penney's will sell there "toy" only to kids who've never in their life actually seen a computer before, I think...
posted by m.polo at 7:32 AM on July 30, 2000

For two thousand dollars (less actually) I could put together a better computer system than that for a little tyke. It wouldn't look good but it'd fly.

When I was four, I didn't want to play with the annoying plastic lawn mower that my relatives gave me for a gift. I wanted to play with that big noisy greasy thing in the garage that actually had blades inside it and could swallow small children whole and spit them out. That was COOL.

Naturally I'm still here, so as you might've guessed, I got stuck with the obnoxious plastic fake lawn mower that did nothing at all but make beep beep noises and cause other kids to laugh. I could pick the fake lawn mower up and swing it at people though. That was fun.

My sisters had an Easy Bake oven. That lasted all of two days, before they were bugging mom to let them cook dinner. The kitchen was soon covered in flour and sugar and things I couldn't identify. We ended up eating at Long John Silver's.
posted by ZachsMind at 8:34 AM on July 30, 2000

This product's been around for a few years. I believe that some were sold to various daycare centers, and some Burger Kings set them up in playlands. I don't remember where I saw that article.

Oh, and the Cozy Coupe mouse is available as a separate item. Target had them last winter.
posted by Electric Elf at 10:25 AM on July 30, 2000

You can get a better, more complete system than that for less than $1000. Anyone who puts out an extra grand for some colorful, molded plastic is nuts.
posted by isildur at 10:37 AM on July 30, 2000

Would like to know where you're shopping, Isildur. Last time I priced computer equiptment, a decent monitor alone cost over $800.
posted by ZachsMind at 11:19 AM on July 30, 2000

I suppose it depends on what you define as a "decent monitor". You can get a quite reasonable 15" monitor now for a couple of hundred bucks.

Me, I spent $1400 on a 21" ViewSonic P815 about 18 months ago, but that's MY definition of "decent".
posted by Steven Den Beste at 11:43 AM on July 30, 2000