Electronic tutorials for you and your children... programmable

[HysteryDiagnosis]

controllers, robotics... good stuff.

http://www.parallax.com/tabid/564/Default.aspx

[Dogmudgeon]

1. Check out the "competition", too

Arduino:

http://www.arduino.cc/

You can get a complete DIY Arduino board for about $20, ad it's all open-source.

The Parallax stuff is also insanely great and had the first affordable microcontroller kits.

As hobbies go, hacking around with microcontrollers is the next best thing to being god.

--p!

[HysteryDiagnosis]

2. Bill Gates would agree with your last statement... I believe that

the top ten reasons to switch to MS Server 2008 is cuz Mr. Bill needs a new pair of shoes. Actually, I respect him immmensely for his philanthropic endeavors where they aren't aimed at increasing the size of his empire.

[HysteryDiagnosis]

3. Hey thanks for the link and do, I mean do check out this great

educational resource... I wish I knew how to "zip the entire thing" so I could peruse it wherever whenever.

http://www.allaboutcircuits.com/videos/index.html

[Dogmudgeon]

4. There are so many Arduino sites ...

... it might be easier to just keep a folder of bookmarks.

Check around for http://www.ladyada.net/">ladyada (Limor Fried), too. She is featured on a few pages, including http://www.adafruit.com/">AdaFruit Industries. She's a hacker-cum-artist and has done some amazing stuff with the Arduino.

There are several utilities that allow you to download entire websites and print them out. Adobe Distiller is the biggest, but most expensive; there's a couple of free Posix programs if you use Linux or BSD.

That is a great page of material you posted, too. Most of it seems to be videos -- I wish I'd had that kind of thing when I was about 12 when I first became interested in "gadgetry". But in 1970, it was all Heathkit, Lektron, and model rockets. And they used to count the number of transistors in radios. If you had a 10-transistor radio, you got some serious respect!

Me? I built a crystal set, and when I tuned into WIP (Philadelphia), I could light a flashlight bulb, too. I was certain that we'd be on Mars by 1980, not contemplating the Laffer Curve over a dinner of macaroni and government cheese.

Ah, youth in a simpler, less hurried time!

--p!

[HysteryDiagnosis]

5. Ah yes, Heathkit, had to build the oscilloscope, digital meter, circuit

breadboard and a television for the course... wish I'd stayed with it back then, trying to get my bearings again for when I get too old to break my back the way I am now. Thanks again for the links... plan to get a laptop and run Ubuntu.. looking for a No OS unit so I don't have to give it up for MS once again. I'll give them this though, I have been reading that Windoze7 runs very well... but don't count on them giving it to people who were taken with Vista.