Technical pens are for drafting and would be a nightmare for everyday writing.

They are not agile and require a high degree of control to use. They need to be held absolutely perpendicular to the writing surface at all times, and only work when held vertically with the nib pointing down. They don't write well or at all on certain kinds of paper, often damaging the paper. They are easily broken and are difficult and messy to fill, clean, and maintain.

Don't get a technical pen.

Without hesitation, I'd go with GameMaker along with the book The Game Maker's Apprentice, and followed by The Game Maker's Companion. The first book includes an older version of the GameMaker software which is all that will be needed to complete the exercises. If your child likes the process, move onto the second book which covers more advanced concepts. Those books, along with either GameMaker 8.1 or GameMaker: Studio should your child want to move onto more current versions, will all fit within your $100 budget, and it will only cost you $20 or so to get started.

The books are excellent learning tools and the GameMaker software itself was originally created by co-author and Utrecht University professor Mark Overmars to teach programming. It's a great way to get ones feet wet and very good games can be created with it if one is willing to put in the effort. If you child wants to move on to more popular languages, GameMaker will provide them an excellent foundation for learning them.

I went to highschool in New York in the mid-80s. We had about 30 Apple IIes in the lab. The school had an introductory course and an advanced course. We programmed in Applesoft BASIC entirely for both classes and assistance from PLE, a memory-resident program editing aid.

Programs we wrote in the advanced class:

• Parse first names from a list of full names given in inline data statements
• Read numbers and text from binary files
• Draw a border around the low-res graphics screen with an animated a pixel moving inside of it
• Animate a walking man using high-res shape tables
• Play music notes using a provided machine language sound routine
• Play a song from a binary file containing notes and durations
• Perform a binary search of inline data statements
• Create and query a fixed length database using multiple search terms (ie. cars: model, engine, color, doors)
• Create and sort multi-column databases using bubble and shell sorts
• Find integers whose values are sum of the their digits cubed (eg. 153, 370, 371, 407)
• Write a game to test and score knowledge of state capitols
• Final project: point-of-sale application with inventory management using a random access, fixed record length database

If so, maybe they should bomb each other back to the stone age.

Notch has made at least 17 games in addition to Minecraft.

Funny Farm, Luxor, Carnival Shootout, MEG4kMAN, Left 4k Dead, t4kns, Miners4k, Hunters4k, Dungeon4k, Sonic Racer 4k, Dachon4k, l4krits, Blast Passage, Bunny Press, Breaking the Tower, Infinite Mario Bros, Minicraft.

Yup, watch that episode of TBHS and post in his corner of the element14 forums for more advice. He and other gaming accessibility minds frequent it.

http://www.element14.com/community/community/experts/benheck

You should also make your way over to AbleGamers.

http://www.ablegamers.com/

No, that's exactly half its purpose. The other half is to get works into the public domain after a limited period of time, something right-holders are fighting tooth-and-nail to prevent. Copyright law becomes a mockery of itself when that limited period can be extended an unlimited number of times.

I love Slashdot. Even when someone is right, they're wrong.

Best argument for noscript I've ever read.

Here's the very strange thing about that error. I have a scan of that issue of Byte and it does indeed say 553 there. The article also has a circuit diagram, again showing a 553. If you look at the original Redbook schematics, it also shows a 553 quad timer. There is even advert for 553 quad timers on page 174 of that issue of Byte. I've also seen a post online from someone with a 553 chip in an apparent timer circuit asking about it's identity. All that and no datasheet or cross reference for a 553 quad timer can seem to be found. My best guess is 553 comes from an imprinting error on actual 558 chips.

That's gratifying. I'm glad I was able to brighten your day.

Feel better?

Well spotted. I recently learned how the paddle interface worked when reverse-engineering an old Apple II game. Even though I cut my teeth on an Apple II, I never knew how the circuit actually worked. When I saw the 6502 paddle code in the game it made no sense to me until I examined the Apple II's schematics. Then my mind was slightly blown. Just another one of those brilliantly simple hacks that riddle the Apple II's design and make it an almost magical device to me.

Constitutions don't work that way and it's dangerous to think they do. They do not empower citizens, they limit governments. Civil rights are inherent. If you don't understand that, you have already given up your freedom.