You're absolutely right. However, I'll admit to now being one of the people giving up. I happily spent days tweaking every config.sys and highmem option 20 years ago. Nowadays I'm lucky to get 2-3 hours a week to play, and I'm not going to waste half of it just trying to get the damn game started. Hell, I just bought and started playing the original Bioshock last week, and made sure before I did that it worked 100% under Wine before I did.

It's not just legacy systems -- there are still current systems being deployed using FreeDOS, such as a few of the fast-food drive-through order screens, elevator news systems, etc.

Unfortunately, children will explore and learn things you don't want them to regardless how much we will (or want to) shelter them.

That said, the solution my wife and I have is we tell them certain things are appropriate, and others are not. When they're older, they can view them, but for now it's not appropriate.

We have two Popcorn C-300s, and the media I don't want the kids to watch are in a separate directory called "Not Appropriate". That way, you don't have to go nuts with security and lockdowns, and your kids know what's there. Knowing the media is there but shouldn't be viewed also teaches them self-restraint.

I once worked for a company that produced equipment used in hospitals, and I can vouch for the issues installing updates as well. Moreover, hopelessly stupid things were done such as hard-coding the hosts file for remote diagnostics, and logging in and running applications as the Windows Administrator account. Furthermore, the hospital IT staff was equally incompetent, in that even if (by some miracle) we wanted to patch the products we had to jump through hoops to do so, and even simple things like DNS resolution were filtered for our devices.

In order to drive a car, you need a government-mandated license indicating a minimum competency level so you aren't a danger to others.

In order to fly a plane, you need a government-mandated license indicating a minimum competency level so you aren't a danger to others.

The right to practice law, become a doctor, and even have a job (by requiring social security number) is mandated by law.

Why are people allowed to create a public safety problem by opting out of "required" vaccines?

Instead of using any existing language (written or spoken), you use mathematics and pictograms. Essentially the same as how they did the drawing on Voyager.

Just start with a basic number system, individual atoms, then a description of radiation, time periods, etc. None of those should change within a few million years.

If you want to give a start and end date, just use a star chart based on the current location of earth with of a few obvious bodies for reference and project it forward.

I'd highly recommend the series So You Want to Be a Wizard? series by Diane Duane for kids in the 8-15 age range, although they read fine for older ages as well. And before anyone asks, I'd recommend them over the Harry Potter series. For older kids (12-18), the Amber series by Roger Zelazny is great as well. There's also the old Danny Dunn series. Finally, depending on the kids' maturity level, go for the classics (Stranger in a Strange Land, A Wrinkle in Time).