Message-ID: <191745Z27061994@anon.penet.fi> Path: vixen.cso.uiuc.edu!howland.reston.ans.net!EU.net!news.eunet.fi!anon.penet.fi Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers From: an31517@anon.penet.fi X-Anonymously-To: alt.folklore.computers Organization: Anonymous contact service Reply-To: an31517@anon.penet.fi Date: Thu, 23 Jun 1994 04:38:08 UTC Subject: KidPC will be the rage for 1995 Lines: 92 KidPC will become the rage of 1995 __________________________________ Note: The following information is *strictly* confidential!!!!!!!!! Disclosure in any form, even the least hint is absolutely prohibited. A consortium of Apple, IBM and Toys-R-Us will introduce a personal computer for children in November 1994. It is exepected that over 200000 units will be sold before Christmas 1994. For 1995 a sale of over 2 million units is expected. The machine, called KidPC, comes with 16 MB of RAM, a built-in hard disk of 100 MB and a PowerPC CPU. It will have a keyboard, a mouse, a built-in monitor, a built-in modem and no other external connections. It will not have a floppy drive, because that would encourage software piracy. The only way to load new programs is through the internal modem. The KidPC comes with the operating system KidOS and several applications already installed. KidOS looks and feels like a simplified version of the Mac OS. The applications include the drawing program KidPix (previously released for Mac and PC), the spreadsheet KidKalk, the word processor KidType and the communications procram KidTalk. KidBasic is included as a programming language. Further there are a few politically correct, non-violent, non-addictive educational games. The main objective of KidOS is political correctness and educational responsibility. 90% of the processing resources are devoted to that goal. 9% is devoted to the user interface and only 1% is devoted to useful functions. An enormous amount of artificial intelligence is built into the OS. Not only does it prevent you from typing the word , it also makes it practically impossible to show the shapes of the letters F, U, C and K next to each other on the screen, whether you draw them in KidPix, you write a program to show them in KidBasic or start four different applications, each drawing one of the four letters. KidOS continuously monitors all user activities, it signals signs of computer addiction, it analyses all texts the user reads or writes, it analyses shapes and colors the user draws or views, etc. No chance of ever seeing something remotely pornographic on the screen of a KidPC. All user activities are judged for educational value and political correctness. The user can perform calculations using KidKalk or KidBasic, but if the user performs many homework-type calculations, the program will be aborted. KidOS computes the total amount of educational value a user enjoys. If that is not enough, playing of recreational games will be blocked until the user performs some educational exercises. Through the built-in modem and the program KidTalk, the user can call a BBS. The communications protocol is proprietary and the KidPC can only talk to special KidBBS'es. The users can chat, exchange electronic mail, post messages and upload or download programs, texts and pictures. Needless to say everything on the BBS is severely screened, both by intelligent software and by humans. Sex, politics and religion are completely taboo. The phallicity scanner will even reject the average picture of a sports car as pornographic. Therefore there is absolutely no chance that the kids ever download real porn. Upgrades to the OS are automatically downloaded each time a KidBBS is called. Such upgrades are sometimes necessary. Suppose that Fidel Castro is replaced by a fascist dictator. Then Cuba will be an ideal vacation country. Kids should then be able to write about it. The current version of KidOS prevents the word Cuba from being entered or viewed in any way. Applications and games can also be downloaded from a KidBBS. These cost real money so the kids (or their parents) have to pay first. Once these programs are on the KidPC, they cannot be copied to other KidPC's so software piracy is prevented. Each KidPC comes with a magnetic card and a pin code. These are packed separately and are for the parents. The parents can insert the card into a special slot and enter the pin code. Then the parents can customize several parameters of KidOS, such as the total time the system may be used each day, the minimum ratio between educational use and recreational use, their political preferences etc. All within safe margins of course; the parents cannot configure KidOS such that it can be used all day for games only and that kids are allowed to write that Castro is great. Of course the use of the modem and various types of KidBBS usage can also be restricted by the parents. Finally the parents can see how often and for what purposes their kids used the KidPC. They also see exactly which naughty things the OS prevented from happening. Therefore the KidPC is an ideal educational tool. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- To find out more about the anon service, send mail to help@anon.penet.fi. Due to the double-blind, any mail replies to this message will be anonymized, and an anonymous id will be allocated automatically. You have been warned. Please report any problems, inappropriate use etc. to admin@anon.penet.fi.