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Letter: Gadget masters

Published 8 January 2000

From Yoke Sau Cheng

Wendy Grossman will be pleased to know that things electronic have never
discouraged our children, ages 14, 12 and 8, from taking a gadget apart and
putting it back together to make a functioning entity
(18 December, p 47).

Our children’s favourite pastime is collecting outdated 286 and 386 computers
discarded by neighbours, ripping them apart in their playroom, and salvaging
what they like to build faster, more powerful machines.

Unfortunately, in the process of doing so, they strew the
floor with bit and pieces of the innards of a computer, especially of chips
with needle-sharp legs, prompting my husband to predict that our children would
end up with more memory in their feet than in their brains should they walk
barefoot in the room.

Unterschleissheim, Germany

Issue no. 2220 published 8 January 2000

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