Definitely! The Atari 400 was the first computer I played with. It was my stepfather's machine and i started playing asteroids and missile command, and they I became fascinated by what this "Basic" game was. That was the start. Next machine was a 286.
I have been listening to the Computer Science E-1 Harvard podcast. It does a pretty good job of building up from 0 to medium understanding without getting too complex. The beginning is a little bit slow if you know anything about how computers work, but it does a good job of filling in some of the gaps. I have not finished the series yet, so I am not sure how far it goes, but so far I can imagine my mother/grandmother understanding what is going on without too much difficulty. A book based along these same lines would probably work well. http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~cscie1/?page=podcast&t ype=static
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Definitely! The Atari 400 was the first computer I played with. It was my stepfather's machine and i started playing asteroids and missile command, and they I became fascinated by what this "Basic" game was. That was the start. Next machine was a 286.
I have been listening to the Computer Science E-1 Harvard podcast. It does a pretty good job of building up from 0 to medium understanding without getting too complex. The beginning is a little bit slow if you know anything about how computers work, but it does a good job of filling in some of the gaps. I have not finished the series yet, so I am not sure how far it goes, but so far I can imagine my mother/grandmother understanding what is going on without too much difficulty. A book based along these same lines would probably work well. http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~cscie1/?page=podcast&t ype=static