Linux

When we got our first computer it was a Win 95 machine, with a copy of Encarta, Atlas. I don’t remember what word processor, but it wasn’t a full office suite.

It was cool. We did lots of typing and using ms paint.

Then we got a shareware cd. Hundreds of pretty useless games + 4 or 5 big ones like doom and transport tycoon, but it changed everything. Every day we’d try a new one. We’d mess around in DOS trying to get those ones working.

Then 3D Movie Maker - the full version. It all really started to come alive.

Then a microphone. Just messing around with sound recorder was like when we used to make “funny” tape recordings of ourselves, but without the hassle of tape.

These are the basic concepts of what I think made computers fun.

I guess the direction I’ll probably go shortly is the old AMD 2400g mini itx I have laying around. Put on an opensuse slowroll. We have a microphone handy. We have 900 games on our GOG account. I have an old intuos drawing tablet that might work. Add some of those education flatpaks - solariums and stuff. I think you can definitely do a modern version of what we had back in the 90s when computing was more than watching youtube.