*applause* Kieran Simkin wrote:
Just to take it all back to the OP a bit - if you're trying sporn a geek (you should - geeks are more than just engineers), my advice is give him the 1985 Chevy Camaro. A Porsche is too much car for a kid - he'll only screw it up, let him dream about the Porsche while he fixes up his Camaro. It also has the benefit of being a lot cheaper than a Camaro - in computer terms; just pick up any old second hand-PC and put Ubuntu on it. When to start? Immediately! I had my first computer at the age of 7 and was programming BASIC by 8, now I earn more than most people I know, there is no minimum age, especially if the hardware's cheap and can afford to be broken.
