Your kid would need reported W2 income to be eligible. Start a 529 plan instead.

Why would you ever consider reporting him? The last thing someone struggling to live needs is to be harassed by the community and abused by cops.

Consider treating him like a human being. Ask how he's doing. See if he needs anything. Keep an eye on local social media for people mentioning him so you can warn him before some nimby bootlicker calls the cops on him.

Oh man, the SGIs are so expensive nowadays. I always thought it would be awesome to replicate Nedry's setup from Jurassic Park but it would be like $10k in retro gear right now.

The MacBook and Amiga are pretty attainable goals still. Those early MacBooks were really hot stuff when they came out.

https://fmhy.pages.dev/

Streaming sites are at the top of https://fmhy.pages.dev/videopiracyguide/

The FMHY site has great curated recommendations https://fmhy.pages.dev/readingpiracyguide/

Yeah, the Tetris disk is one I really want to archive. I think I'll try to write those images you linked to floppies and check compatibility across my Brother machines.

Depends on what era of games you want to play, but you can't beat a pentium 2 or 3 windows 98 machine. This will get you support for all but the earliest DOS games plus the heyday of 2D and the start of 3D windows gaming.

Any old beige box of the era will work. The larger the better, since small units of the era had more custom hardware like audio chips that may be hard to find drivers for.

Those are getting harder to get cheap, so if you want an even easier option ask you relatives and neighbors if they have any old computers. There are a ton of Pentium 4 and Core series pcs with Windows XP out there still that will play a ton of retro games still. Anything that had Vista or 7 should be downgradable to XP so you have a lot of options.

It's important to not start throwing upgrades at a new-to-you system. Only upgrade what isn't meeting your needs. There's a huge market for retro PC gaming now, and you can spend thousands on upgrading an otherwise unremarkable system with hardware you don't need.

For monitors, anything with VGA will work for these recommended options. VGA flat screens are worthless nowadays so ask around for a free or super cheap one. The XP option will better support modern USB devices while that can be a struggle with 98, so keyboards, mice, and flash drives are definitely easier on the more modern systems.

Use Archive.org for games and software. Don't bother paying for original media unless you're building a collection.

Oof, that's a dream machine! Especially with a full video editing rig from the era.

I'll have to check it out on my c64. That's a gorgeous picture!

Thanks! You still have that C16? Those are cool machines

Oh man, I doubt have any experience with these AIO models, but I've heard they can be a pain. Much more proprietary than a desktop system.

I say take it super slow. Do lots of research. Ebay saved searches are your friend.

And don't forget to sit down and use it. I have a bad habit of not actually using all the computers I fix up. Using them tells you what needs to be upgraded. Otherwise you're just throwing parts at it for the numbers.

I love these side-by-side comparisons. That spectrum screenshot is especially impressive given how most games looked when ported.

It was a trash find. Got the computer, keyboard, monitor, printer, and PeachText out of an e-waste bin. The other accessories are from ebay.

It's the computer I've owned the longest, probably close to 20 years now.

Isn't it?!? It's hard to tell in pictures but the floppy drives are 1/4 bay height, so half the height of a normal 5 1/4". They use an electromagnetic solenoid to move the heads to keep them thin. That mech is what fails, unfortunately.

I even have a Titan QX-PC IBM pc emulator card for it. There was also a dual monitor display card available. It's a really cool machine that nobody ever heard of.

Poweramp on Android for my phone and VLC on desktop