ABSTRACT
Most young people have grown up with technologically based entertainment media in the form of television, video, teletext, arcade games, CD players, record-decks, mixers and samplers. Increasingly this entertainment technology is computer based. Indeed, the computer is becoming the all round home entertainment system, with a growth in the number of homes who have a CD-ROM drive, or even an Internet connection. The range of technologies aimed at the home market is ever expanding. New combinations of hardware such as the TVPC (CD player, TV and PC all in one unit) are now being marketed as an ideal package for a teenager, and new software packages aimed at the home consumer appear on the market with almost weekly monotony-for example, photo discs enabling the user to store their holiday snaps on CD-ROM, and low cost image manipulation software such as Kai’s Power Goo. A number of software packages aimed at the educational market are available enabling the user to draw, paint, manipulate images and make simple animation or music tracks. Computer technology is now sold alongside puzzle games in toy shops, such as TOYS ‘Я’ US and alongside pens and paper in stationery shops.
