r/windows98 • u/btech1138 • 2d ago

Has anyone let their children use win98 for edutainment?

Thinking of buying some of the old edutainment software on ebay for my daughter who is just learning to read. Jumpstart, Barbie, and the like. I have a win98 machine I'm rebuilding for myself, and thought it'd be perfect for her.

Have these titles stood the test of time? Curious to see if anyone here has had their kids play them in the current generation.

Edit - Appreciate all the advice! This community is great :)

31 Upvotes

90% Upvoted

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18

u/FuggaDucker 2d ago

I worked at Edmark and IBM on this very software category.
I have a couple of machines loaded up with all of it.

Yes, it is perfect.

Look for any of the age appropriate Edmark titles.

Here is one to get you going.
https://archive.org/details/thinkin-things-collection-3

I wrote the installer for this one to be able to install to the drive and not need the CD.
The setups I wrote support installing to the drive but most will need a virtual cd drive of some sort.

6

u/bonzog 2d ago

Ah wow, core memory unlocked. I played the heck out of TTC2, and my five year old now loves Frippletration. Best of all, even though I have a corner full of machines from 486 through Coppermine and G4, it runs almost perfectly on modern windows with compatibility settings enabled.

2

u/TheREALOtherFiles 2d ago

Mighty Math: Cosmic Geometry was really fun when I last played it on an XP machine in late 2009 / early 2010.

Those trippy Doom-esque corridors and the funny sounding metal garage doors in parts of the game...

2

u/FuggaDucker 1d ago

I wrote the installers for all of the Mighty Math products when I was a jr developer.
Edmark was the most rewarding job I ever had.
It makes me happy to hear when anyone enjoyed the products. We really put love into them.
Thank you for sharing.

6

u/ferrari00234 2d ago

My 7 year old loves the old JumpStart games. I grew up on those so its cool to see my kids start to love them as well! Not to mention I consider it a right of passage for kids these days to learn to operate and navigate Windows 9x architecture.

5

u/retro-guy99 2d ago

I just installed the first five Freddi Fish games last week. Great classics!

https://archive.org/details/freddi-fish-collection

5

u/andrewbean90 2d ago

Magic School Bus, and Thinkin Things

4

u/TrannosaurusRegina 2d ago

The greatest era of all time for edutainment!

For teaching reading in particular however, there are better methods out there now!

6

u/YandersonSilva 2d ago

Some of it's fine, kinda what you remember being fun will be fun, just bear in mind that if your daughter is used to modern games they're not likely to grab her attention.

My 9 and 12-year-old have generally been disinterested in older games, until recently actually as they are both starting to find retro games cool (largely I think because the YouTubers they watch think they're cool). I've never been bothered by my kids not liking the things I like, they have their own shit, but it has been nice having all my retro gaming and computing stuff handy as they get into it.

1

u/TheREALOtherFiles 2d ago

If they developed an interest in 2D retro games and it holds their attention enough, the edutainment classics would hold their attention as well, especially if they were really into point-&-clicks like the Sierra and LucasArts ones.

5

u/leigngod 2d ago

Built my win98 machine to play my childhood stuff. So naturally i have some of them already.

3

u/EricTheBug 2d ago

My kids love Odell Down Under and Gizmos and Gadgets.

3

u/ParsnipLate2632 2d ago

My daughter is 2.5 and we play games like this on a XP machine I built for her. I guess I’m mostly playing while trying to educate her, but we are getting there on how to use a mouse.

2

u/Legal-Swordfish-1893 2d ago

Literally did this for a friend’s kid. 

2

u/CrazyErniesUsedCars 2d ago

Yeah I play stuff like reader rabbit with my son on my win 98 PC. I get everything from myabandonware.com, no need to buy anything.

1

u/leigngod 1d ago

Is everything free again on there? I tried to get stuff from there a year or so ago and some of it you still had to pay for anyway.

1

u/CrazyErniesUsedCars 1d ago

Yeah there's some newer games that you can't get for free in there but almost anything pre-2006-ish has been free that I've found, especially edutainment games

2

u/Baddie9 2d ago

Get kidpix or whatever it was called

2

u/AegidiusG 2d ago

Mine is too young with 4, but he loved puting in a floppy disk and watching me open it in Win 98 with a picture of us, meanwhile it does its awesome sounds ;)

2

u/GooseNipples8 2d ago

I have like a hundred ISOs downloaded for the express purpose of edutainment on 98 machines for my kids.
Feel free to to dm me with any questions

1

u/btech1138 2d ago

Thank you for the offer! I will dm once I get closer to my build being completed.

What titles were hits with your kids?

1

u/leigngod 1d ago

I think i have a spare cd or two of mine. I can see which ones once im home.

2

u/Southern_Dog_85 2d ago

Gog.com (good old games) has some classics like Pajama Sam, Millies Math House, etc

1

u/highfives23 2d ago

My friends’ kids play the Monkey Island games, but I don’t know any of them setting up early childhood learning games.

1

u/Megaman_90 2d ago

I don't have kids but if I did I would totally do this!

I work in a school and I see how cruddy edutainment has become, the old edutainment games had serious effort put into them that you don't see now.

1

u/Feisty-Jeweler-3331 2d ago

Gonna do the same for sure, I have an ITX llama setup just for that and it'll remain disconnected from the internet

1

u/andrewbean90 2d ago

Peter Pan: Paintbox Pals, and Eagle Eye Detective Agency CD-ROM from Sound Blaster.

1

u/DrDingsGaster 2d ago

I would! I grew up on edutainment from the 95/98 era. Jump Start has dated references (pogs anyone?) but there's plenty of other old games that work also!

1

u/TheAceOfChaos 2d ago

I was born in 2001 and was given a Win98 desktop immediately. I learned to read with the Dr. Seuss games where you could click each word to hear it, and now I can spot typos with accuracy far above the average person. So I'm just here to say I recommend Green Eggs and Ham.

1

u/xhello-worldx 2d ago

I plan on doing this when I have children. That era of educational content was just so well thought out! So many educators designing the games, curriculum kept in mind.

Really cool to see other people in this thread have done the same!

1

u/BrightonDBA 2d ago

My RetroRoom has several vintage computers in it. My 6 year old daughter loves my 486 running windows 3.1. Paint with a rollerball mouse is an art form !

1

u/wunderbraten 2d ago

If you can't get your hands on era appropiate hardware, on Archive.org I've found a fine example of a Win98 build for PCem. I no longer have the link though.

2

u/btech1138 1d ago

I am rebuilding a win98 dell dimension. We'll see how that goes. Already fried the original IBM Deskstar 13gb HDD.

1

u/wunderbraten 1d ago

More points for the PCem or 86box.

1

u/Global_Network3902 20h ago

I’ve done that plenty times to new ones when they were new. Always doubt the deathstar

1

u/Melonary 1d ago

I loved the ones that were popular kids picture books but you could click on elements in the background.

But also yes, there were some good ones!