Praxis Splasher

Praxis Splasher is a Macintosh activity toy that gives one- to three-year-olds a safe sandbox for getting familiar with keyboards, mice, letters, sounds, and colors. Each keypress paints a giant colorful letter, number, or symbol on a black screen and, when QuickTime is installed, plays a corresponding musical note.

What it does

Toddlers press any key to summon a large representation of that key on screen. Moving the mouse drags the displayed letter around the screen, and clicking changes its color. The result is essentially a baby-proof typing playground that turns mashing the keyboard into a rewarding cause-and-effect loop.

Shareware features

Paying the shareware fee unlocks a Preferences menu that lets parents pick from 128 QuickTime musical instruments and choose alternate fonts for the displayed characters, broadening the visual and audio variety the program produces.

Builds and compatibility

Praxis Splasher ships in both 68k and PowerPC builds, so it runs on essentially any pre-OS X Macintosh that meets the modest system requirements. QuickTime is optional but recommended for the audio rewards.

Audience

The intended user is a pre-literate child sitting in a parent's lap. The black background and oversized characters keep the visual signal high and distractions low, which suits short attention spans.