Eight year-old whizz becomes Actel chip testerChild labourer lands jobBy Nick Farrell: Monday, 08 October 2007, 10:42 AM AN EIGHT year-old kid is QAing software to run Actel chips. According to American-Statesman, Carson Page is a computer whizz-kid who taught himself to run computer applications on his PC soon after he could walk. By age four, he could install an operating system on his own and fix driver problems.At seven he was programming circuits with software from chip maker Actel.Now the Silicon Valley outfit has him evaluating an upcoming version of its software. So far he has detected several bugs.Mark Nagel, a field applications engineer for Actel said his company had never before used a primary school kid to test its software.However the kid seems to have got the hang of it and could say what he liked and didn't like about the stuff he's fiddling with at a high-end level, Nagel said.Children tend to work a bit cheaper than adults. For his work, Carson received a $250 gift certificate to Fry's Electronics, which he used to buy an MP3 player, two computer games and a microphone for his Skype Internet-based phone connection.If this all seems on the cheapish side, just remember in Dr Spinola's day they used to send kids up chimneys. µ
