$12 computer — on the way!
p2pnet news view | Cool Stuff:- MIT’s Nicholas Negroponte came up with an idea for a $100 computer to help underprivileged kids communicate with each other —- and the world.
His One Laptop Per Child project has had its ups and downs, including competition from the likes of Intel which cynically tried to hijack the idea of a cheap laptop for its own vested-interest ends.
Now MIT graduate students Derek Lomas and Jesse Austin-Breneman, together with other designers from Brazil, Ghana and India, are planning to loosely reconfigure elderly Apple II computers people in underdeveloped countries can buy for a paltry $12, says The Boston Herald.
[Noooo! Steve Jobs will have a fit!!!!]
Anyhow, “A $12 computer of sorts – a cheap keyboard and Nintendo-like console – already exists in India, where people hook the devices to home TVs to run simple games and programs,” says the story.
Graduate student stumbled across the computers in Bangalore while they were on an internship last summer and, “hit on the idea of upgrading the devices’ 1980s-era technology,” it says, going on »»»
A six-member team at the MIT conference is working on writing improved programs and hooking the devices to the Web through cell phones. The group also wants to add memory chips – which the devices currently lack – to allow users to write and store their own programs.
Team members have already recruited Apple II enthusiasts to help with the programming.
They’ve also been in touch with an Indian nonprofit, “that expressed interest in using the devices to train village ‘micro-loan’ officers, adds The Boston Herald.
.
.Stumble It!
The Boston Herald – Designers on quest to build $12 computer, August 4, 2008
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August 6th, 2008 at 4:20 pm
I’ve seen used but working Apple IIs on sale at thrift shops and worse (you don’t want to know the kind of places I frequent) for anywhere from $5 to $20.
I threw mine out.
The last “upgrade” to the II line was the IIgs, which was a new and (even then) slow 16-bit chip that emulated the old 8-bit architecture, and did a poor job of it.
No further upgrades to it is one major reason the PC-based architecture took over and became the most common hardware in use today. (Another reason involved IBM not prosecuting makers of clone machines.)
More power to them, but the entire venture is not going to accomplish anything remotely intended. The “Computers for everyone” projects have been doomed from the start.
What kind of CPU are we talking about here? An 8-bit one like the 6502 has nowhere near the computing power needed to run powerful enough applications, no matter what kind of programming wizardry they use. I was an Apple II programmer and couldn’t make the kind of interfaces modern computing needs (which is why I had to make the switch in the 1990s!).
August 7th, 2008 at 4:49 am
RECYCLING
There is no way a computer can be made at such a low cost.
Besides, who is going to tool up to make an obsolete processor and set of support chips?
The lowest possible computer is a donated and re-manufactured by volunteers and students using donated funds for expenses.
Perhaps then the can give away the computers for at least $50.
There are many old computers, monitors, disk drives, etc. out there that are no longer used by individuals and firms because they are obsolete for advanced and power users but could work fine in some poor neighborhood or country. Re-cycling by is the green way to go.
August 7th, 2008 at 9:09 pm
Nah, its built on the NES. http://news.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/08/06/1925225
Great article though!