100 buck laptop

[resopalrabotnick]

http://laptop.media.mit.edu/

i will say good idea, however i see one flaw. this thing is meant to give students everywhere access to modern tech, and i guess help prepare them for tasks later in life that involve computers.

i wonder if microsoft would, if asked, be willing to donate an os and apps, (even if it's something like win98 and an old office with some other stuff thrown in for good measure, since an older os would probably be better suited for such a minimal hardware setup) to use on these things to give a different option than linux and other opensource apps. not to use them exclusively, but to help the users see what the os they will in all likelyhood be working on later in life will look like.

but cudos to the handcrank bit. 1 minute of cranking 10 to 15 minutes of operation. too bad they won't be sold in stores, only directly to educational institutions. this thing has a lot of potential beyond just educational use, i think.

[pitbull481]

that is a good start for kids that never used computers or laptop

[cak46]

It would be a good tool for real young kids1-4th graders, maybe? in schools in the U.S., too.  Network means homework can be downloaded instantly to each one.....  much potential for use here in U.S. schools!

[resopalrabotnick]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/csm/20051116/wl_csm/a100

well, they have the cost down to 130 according to mit. so why not start selling the things at wally world for 260. you buy one and thereby donate one to a child in need. still a good deal.

massachusetts governor is looking at a 54 million investment  to furnish the state's students with the thing, even allowing them to keep it. if they manage to find a company to produce em large scale i think they could seriously knock the price down to a hundred bucks.

some comments i've seen is that the price is in part due to low cost display etc, but i doubt the processor is up to doom3 anyway, so a display on the technological level of say four of 5 years ago which should be dirt cheap to make nowadays should be fine.

i wants one! that hand crank charger is sweet!

[tennesseeme]

that is a good start for kids that never used computers or laptop

if they let those things go home with the kids, they'll never return them, tear them up, and parents would be trading them for crack rocks and meth.

[ROM-DOS]

". . .producing a laptop so cheap that governments could afford to link every child in the world to the Internet." 

I hope my new $400. dollar fake ID (that let's me re-invent my spoiled youth, again) qualifies me for this new government program  . . .or do I have to move to some third world country ~ that doesn't have any internet service (providers), too?

Proto-type testing will begin the day after Thanksgiving with Walmart offering an HP laptop for $398.

The specs are planned to be as follows;

AMD Mobile Sempron 2600+ Processor

256MB DDR SDRAM Memory

40GB Hard Drive

DVD/CD-RW Combo Drive

802.11b/g Wireless Networking

15" TFT XGA Display

There are no rebates planned for this laptop, that price is the in store price. WalMart will also be selling a Pavilion AMD desktop with the following specs;

HP Pavillion 1203w-b Desktop w /15" LCD Monitor

AMD Sempron 3000+ Processor

512MB DDR SDRAM Memory

40GB Hard Drive

CD-RW Drive

9-in-1 Memory Card Reader

15" LCD Monitor

Also for $398 w/no rebates.

. . .geez, I should have spent my $400. more wisely!!   

[Shug7272]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/csm/20051116/wl_csm/a100

well, they have the cost down to 130 according to mit. so why not start selling the things at wally world for 260. you buy one and thereby donate one to a child in need. still a good deal.

massachusetts governor is looking at a 54 million investment  to furnish the state's students with the thing, even allowing them to keep it. if they manage to find a company to produce em large scale i think they could seriously knock the price down to a hundred bucks.

some comments i've seen is that the price is in part due to low cost display etc, but i doubt the processor is up to doom3 anyway, so a display on the technological level of say four of 5 years ago which should be dirt cheap to make nowadays should be fine.

i wants one! that hand crank charger is sweet!

Excellent Idea.

[dn0]

I think these are a great idea and great for developing nations.

I would go for the 'double price' idea, buy one give one.

Reminds me of the old days:

*cranks up laptop

Grandpa - "Hello, Google? I am looking for a blonde, 34 double D's, 105 pounds"

Google - "Found her, I'll pach you through - thank you"

[CA3LE]

Dude... I want one!  hehe

[tonyswhirl]

I grew up around one - 13 party line with a differant ring for each party

those were the days!!!!!!!!

[just-]

if microsoft doesn't supply them with software and kids get used to free stuff like linux then they will not want to go to windows they will want to stick to linux

this might be a big mistake for windows

this is if this 100 bucks laptops ever make it in the millions

[Dark06]

if microsoft doesn't supply them with software and kids get used to free stuff like linux then they will not want to go to windows they will want to stick to linux

this might be a big mistake for windows

this is if this 100 bucks laptops ever make it in the millions

Amen to that

[tonyswhirl]

if microsoft doesn't supply them with software and kids get used to free stuff like linux then they will not want to go to windows they will want to stick to linux

this might be a big mistake for windows

this is if this 100 bucks laptops ever make it in the millions

If ms gives them an operating system they might just as well toss the computers in a trash can.

If you are talking about some poor kid sitting on top of a garbage dump you are going to need an os that works on top of a garbage dump - not one that has 9000 differant start up problems and tuning parms.

It has to has a simple os that works and not one that you spend half your time trying to get it to work and the other half maintening it.

I think this just about makes ms out of the picture.

think about it - I got enough problems wirh ms at my kitchen table - let alone sitting in a third world country somewhere.

This is not an attack against ms just the simple truth.

Imagine handing a kid a crank up laptop with an ms os and say go ahead learn something

[resopalrabotnick]

hey, all ms bashing aside, but if they use some patched version of win98 or some beefed up version of windows ce, the resources wouldn't be much of a problem. and using win98 on a CrankTop™ would be a great lesson in troubleshooting, os maintenance and last but not least patience.

imo, windows is the better choice for an end user system, with all its faults, because you can just do a reinstall of windows far easier than having to set up linux again. and heaven forbid a kernel updtate comes out or some such, then everyone has to spend a day dling new drivers, patches, workarounds etc. not to mention installing all that. i'm not bashing linux as an os, i'm bashing linux for its lack of point and click friendliness.

[tonyswhirl]

Well it will be interesting and I think an excellent idea - somewhere out there is a young Einstein or Marie Curie

http://www.macobserver.com/article/2005/11/14.4.shtml

[resopalrabotnick]

and with that, how long will it take for ms to follow suit? 'but we want to use opensource software'. can you say 'never look a gift horse in the mouth'? just because some geek wants to use open source doesn't mean little timmy in timbuktu wants anything to do with it.

[ROM-DOS]

The now infamous $100 laptop designed by MIT in cooperation with the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) assocation will run Redhat Linux according to an article at Tectonic, an African open source news site.

The laptop, which features an eight inch SVGA display, 1 GB of flash memory, 128 MB of DRAM, and a 500 Mhz AMD processor will also ship with a web browser, a word processor, and a programming environment of some kind. At this point, it is probably safe to assume that the browser and word processor will be the increasingly popular Firefox and OpenOffice.org, but the nature of the programming environment remains a matter of debate. Some preliminary details suggest that the laptop will ship with the Squeak Smalltalk environment, which is not particularly surprising, since Squeak luminary Alan Kay is one of the researchers contributing to the laptop project. The laptop also features support for a unique, peer-to-peer wireless mesh network that will work right out of the box, and MIT researchers are currently investigating various ways to facilitate low cost internet access for the laptop systems.

The latest details also indicate that the OLPC folks plan to distribute a commercial version for about US$200. Details on commercial distribution are still pretty sketchy, but based on the note at the bottom of the Tectonic article, it looks like OLPC could currently be negotiating with potential distributors. One can't help but wonder how this product will influence operating system market share, and the portable computing market. Regardless of how it affects industry, it could potentially revolutionize the way that people utilize and share information in the developing world.