OLPC (One Laptop per Child) wiki

[Christopher Browne]

On 1/15/06, Yanni Chiu <yanni-bJEeYj9oJeDQT0dZR+AlfA at public.gmane.org> wrote:
> I came across this link that may be of interest to some:
>     http://pedia.media.mit.edu/index.php/One_Laptop_per_Child
> Note, the site seems slow - the pages took about a minute
> to display..
>
> The machine will run Linux, according to the site.
>
> There's also preliminary hardware specs available; briefly:
>
> - Processor: AMD Geode GX500 at 1.0W with AMD CS5536 companion chip
> - Memory: 128MB DRAM, possibly DDR Mobile
> - Nonvolatile storage: 512MB (possibly 1GB) NAND flash memory
> - BIOS/loader: hardware details TBD; either conventional, or maybe LinuxBIOS, if available in time.
> - Audio: AC97 codec (chip TBD; we are down to probably two or three alternatives), built-in stereo speakers and mono microphone, jacks for external stereo speakers and microphones
> - External ports: four USB2.0, one supporting On-The-Go functionality
> - Display: dual-mode, based on a 7.2" diagonal 800x600 monochrome TFT panel
> - Input devices: keyboard, trackpad
> - Wireless: Atheros AR5004G or AR5004GS chip, 802.11b/g.

The really dumb part is that they seem to be trying to make these
devices *only* readily available if you are a government educational
ministry buying them in bulk.

It seems to me that there would be a *huge* win in trying to seed
these as widely as possible, *period.*

The "Simputer" was a somewhat similarly-intended design...  
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simputer>  It failed, in great part
because they never got enough units pushed out to get prices to the
promised point.

That would support my contention of trying to shove them out even to
people interested in not-strictly-educational uses ;-).
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