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MIT Team Working On a $12 Apple (II) Desktop
Posted by
timothy
on Tue Aug 05, 2008 09:54 AM
from the guide-kids-worldwide-to-oregon dept.
from the guide-kids-worldwide-to-oregon dept.
Barence writes "A new project to create a $12 computer is underway at MIT, the same University that spawned the One Laptop Per Child non-profit laptop. The PCs will be loosely based on Apple 2 machines, first unveiled over 30 years ago, and the team are actively recruiting enthusiasts of the retro computer to help develop the new PC." Update: 08/05 14:13 GMT by T : The original story at the Boston Herald has more information, as well as a photo of the team.
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$12 MIT Computer Based On NES, Not Apple II 308 comments
ericatcw writes "The $12 computer that a bunch of designers and grad students are talking up at an MIT conference this month as a potential, cheaper alternative to the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) for Third World students is actually a knockoff of the original Nintendo Entertainment System gaming console released in the mid-1980s, reports Computerworld, and confirmed in a comment by the project's spokesman, Derek Lomas. According to Lomas' account and pictures, the Victor-70 is an 8-bit NES clone that accepts its cartridges and is wholly contained in the keyboard. It is also likely to be an unlicensed clone made in China, according to Lomas, though he notes that may not matter patent-wise in the US, due to the length of time that has passed."
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Funkay... (Score:5, Funny)
Each one comes with a free leisure suit.
Re:Funkay... (Score:4, Funny)
Larry will be pleased
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How to solve world hunger: (Score:5, Funny)
1) Give children in third world countries old computers
2) Get children addicted to Oregon Trail
3) Watch children forego sex, and therefore reproduction, in favor of Number Munchers
4) Profit!
It's bullet-proof!
Re:How to solve world hunger: (Score:4, Funny)
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Re:How to solve world hunger: (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:How to solve world hunger: (Score:4, Insightful)
Actually, if you could get children to forgo sex in many of these third world countries, a large number of their biggest issues would be solved.
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Re:How to solve world hunger: (Score:5, Insightful)
If you could get the damned Catholic Church to quit opposing contraception, that'd help quite a bit as well.
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Not much details... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Not much details... (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Not much details... (Score:5, Informative)
Doesnt binary compatibility depend on the OS, which id guess to be BSD/linux.
Based on appel II is much more likely to mean in terms of architecture & hardware
I can tell that you have never used a computer from the era of the Apple ][.
These beasts did definitely not run anything like BSD or Linux.
When you programmed them, you did it in BASIC, or programmed in assembly, accessing the hardware directly without any form of operating system.
You could use calls to a few functions in Eprom, but CP/M was the best you could get as an OS, and then you needed the plug-in card with a real Z80 chip on it!
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skip to the end, please (Score:5, Insightful)
can we just mark down a pile of old engineering calculators and call it a day? I remember watching some smarty-pants play Mario on his calculator during enviromental engineering classes lo these many years ago.
or cell phones, for gods' sake, my cell phone has a 314MHz processor in it, I played duke nukem 3D and watched streaming video on PCs that were slower, this cannot be that difficult.
figure it out, people and stop cluttering up /. with these endless utopian woolgathering snipehunts; please, and thank you.
Re:skip to the end, please (Score:5, Insightful)
Seriously... don't we toss thousands of cellphones a day-- each more powerful than an Apple ][, into landfills?
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Regression (Score:5, Funny)
If we follow the pattern to its natural conclusion, we'll have $6.00 Altair 8800's, then $3.00 PDP-8's, then $1.50 UNIVAC's, then 75 cent ENIACS, then 3 Babbage Difference Engines for a nickel, and finally a Jacquard loom that you couldn't give away.
Re:Regression (Score:5, Funny)
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Why not base it on the C64DTV chip instead? (Score:5, Interesting)
It's already in production, and is a fully functioning C64 on a chip.
Just sayin' (and prolly igniting another Apple/Commodore war. :-)
Breaking News: Team at MIT making a FREE computer (Score:5, Funny)
Is it really cheaper? (Score:4, Insightful)
Would it really be that much cheaper to make 1980s-vintage computers? I mean, once the design work is done, are the price differences between fabbing a 6502-type CPU and an ARM or x86 that great? I thought that the price advantage of using mass-market components would outweigh any savings made by using primitive technologies.
Great until... (Score:5, Funny)
This will be great until they sell out and try to put Windows XP on it.
Re:neat idea (Score:5, Informative)
4Mhz and 64k RAM? Don't be silly, you could get a 40 Mhz and 512k RAM along with some eeprom for less than $2 in a micro controller.
I am not sure how they are going to get the Monitor and keyboard so cheaply though....
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Re:Clustering C64 drives (Score:5, Interesting)
The 1541 floppy drive (the floppy drive used with the C64) had its own processor and memory. A popular (and fun) "trick" was to write code that would load into the 1541's memory and run on its processor, and have it talk to the C64. Essentially, a two-processor "cluster" back in the 1980's.
The C64 was a wonderful "playground" for experimentation.
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Re:Clustering C64 drives (Score:5, Insightful)
Yep I remeber that was one of the things I hated about PCs. :)
On my little C64 with two drives I could start it formatting a disk and the go do something else. Or I could format two disks at once.
On the very expensive PCs you had to wait for the drive to format the floppy!
Man they sucked.
Then when I got my Amiga I was helping a local BBS test Zmodem. I downloaded a GIF and then the sysop asked me if it downloaded. I told him yes and to wait just a sec while I checked. He jumped right back and told me that I didn't have to log off and check it right now. I could wait until I was done on the BBS:) He was so confused when I told him that I didn't have to log off to check a GIF
Man how did PCs ever win....
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Re:Sweet (Score:5, Informative)
Maybe I can finally play Ultima II on the Apple
I know you are joking, but let's make this clear - it's not inspired by the Apple in the sense that it's has an 8 bit/1MHz CPU and 4KB of RAM.
It's an 70's stile of personal computer by using the TV as a display screen. I would also assume it uses a small form factor where the case is also a keyboard, and all you need is a DC adapter and the video cable. The hardware would be probably comparable to what you get in an XO: low speed x86 CPU and SSD storage.
As a person who has long used a PC attached to a TV as what it's now called a "Media Center", I can say the text quality on a CRT television is absolutely horrible, totally unusable for browsing or programming. Games, movies, sure. But not anything that would increase the computer literacy of the masses.
Sure, if you get a flat panel TV things look good, but those are not likely to be found in the homes of the people this project targets.
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Re:Sweet (Score:5, Informative)
I can say the text quality on a CRT television is absolutely horrible, totally unusable for browsing or programming.
Maybe unsuitable for browsing, my good sir, but my Timex Sinclair 1000 and I can assure you that a CRT television is perfectly suitable for programming!
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Re:Sweet (Score:5, Interesting)
I gotta agree. I used both a Commodore 64 and a Tandy TRS-80 (can't remember the exact model variation of the Tandy) on television screens and they worked just fine for programming on a TV screen. Still have both of those actually. As a matter of fact a LONG time ago, before the C64, I had a little toy called a VTech Pre Computer 1000. It had a built in single line LCD display with a fully QWERTY keyboard. It supported BASIC and I programmed a lot of stuff on that too. You'd be surprised how much an interested kid can pickup from those old systems.
And as a hobby, I pickup older computers like that when I find them in swap shops/Goodwills/flea markets. I've since added 2 TI-99/4a's, another C64, a C128, a ZX Spectrum, and an Apple IIgs to my collection. The most I paid for any of them was $5 (and the ZX Spectrum was actually given to me - a guy I know in WoW heard about my collection and had it in his attic so he offered to mail it over).
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Re:Sweet (Score:5, Informative)
Apple II cannot be used on a TV set unless you add a TV out (RF) card.
No, there were little boxes that would take the composite signal and convert it to an RF signal on channel 2, 3, or (later) 4. Most such boxes were twin lead, but there are other adapters for the coaxial cable ports.
Driving a component, VGA, DVI, or HDMI signal... well it just don't do that.
Hmm, makes me think about hooking up my Apple //c video out into a portable DVD player's video in. I may yet emulate Dr. Heywood Floyd using a //c on a beach in 2010.
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