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$12 MIT Computer Based On NES, Not Apple II

Posted by timothy on Wednesday August 06, @04:33PM
from the different-can-different-beans dept.
Education Hardware Hacking Nintendo
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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[+] MIT Team Working On a $12 Apple (II) Desktop 401 comments
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.
Firehose:$12 MIT computer based on Nintendo, not Apple II by ericatcw (1194651)
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$12 MIT Computer Based On NES, Not Apple II 25 Comments More | Login | Reply /

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  • In addition... (Score:5, Funny)

    by digitalsolo (1175321) on Wednesday August 06, @04:36PM (#24502469) Homepage
    In addition, the console in a keyboard comes with a fully illustrated manual explaining the proper method of blowing into the cartridges in order to make them function properly...
    • Blowing can actually damage edge connectors of NES Game Paks and other PCBs by depositing humidity, which attracts more dust and more corrosion. I've made an illustrated guide to cleaning cartridges [pineight.com].

    • Re:In addition... (Score:5, Interesting)

      by ZorinLynx (31751) on Wednesday August 06, @05:51PM (#24503521) Homepage

      What's funny is the NES is the only console I recall having this problem. They must have used a lousy socket in the actual NES unit. (the carts just have regular edge connectors like any other gaming system uses)

      They had that weird "push the cartridge in, then lock it down" setup, rather than the simple friction method used by other consoles. Friction has this added benefit of wiping the cruft off contacts as you push the cart in, which I'm betting the NES didn't do as well, causing the problems.

      In fact, one of the NES cart fixes I recall was pushing it down slightly so there was some friction, and squirming the cart around in the connector. ;)

      • Re:In addition... (Score:5, Interesting)

        by Dogtanian (588974) on Wednesday August 06, @05:59PM (#24503605) Homepage

        They had that weird "push the cartridge in, then lock it down" setup

        As far as I'm aware, Nintendo deliberately tried to do as much as they could to make the NES appear different to previous consoles such as the Atari VCS. The reason for this was apparently that people (especially retailers) got badly burned during the early-1980s downturn in the video game market and were reluctant to go there again. Nintendo (for example) tried to make the loading more like a video recorder, and so on.

  • Good news (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 06, @04:36PM (#24502473)

    Now we can teach children in developing countries the importance of gold coins, magic mushrooms and floating stars.

  • BIOS.... (Score:5, Funny)

    by tsvk (624784) on Wednesday August 06, @04:43PM (#24502563)

    BIOS error, keypad not detected.

    Press Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, A, B, A, B, Start to continue.

  • Seem R&D did not need MIT. It's on sale now! (Score:4, Informative)

    by viking80 (697716) on Wednesday August 06, @04:47PM (#24502631) Journal

    Not sure why MIT needs to get involved in anything here. This $12.50 computer is currently produced, and sold on the street in India *now*. So R&D, manufacturing, distribution and marketing is done and working.

    Computer includes word processor, games, a gun for gaming, as well as BASIC.

  • 250 games in 1! (Score:4, Insightful)

    by StreetStealth (980200) on Wednesday August 06, @04:47PM (#24502633) Journal

    It appears that this is essentially the same setup as those dodgy Chinese handhelds loaded with a bunch of hacked and remixed NES ROMs.

    So why didn't anyone else think of this before? It's perfect; put together this ultra-cheap but still highly programmable hardware with some efficiently-designed educational software, and you've got something that can, despite having a tiny fraction of the OLPC's specs, still make a big, positive impact on kids in the developing world.

    If this project is managed right, it could end up doing the OLPC's mission for it and then some.

  • What's the story? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by RingDev (879105) on Wednesday August 06, @04:48PM (#24502645) Homepage Journal

    Step 1: Rip off 20 year old patented technology
    Step 2: Cram into smaller container
    Step 3: Get MIT guys to give you free press
    Step 4: ???
    Step 5: Profit

    I mean, what's the actual deal here? Some manufacturer in China is producing a miniaturized clone of the Nintendo skipping out on the licensing fees so they can get it to market in the $12 range, MIT students/alumni are smiling at it around a table. So what exactly is MIT doing?

    Is it suddenly dawning on them that if you strip all of the patent protection and licensing from a project that a $100+ chunk of electronics is only $12 worth of components, shipping and handling, and Chinese labor?

    -Rick

  • patents may expire in 20 years, but copyrights don't.

    i'm sure the NES had some sort of firmware on the console that's still covered by copyrights. this would make the work a little harder. the creators of this thingie would have to first develop their own firmware, right ?

    • Re:This is not a "$12 computer". (Score:5, Interesting)

      by ColaMan (37550) on Wednesday August 06, @05:14PM (#24503013) Homepage Journal

      Well, strictly speaking, by definition a $12 game console is a $12 computer as well.

      It may be all very ho-hum for you with your GHz PC and internet connection, but I think it's interesting. It has :

      - Keyboard (important step up from the traditional game console of old).
      - Known / Familiar hardware, being a NES clone.
      - TV-out, which means that any low-income family that has a TV, can get a relatively cheap computer.

      Combine that with a decent software cartridge with :
      - Word processor
      - Spreadsheet
      - Good kids educational software
      - BASIC (or Pascal,if you're feeling sadistic. The logical steps/sequence in programming apply across all programming languages.)
      - A few MB of flash ram for storage of docs,etc
      - File manager / DOS of some sort.
      - A port or two would be nice for a printer/modem, but it's probably pushing it.

      annnnnd with all that you're suddenly on par with the IBM PC-XT of 25 years ago, and it helped revolutionise personal/business computers then.

      So, seeing that the hardware's done, all MIT has to do is come up with a NES cartridge with decent software. Seems doable.

    • Totally a dumb idea as they are trying it. But it could be done and be practical.

      1. Forget putting it into a keyboard. Standalone keyboards are such a commodity they are dirt cheap and by leaving it external the possibility of different layouts becomes much easier since a small outfit doesn't have to make a gadget in a dozen flavors. Plus it lets you leave out the keyboard/mouse and let people scrounge or buy a bulk lot locally.

      2. Forget 8-bit. Go just a bit higher up the food chain. Admit up front that even if you avoid it on 1.0 you need a future upgrade path to a web browser and it would be best if that didn't mean tossing the entire platform and software base. Today's word is ARM.

      3. Build a tiny little box with several USB ports, an S-Video (easy to adapt to composite) port, audio i/o, possibly a VGA port and depending on pricing a pair of PS/2 ports. (If the cost of adding the ports is less than the cost of two more USB + price diff on keyboard/mouse.)

      4. Develop a SIMPLE Operating System for it. Linux is way too big for the sort of cheap ARM chips available today. Most modern BSDs are also probably too big. Think much smaller. UNIX used to run on small machines though so it could be POSIXish.

      5. USB drives would be the software delivery method. When writing software for a machine with at best a megabyte of RAM and 2D TV graphics you can fit a boatload of software on a single 256MB flash drive.

      6. Ship them with a software development environment. The oldskool machines always had BASIC available and it spawned a generation of users who, if not outright developers could at least read code and make small changes. A modern BASIC wouldn't be the worst thing to ship and there are good Free implementations available. I'm afraid a fully self hosted development environment probably isn't possible on such a limited platform but ship the cross compiler on a CD in the box or make it generally available for download.

      • Re:Sweet!! (Score:5, Informative)

        by camperdave (969942) on Wednesday August 06, @05:14PM (#24503017) Journal
        Apparently, it's doable [wikipedia.org].

        Contiki supports per-process optional preemptive multi-threading, inter-process communication using message passing through events, as well as an optional GUI subsystem with either direct graphic support for locally connected terminals or networked virtual display with VNC or over Telnet.

        A full installation of Contiki includes the following features:

        • Multitasking kernel
        • Optional per-application pre-emptive multithreading
        • Protothreads
        • TCP/IP networking
        • Windowing system and GUI
        • Networked remote display using Virtual Network Computing
        • A web browser (claimed to be the world's smallest)
        • Personal web server
        • Simple telnet client
        • Screensaver

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