A $20 8-Bit Wikipedia Reader For Your TV

An anonymous reader writes with this excerpt from Wired about another entry in the ongoing quest for low-tech-high-tech educational tools to take advantage of distributed knowledge: "The Humane Reader, a device designed by computer consultant Braddock Gaskill, takes two 8-bit microcontrollers and packages them in a 'classic style console' that connects to a TV. The device includes an optional keyboard, a micro-SD Card reader and a composite video output. It uses a standard micro-USB cellphone charger for power. In all, it can hold the equivalent of 5,000 books, including an offline version of Wikipedia, and requires no internet connection. The Reader will cost $20 when 10,000 or more of it are manufactured. Without that kind of volume, each Reader will cost about $35."

Re:Blurry text

[CohibaVancouver]

so presumably they'll be trying to read masses of blurry text on an older SDTV.

Until the "IBM PC" came along, most of us hooked our home computers to our televisions:

http://www.vintagecomputer.net/apple/appleII/appleII_display_graph.jpg [vintagecomputer.net]

We wrote BASIC programs, played ZORK, and labouriously keyed in source code printed in the likes of "Creative Computing." Today, none of us are blind. Well, some of us are. But likely for other reasons than reading text on an SDTV.

Now get off my lawn.

Re:Offline Wikipedia

[blai]

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=download+wikipedia&l=1 [lmgtfy.com]

You didn't try at all did you?

Re:come on...

[Anonymous Coward]

You realize the kindle doesn't have a monthly fee right? Not saying anything about your other requirements, just that one.

Re:Offline Wikipedia

[spazdor]

http://www.free-soft.ro/pocket-wikipedia/pocket-wikipedia.html [free-soft.ro]
It's not official, but it's fine.

Re:Blurry text

[blincoln]

We wrote BASIC programs, played ZORK, and labouriously keyed in source code printed in the likes of "Creative Computing." Today, none of us are blind.

While this is true, the text back in those days was pretty barebones. I couldn't find a screenshot of what the TV output looks like from this device. Is it that same sort of old-school no-frills monospaced font with 40 (or 80 at most) characters per line? Or is it an attempt to shoehorn something with more modern formatting onto a TV via composite signal? I set up a Linux PC as a classic game emulator a year ago, and via composite I had to make the font *much* larger than on my old Apple IIe for it to be readable on a TV connected via composite. I think it was something like 25-30 characters per line. With S-Video it was better, but I would only assume that maybe 10-25% more characters could be squeezed onto each line.

Re:Nice, but...

[gorzek]

You might want to check out the statistics [humaneinfo.com] as related by the company making these devices. The developing world has a glut of TVs but very few computers and little Internet access. These devices can help fill that gap.

Re:Noble but useless.

[xiox]

I might doubt the cost too, but 8 bit microcontrollers are very popular now, even with the widespread availability of 32 bit systems. Many consumer devices include Microchip and Atmel chips if they don't need more power. There's also a bit Arduino (Atmel) hobby crowd.

Re:Text only?

[Mr.Radar]

Unfortunately Wikimedia Commons, the source for all the images on Wikipedia, does not guarantee that all the images it hosts can be redistributed (even solely for the purpose of inclusion with "offline" versions of Wikipedia) and doesn't provide a one-stop download to get all of its content (like Wikipedia provides). Tools to download (scrape) all of Wikimedia Commons do exist, but as of a year or two ago there was already 500 gigabytes of content if you wanted a full mirror and I can only imagine that the amount of content has grown significantly since then. So even if they could do it legally, they wouldn't be able to practically unless wanted to add a hard drive to the design (drastically increasing the cost).