A fun thought-experiment

Everyone knows the "$100 laptop", the OLPC XO-1 machine that spawned the Intel Classmate which in turn spawned the whole "netbook" market. I will warrant that fewer know of the Indian $12 PC, based on a clone of an old Nintendo: http://www.techtree.com/India/News/12_PC_Based_on_a_Game_Console/551-91911-… http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9111759/_12_Indian_TV_computer_a_kno… The $12 PC is horribly compromised, but it's a good idea at heart: a computer so cheap it's affordable for the urban poor. But if one were to try to design an actual computer that cheap, something programmable that could maybe even do email and telnet and really simple TCP/IP-type stuff like that, what would you put in the box? I am taking it as more or less a given that it would have to be a VERY simple 1980s-style 8-bit machine. The easiest way might be to clone one of the 80s home computers, implement it on a chip with some extra software, like Jeri Ellsworth's fantastic Commodore 64 Direct-TV device. But which 8-bit? If you had to fit an entire computer, with storage and software, into an FPGA or some similar device and install it in a keyboard, with a couple of USB ports for storage and connection to a cellphone for communications... Which would be the best, most versatile, capable 1980s 8-bit machine to use? An Apple II with loads of options in virtual "slots"? A Commodore 64, for the graphics, sound and huge games library? A Spectrum, for its simplicity but large range of programming languages and so on? A BBC Micro, with the best BASIC ever and sideways ROM support for additional features? An MSX2 machine, some of the latest and best-equipped 8-bitters? Something exotic, like an Elan Enterprise or MGT SAM Coup?? Or a 1970s mini, like the Russian Electronika BK, a PDP/11-compatible home computer? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elektronika_BK -- Liam Proven ? Profile: http://www.linkedin.com/in/liamproven Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? GMail/GoogleTalk/Orkut: lproven at gmail.com Tel: +44 20-8685-0498 ? Cell: +44 7939-087884 ? Fax: + 44 870-9151419 AOL/AIM/iChat/Yahoo/Skype: liamproven ? LiveJournal/Twitter: lproven MSN: lproven at hotmail.com ? ICQ: 73187508