5 May
2010
5 May
'10
1:09 p.m.
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-=
581.html
http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9111759/_12_Indian_TV_computer_a_kno=
ckoff_of_80s_Nintendo_system_not_Apple_II
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?
Is this a subtle way of restarting the 'My C64 beats your speccy' war? If
so, it's not going to work :-)
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?
One good thing about the BBC micro (at least for me) was the large number
of built-in interfacs, particularly the user port and ADC. You are not
going to be able to duplcate that for $12 (not even the connectors!, and
IMHO you would have to buffer them to protect the FPGA or whatever
against user error. It was one thign to blow up a 5 quid VIA in a machine
costing \pounds 400. It would be quiie enoguh to blow up a $10 FPGA in a
machien costing $12...)
An MSX2 machine, some of the latest and best-equipped
8-bitters?
I guess my vote would got to a clone of the TRS-80 CoCo3 running OS-9 and
BASIC-09. That software is rommable, which makes life a little easier.
It's alos a very nice verion of BASIC (better than BBC BASIC in some
repsects).
If the cost was less of an issue, so I could have buffered user port,
ADC, etc, then by dream 8-bitter would be much of the BCC micro hardware
with a 68B09 rather than a 6502 CPU.
-tony