[geeks] This will kill the "OLPC"...

[Geoffrey S. Mendelson]

On Tue, Nov 28, 2006 at 07:53:46PM -0600, Lionel Peterson wrote:


> Hey, look - DOOM on the "One Laptop Per Child" (OLPC) computer. Once
> governments realize you can play dangerous first-person shooter games
> (read "terrorist training simulators") on them, they will be defunded
> and dropped toot-sweet!
 
Well, it's too bad, but it's the way they run the project. No real goals.
IMHO they should have limited the device to the capability of a fixed
set of applications, and sold it as such. Hidden in the fine print should
be where they talk about other applications.

Personaly, I much more concerend with every Al-Queda wannabe using it
to plan rocket trajectories.

For example:

Word processor, web browser, audio book player (happens to play music,
but not it's main function), Educational video player, and so on. It's more
how you spin it, not what it really does.

> Hey, at $100/each, they are cheaper than Gameboy DS and/or PSP ;^)

That's a myth. The COST (which is half of the retail price for those
items) was estimated at $120-$150 per unit. This is before they added
the "crank".  The people running the project love to "feature creep".

My estimate of the cost is closer to $1000 a unit by the time they are
done. :-(

We went through that designing our handheld gaming device. We had a price
target of $70-$80 a unit in quantities of 10 million, and were able
to design one that could be manufactured for that price. We gave up
on lots of neat features but included interfaces for expansion and
planed to have a set of pads on the circuit board for people to add
whatever they wanted.

That way we kept the price within reason and anyone who wanted to would
add what they wanted. We had a whole bunch of neat hardware hacks planed
which we would sell on eBay under a ficticious name. 

We also found that we could sell hundreds of them as "pocket computers"
and well over 10 million as gaming devices. It's all how you market it.

Geoff.
-- 
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