$12 MIT Computer Based On NES, Not Apple II 308
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."
In addition... (Score:5, Funny)
Don't blow. Use rubbing alcohol. (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Don't blow. Use rubbing alcohol. (Score:5, Informative)
rubbing alcohol (or, better yet, an electronics contact cleaner)
Don't use rubbing alcohol! That will also eat away at the contacts. Use either an electronic contact cleaner or hydrogen peroxide.
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No, they're gold.
Re:Don't blow. Use rubbing alcohol. (Score:5, Informative)
They're copper, and they're quite prone to corrosion.
Exactly the contacts on the cart, 9 out of 10 times, had nothing to do with an NES not reading them it's the internal 72 pin connector, that once replaced provides a user accustomed to fiddling around with carts a very welcomed and joyous experience. Depending on the site [estarland.com] you can get the parts for under $10USD.
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Can copper rust? ;) (I know... being technical here...)
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Re:Don't blow. Use rubbing alcohol. (Score:5, Informative)
In the U.S., rubbing alcohol is typically 70% isopropanol in water.
90% alcohol is available from behind the pharmacy counter. You simply need to convince the pharmacist that you're not likely to drink it once you walk out of the pharmacy.
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(or, better yet, an electronics contact cleaner)
Which 90% of the time contain rubbing alcohol, water and maybe a few detergents (overkill for a bit of dust on an NES cartridge). Sometimes they add perfume to the cocktail, e.g. when they want to convince the customer that their "display-cleaner" is somehow special and they need to pay ten time the price for some isopropyl alcohol.
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They sell rubbing alcohol that is flavored now too (menthol, comes in a green bottle). Feel free to use that if you are sick of the alcohol smell.
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I prefer the nice sharp smell of ammonia in the morning. Wakes your ass right up.
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I had good luck with burnishing the contacts with plain white paper.. just abrasive enough, once alcohol didn't seem to be helping.
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Damage? the NES cartridges?
Yeah, that might be cause for worry, except that the dang things are frickin indestructible.
You can chuck the thing out of an airborne craft and it's more likely to survive and work than whatever it hits.
Re:Don't blow. Use rubbing alcohol. (Score:4, Funny)
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Speaking of things damaged by nintendo cartridges, I can safely say I'm one of the only people on the planet who chipped a front tooth in half thanks to a NES cartridge. :D
It happened to be tucked away in a fold of a beanbag that I jumped on in sheer joy that school was out for the week. I think you all can tell what happened after that! And yes, I remember which cartridge it was. Dragon Warrior.
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I've always found the best tool for cleaning an edge connector is just a simple pencil eraser.
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I've had far better luck in removing grime using diluted ammonia or windex (which also has detergents in it). Rubbing alcohol is one of the poorest solvents in regular use that I can think of. We've used pencil erasers and/or windex for years to prepare electronics for soldering and to clean tuner contacts, so I see no problem with putting it on a NES cartridge.
Blowing on a cartridge makes it work not because you remove dust, but because you wet the surface enough to make for better conduction. eventually t
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Mum says thanks, but next time she wants to wear the bra and panties.
Re:In addition... (Score:5, Interesting)
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)
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.
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I just used Tuner Cleaner to revive my old NES back to life...
Good news (Score:5, Funny)
Now we can teach children in developing countries the importance of gold coins, magic mushrooms and floating stars.
You forgot... (Score:4, Funny)
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http://pbfcomics.com/?cid=PBF213-Mario_Too.jpg [pbfcomics.com]
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<jedi>
These are not the magic mushrooms you're looking for.
</jedi>
Re:Good news (Score:4, Informative)
So this really isn't a "$12 MIT Computer" considering you can buy these at any cheap general store. I had no idea at the time that someday someone at MIT would stumble across it and plaster their name all over it and make
Here's some more links to the "$12 MIT Computer":
http://www.gamersgraveyard.com/repository/nes/pirate/pirate-clones-A-M.html [gamersgraveyard.com]
http://www.gamersgraveyard.com/repository/nes/pirate/images/consoles/gamestar_fun_educator-box.jpg [gamersgraveyard.com]
In Soviet Russia (Score:2, Funny)
You play tetris on victor 70
Re:In Soviet Russia (Score:5, Funny)
Re:In Soviet Russia (Score:5, Funny)
Sweet!! (Score:2, Informative)
According to the article it is a knock-off device that one of the students found in India on the streets for $12. Adding the Internet access and other necessary componenets most likely will not hike up the price over the OLPC.
If someone finds the company that makes those devices, I want to buy in. This could take off.
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Re:Sweet!! (Score:5, Informative)
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Nah. uIP runs fine on microcontrollers with extremely limited RAM. and I believe uIP is part of Contiki which is known to provide telnet, a text webbrowser, IRC client and a few other goodies. It is known to work on the NES and C64. the trick with the NES is you have to attach a serial port to it somehow and run SLIP. But to be honest Ethernet is as easy as SLIP plus you usually get hardware to filter MACs and do checksumming.
8 bit???? (Score:2, Interesting)
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I mean does anyone know a modern linux distro that runs on a 8 bit processor?
If not, I bet there's someone who considers your question to be a challenge, and will now make one.
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If not, I bet there's someone who considers your question to be a challenge, and will now make one.
I doubt it. Eight bits made the baby Linus cry and it's why linux started on a 386 system.
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Unless they have spent the last ten years working on the ELKS project [sourceforge.net] and know that porting Linux to anything less than an 8088 could lead to total protonic reversal.
Then they would consider it to be quite a challenge, and would now wait for someone else to make one.
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porting Linux to anything less than an 8088 could lead to total protonic reversal.
I've reached this theory myself before - but have been too scared to test it.
The best idea I've come up with is porting it for a Z80 and then trying to boot it on a Sinclair in a remote region of Southern Utah using some sort of remote control for safety.
I really need a particle physicist to help me out with the minor details, you know - possible blast radius, how long before the area is habitable again, will the Earth's orbit
Re:8 bit???? (Score:5, Informative)
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-8517523543573905150 [google.com]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SymbOS [wikipedia.org]
http://youtube.com/group/symbos [youtube.com]
Check those three links if you're in doubt about what can be accomplished on 8-bit system.
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Well, to be completelly fair mp3 decoding depends (afaik) on a catridge that has mp3 decoder chip on it...still, it wouldn't make hypothetical 8-bit SOC much more expensive...
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IINM you can scale Linux to run on anything from a supercomputer to a wristwatch. When you get down to the level of the bare silicone, there's nothing you can do in 16 bits that you can't do (albeit a lot slower) in eight bits.
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Do uC what iC? (Score:2)
Of course you can port some kind of Linux to an environment with no virtual memory and no memory protection, but it will have all the glory of Win32s.
But sometimes, all the glory of Win32s is all the glory you need. See also uClinux.
Linux everywhere is wasteful (Score:3, Informative)
All you really need is an 8-bit system that supports VT220 and Telnet. then you share a fat Linux box remotely with 100 other people.
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why would you want to run linux on it?
Why wouldn't you want to run Linux on it? Man, and you call yourself a slashdotter...
At that price... (Score:3, Funny)
It costs less than my abacus!
Oh my...finally my own jackpot ;) (Score:2)
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=636401&cid=24480979 [slashdot.org]
BTW, I wonder how that'll work out...from what I know people buy those NES clones thinking they are something more...why would they trust next one, from the story?
BIOS.... (Score:5, Funny)
BIOS error, keypad not detected.
Press Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, A, B, A, B, Start to continue.
Re:BIOS.... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:BIOS.... (Score:4, Informative)
Re:BIOS.... (Score:4, Informative)
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Wow you kids don't know jack.
Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, B, A, select, start.
Yo Grark
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Wow you kids don't know jack.
Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, B, A, select, start.
Select was only necessary to shift into two player mode.
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Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, B, A, select, start.
Nope. The code ends at "A" The "start"/"select, start" bit is just where you're telling the game to start a 1 or 2 player game now that you've put in the damn code. Wikipedia [wikipedia.org] FTW!
Re:BIOS.... (Score:5, Funny)
it was B A B A, not A B A B.
If you type A, B, B, A it plays "Mamma Mia".
Seem R&D did not need MIT. It's on sale now! (Score:4, Informative)
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.
Internet Enabled (Score:4, Informative)
The current version can't connect to the internet. The MIT students are trying to see if they can get networking on it without going past the $12 price point.
The thing hasn't been updated in a long time so their goal is to see if there's better tech that can be put together for the same price.
Purpose of Involvement (Score:4, Informative)
1) Select the lowest cost computer you can find.
2) Write educational software for it.
3) market the hardware+software solution to schools and poor families in developing countries.
4) Profit! but while making the world a better place too.
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Who knows. Perhaps press? Some attention?
Its incredible that this is considered a viable idea. For 4 or 5x the price you can get a OLPC. I think a computer lab with 10 of these is a lot better for students than 50 students having these 8-bit beaters in their homes.
Re:Seem R&D did not need MIT. It's on sale now (Score:4, Insightful)
Really?
How much time do you think anyone can or will sit in a computer lab that they are sharing with several dozen other students?
How much time do you think that someone can spend sitting in front of a video monitor at home?
The immersed, "deep" learning occurs when one has the luxury of forgetting where the time went. In a resource-strapped school in a developing country, that's not the computer lab.
There are those of us who learned to program in more primitive environments than these - and we learned to program a little "closer to the metal."
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For 4 or 5x the price you can get a OLPC.
but if you only have 1/2 the price of an OLPC, then 2 of these is certainly MUCH better than zero OLPCs.
250 games in 1! (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
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At least the DTV-64 had a 'real' 64 in it. It was a FPGA implementation of one + a emulated drive with a bunch of games.
I see this just being 'yet another retro game console relived' and dying on the vine ( like it should )
What's the story? (Score:5, Insightful)
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
Re:What's the story? (Score:5, Insightful)
Why would you consider this a "ripoff"? Patents are granted for 20 years, with the express intention that after that period, the invention can be freely used by others.
What's bad about this?
Pirate multicart (Score:3, Interesting)
Why would you consider this a "ripoff"? Patents are granted for 20 years, with the express intention that after that period, the invention can be freely used by others.
Because it isn't just the patents. Looking at the Picasa album, I see that the computer appears to be bundled with a multicart containing unauthorized copies of several copyrighted Nintendo games. I'd bet it even has proprietary Tetris instead of GPL'd Tetramino [pineight.com].
Re:Pirate multicart (Score:5, Insightful)
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I didn't say there was anything wrong with it. I just don't understand what MIT's angle on it is and why their lack of angle is note worthy. I suppose my wording was a bit on the negative side though, so I can understand where you were coming from.
-Rick
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You make it sound as if it was unfair.
This is the expressed goal of patents.
Nintendo had their patent monopolies, and in exchange, everybody gets to benefit from the technology today. This is a win-win situation.
Nintendo got their money, and we get our cheap systems. I don't understand why you call this "ripping off" technology.
For me, it's making the system work as it was intended.
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As I stated above, my wording was a tad more negative than intended. The majority of the Nintendo hardware patents, so far as I know, have expired, although much of the copyrights on the games and marketing distributed with that system are still standing. So the company producing the package is ripping off someone.
The question still stands though, what does any of this have to do with MIT?
-Rick
I'm disappointed! (Score:2)
The Apple IIe had some awesome Pac Man and Space Invaders clones that were decidedly illegal because they mimicked the arcade machines you put quarters in perfectly.
How perfectly? (Score:3, Insightful)
The Apple IIe had some awesome Pac Man and Space Invaders clones that were decidedly illegal because they mimicked the arcade machines you put quarters in perfectly.
For one thing, companies like Atarisoft [wikipedia.org] published plenty of authorized ports of arcade games on Apple II and other 8-bit platforms. For another, how perfectly? Not every aspect is copyrightable [copyright.gov].
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because they mimicked the arcade machines you put quarters in perfectly.
And all these years I thought my quarter-putting prowess was a private performance...
What about the few machines I had trouble depositing money in?
=)
Programming (Score:3, Interesting)
nesdev.com (Score:4, Informative)
Does anyone have some links to programming tools for the Victor-70?
If it's as similar to the Famicom as people make it out to be, this web site [nesdev.com] might be useful.
patents vs. copyrights (Score:4, Interesting)
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 ?
What firmware? (Score:3, Informative)
i'm sure the NES had some sort of firmware on the console that's still covered by copyrights.
Citation needed. The only copyrighted ROM inside an NES console that anyone on nesdev.com knows about is the ROM in the CIC lockout chip, and the Famicom didn't even have that.
Saw one of the laptops (Score:2, Interesting)
Anyone have information on the "Victor-70" ? (Score:3, Funny)
12? You're paying too much (Score:2, Informative)
gotta love the pistol controller ... (Score:2)
Yet another retro game console? (Score:2)
Too bad, the apple ][ idea would have been educational.
C64 DTV (Score:2)
Family Basic V3 (Score:2, Informative)
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The paradox here is that the Famicom (NES) was so ahead of its time there was already in early 1985 a Basic language program sold by Nintendo in Japan
"Ahead of its time"?
Back in the late 1970s and early 1980s, it seemed like anything that had a microprocessor in it was packaged and marketed as an "educational computer". Don't make me cite the "BASIC Programming" cartridge for the Atari 2600...
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Hey, be nice to the Basic Programming cartridge. If it weren't for that lovely piece of history, you wouldn't be reading my inflammatory rants because I'd have found something better to do :)
Seriously, the fact that I taught myself Basic by age 4 is proof that these things could indeed be educational. At the very least, it taught me that interpreted languages are horribly slow, and by that virtue coaxed me into learning the nitty gritty of assembly language.
That said, the early 80's were boring times. I
NES on a chip (Score:2)
A NES-on-a-chip was used in those Jakks Atari joysticks (a joystick with 5-10 built-in games and an audio/video out cable) from about 5 years ago. The gameplay and sound were not perfect because it's emulated. I believe they retailed for around $15 or less.
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If they replaced the massive NES slot with an SD card slot. Also, think how much porn, I mean business applications, you could fit on one SD card.
We all know that's you really meant, no need to deny.
Compare to TI-83 Plus (Score:2)
Older TI calculators have 16 bit 68020 class processors in them. I don't see the point of recreating the limits of the past with new silicon.
Because my TV has a bigger screen than my TI-89. Besides, at least one vlogger got all excited over a TI-83 Plus [youtube.com] despite its 8-bit Z80 CPU.
Re:This is not a "$12 computer". (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
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Try telling that to a Web-TV user. He gets email and surfs the web all without needing a computer!
Smell that TI-99/4a stench. (Score:3, Insightful)
Well, strictly speaking, by definition a $12 game console is a $12 computer as well.
Well, strictly speaking, by definition a $12 digital calculator watch is a $12 computer as well.
It may be all very ho-hum for you with your GHz PC and internet connection
No, I'm comparing it with the "$12 Apple ][" that it was originally rumored to be.
all MIT has to do is come up with a NES cartridge with decent software
And its own cartridge slot and some kind of removable mass storage so you can share what you've created wi
Re:This is not a "$12 computer". (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Not all Linux is GNU/Linux (Score:3, Informative)
Linux is way too big for the sort of cheap ARM chips available today.
GNU/Linux is probably too big, but that doesn't mean Linux is. DSLinux and other uClinux distributions run on ARM CPUs.
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
Think again. There are BASIC compilers that run on a Commodore 64.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
> but that doesn't mean Linux is. DSLinux and other uClinux
> distributions run on ARM CPUs.
Take a look at the specs on those ARMs and go lookup the quantity 1000 price on the chip. In a $39.95 router they are great but won't get you to $10-$15 products. The gadget I have in mind would need to be a total system on chip with sound, video, USB, etc all in the one chip that would wholesale in the $3-$4 range.. When you find out just how puny the CPU power on such a beastie will be you will realize that
Making the ARM work... for $6.00 in parts? (Score:3, Insightful)
To sell for $12.00 you a parts list under $6.00. That means using a single-chip ARM7 with on-chip ram and ROM, and the ones I'm finding have less ram than an Apple II. You're not going to fit even a 1970s UNIX implementation in that, and you'll end up with the same problem the original Mac had: the system software took up so much RAM your 128k Mac had about 12k free for working space with even the simplest apps, and to make even that possible the OS design crippled them until they replaced it with OS X.
So y
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
> I am assuming you have never heard of the linux distros that fit on a floppy?
My first exposure to Linux was when you downloaded a boot/root floppy set from a BBS.
And yes I actually ran Linux on a 386SX-16 with 5MB RAM. It wasn't pretty. Now scale down to a machine that MIGHT have 1MB of memory but would probably have 256K or 512K. Yes you could probably build a kernel that would load but you wouldn't have much of a userspace and the idea is to run (simple) graphical programs so keeping as much of th