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Re: If you could design a $300 homecomputer today, what would you choose?
- Subject: Re: If you could design a $300 homecomputer today, what would you choose?
- From: Bill Hoggett <bill_hoggett@lineone.net>
- Date: Thu, 12 Jul 2001 23:13:54 +0100
- Newsgroups: alt.amiga, comp.sys.amiga.advocacy, comp.sys.amstrad.8bit, comp.sys.apple2, comp.sys.atari.8bit, comp.sys.atari.advocacy, comp.sys.atari.st, comp.sys.cbm, comp.sys.sinclair
- Organization: Posted via Supernews, http://www.supernews.com
- References: <9ikva3$ple$1@nereid.worldonline.nl>
- Xref: archiver1.google.com alt.amiga:1460 comp.sys.amiga.advocacy:21688 comp.sys.amstrad.8bit:3557 comp.sys.apple2:10461 comp.sys.atari.8bit:6737 comp.sys.atari.advocacy:524 comp.sys.atari.st:13857 comp.sys.cbm:18028 comp.sys.sinclair:44528
On Thu, 12 Jul 2001 22:09:21 +0200, "T.J.T van Kooten"
<thomas@-nospam-worldonline.nl> wrote:
>For the sake of argument let's suppose you could design a next generation
>$300 homecomputer. The goal is to make a userfriendly machine for general
>use and for hobbyists. How would such a system look?
You need to make your mind up. Either it's a toy - and at $300 retail
that's all you can aim for - or it's a computer for "general use and
for hobbyists".
>CPU? (P.S Intel and AMD are out, far too expensive and powerhungry for this
>type of thing, you should be looking at the $20-35 level)
Very cheap and weak Intel or AMD CPU's then. The alternative is to go
with the stuff used in PDA's, but do you want to have a desktop or a
PDA.
>As OS? (Linux is a dead giveaway, but there also other OS's out there)
Like QNX maybe, or a ported version of AmigaOS. Other alternatives
rake you back to the PDAs.
>Build in programming language? (please choose anything but Basic!)
gcc for real programming, Perl for scripting.
>Amount of memory? (RAM and ROM)
Depends on the OS. No ROMs, they stink.
>Graphic and Sound?
There are plenty of cheap chipsets.
>Network capabilities? (internet capable)
Built-in 10/100 BaseT. Essential.
>Plug in capabilities (remember you're making it as cheap as possible so
>modems, CD-Roms, HD's are all extras)
Don't be daft. There's no point making CDROMs and HD's "extras".
What, you think people are willing to go back to swapping floppies?
>Video (TV? or Monitor?)
Again, are you after a computer or a toy?
>Remember that the RETAIL price should be $300, so think in wholesale prices.
>The real costs should below $200 or even below the $150 level. You may
>presume that a million units would be manufactured so take volume discounts
>for components into account
>
>Let's see what sort of systems people come up with.
What's the point? This is market research for the '80s. Nowadays
people aren't satisfied with a cheap jack of all trades that doesn't
do anything very well. They want a cheap games machine, they buy a
console. They want a cheap general purpose computer, they get one.
They want something cheap that does everything well, they get into a
time capsule and go back to 1985.
Anyone aiming to produce computers that retail at $300 is going to be
peddling a pile of camel dung.
--
Bill Hoggett