Re: If you could design a $300 homecomputer today, what would you choose?

["sands-of-iowa" <sands@cableone.com>]

Why no parallel ports at $300 your market is the poor and they are
going to buy the $5 printer from the Goodwill not the $150 USB
printer from Best Buy.

Graham wrote in message <6172ee17.0107230800.806c967@posting.google.com>...
>> 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?
>
>I may be late to the thread, but anyway...
>
>I don't think that people will be willing to pay $300 for an appliance
>(as such a computer would be). You have to look at what the current
>market wants. There are a million and one Internet boxes (the Bush
>Internet TV is one at �79, or about $100) that do Internet, email,
>etc. Not much use for writing a letter or playing games though.
>
>Assuming that you have been given a Government contract to make sub
>$300 boxes for poor people to enable the Internet revolution and
>increase education,etc (a realistic modern aim?) then what would you
>want?
>
>Integration is the name of the game. So is simplicity. It won't have a
>DVD drive, but it will have a CD drive. It won't have a 40GB HD, but
>it might have end of line never-sold 5~10GB HDs. It will have built-in
>modem and ethernet. It will have built-in graphics and audio. It must
>display to a TV, but a monitor is an option. Expansion ports kept to a
>minimum (4 USB, no serial, parallel, etc). Internal expansion not
>necessary. CPU power needs to be adequate, not good.
>
>If you are building 1m boxes, you would sign a contract with
>Asus/ABit/etc to get low end motherboards with the features that you
>want only, in the form factor that you want. Use a cheap processor (in
>quantity, the Via C3 would be good - I bet you could get 600MHz C3
>processors in quantity for ~$25 each). Integrated motherboard would be
>$40 with a $15 chipset (SiS630) and minimal components. Hard drive
>would be ~$50. CD ~$20. No floppy.
>
>Motherboard (+modem, network, audio, graphics): $40
>Processor: $25
>Hard Drive: $50
>CD: $20
>Case (custom): $20
>Keyboard: $5
>Mouse: $5
>
>As for the operating system - a free one would make sense, however a
>simple for dummies interface should be employed. The Linux kernel
>could be used, with a graphical interface that lets the user run
>applications and set up the device, but isn't a scary UI. Big icons on
>the screen, one for each application. Basically the Palm launcher I
>reckon. Modified applications could be used that didn't prompt the
>user about where to save the document, but just saved it safely, and
>when you wanted to open a document, it would just show the user the
>list of documents that they had previously created. Disable downloads
>from the Internet except from the device makers, where new apps can be
>downloaded only (use a special tool, perhaps).
>
>On the other hand, just use a Pace Digital TV set-top box, with
>built-in PowerVR technology (a la Dreamcast). As non-digital TV will
>be eradicated in about 6 years anyway, why not lever a device that
>everyone will need in their house at one point or another?
>
>Graham