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Re: If you could design a $300 homecomputer today, what would you choose?
- Subject: Re: If you could design a $300 homecomputer today, what would you choose?
- From: blahh@blahh.com (Gunbuster)
- Date: Sun, 15 Jul 2001 09:21:34 GMT
- Newsgroups: alt.amiga, comp.sys.amiga.advocacy, comp.sys.amstrad.8bit, comp.sys.apple2, comp.sys.atari.8bit, comp.sys.atari.advocacy, comp.sys.atari.st, comp.sys.cbm, comp.sys.sinclair
- Organization: Posted via Supernews, http://www.supernews.com
- References: <9ikva3$ple$1@nereid.worldonline.nl>
- Xref: archiver1.google.com alt.amiga:1500 comp.sys.amiga.advocacy:21736 comp.sys.amstrad.8bit:3620 comp.sys.apple2:10698 comp.sys.atari.8bit:6815 comp.sys.atari.advocacy:565 comp.sys.atari.st:13977 comp.sys.cbm:18232 comp.sys.sinclair:44831
Personally I'd like to go for �400 to allow for inflation (my a1200
cost me �330 in 94' ), but for the sake of arguement I'll stick to the
300.
OS: QNX other than NASA no body seems to have picked it up as a serous
concern, so they maybe more acceptive as a partner in the project.
Proccessor: Probebly a Strong ARM or similiar, they seem very light
weight and shouldn't cause over heating, either that or a Hitachi
proccessor 1 step up from that of the dreamcast should be ok.
Graphics: I'll got out on limb here and say the ati128 as it is happy
in both TV and monitor setups.
Sound etc: a cheap media proccessor, allows plenty of playing about by
hobbyists so should be good enough.
Media/storage: some sort of CDrom and a 4 to 8 gig HD depending on
whats cheapist.
Memorey: probebly ddr as its not that much more expensive than
standard sdram and I'm not convinced that sdram will be around for
much longer. Also allows better perfomance for the graphics and media.
ports: 4 usb, 1 network connection
Ideally you want all this on one mircoatx compatible board in a
dvd/vcr style box, this way you can refit it in a tower case if you so
wish.
keyboard and mouse.
no tv or monitor, buy your own you cheap skate I had to in 94' why
should I give you one now :P
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?
>
>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)
>As OS? (Linux is a dead giveaway, but there also other OS's out there)
>Build in programming language? (please choose anything but Basic!)
>Amount of memory? (RAM and ROM)
>Graphic and Sound?
>Network capabilities? (internet capable)
>Plug in capabilities (remember you're making it as cheap as possible so
>modems, CD-Roms, HD's are all extras)
>Video (TV? or Monitor?)
>
>
>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.
>
>