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AMD's Personal Internet Communicator
mstefanus writes "SFGate.com has a story about AMD's 50x15 Personal Internet Communicator (PIC). It is basically a PC with an AMD Geode GX500 366MHz processor, 10GB hard drive and 128MB Memory; running some form of Windows CE. The device is intended as a cheap internet PC for the rest of the world population. AMDBoard has some pictures and specifications. The question is, will it run emm... FreeBSD?"
Didn't the consumer market decide that it didn't want this type of thing before? What was that thing that Be INC made again? (besides failure)
You'll have that sometimes...
It will cost $185 just for the computer, and $249 for both the computer and a 15-inch monitor.
Why did I ask?
It has several USB ports. Just plug in a USB nic and 20$ later you have 100Base-T.
I am a viral sig. Please help me spread.
If I was buying it, I'd rather have a nic, but the indended market is less industrialized countries, where broadband probably isn't widely available. In that context, a modem makes sense. Hopefully, it'll have a free pci slot or something.
-jim
I don't think this kyte is going to fly. Here's why:
$ 185 is a lot of money. It's not worth it for many people. Especially if you can buy a 2200+ powered PC with modem and NIC, a larger hard drive, a standard form factor case and motherboard, etc. etc. for around the same price (I can buy them for 199 euros).
So, poor people won't spend their money on it, and slightly richer people will get a better deal at a slightly higher price. And you can get a pretty decent PDA for less.
Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
I presume that you could find something similar in the US.
Free Software: Like love, it grows best when given away.
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I highly doubt that this has anything to do with security. It's all about price, and MS making sure that just in case these little things take off, Linux won't on them.
The cheapest WinXP for OEM's like Dell is probably ~$50 (hand waving). A friend of mine who develops POS software once mentioned that they were looking at WinCE licenses. They were only a few bucks per device. Yes, OSS would be "cheaper", but WinCE isn't particularly expensive.
As far as "slow", these newer Geode processors now run on the good ol'Athlon core (I think). For 'net and office apps, 366MHz is plenty.
Personally, I'd find a way to drop the hard drive off the parts list - that's probably the most expensive and failure prone part of this thing. You could probably squeeze WinCE plus a Works suite into 256MB flash. Use small thumb drives for work files.
According to Fortune magazine (Oct issue), the first version of the device (dev codename Emma) was running Linux. Then Bill Gates got ahold of it and liked it very much. He started playing with it for an hour trying to break it. Since he couldn't, he negotiate with AMD to sell them a cheap Windows version specially made for the device. (So blame it on the stupid retard Gates!)
I guess it can be easily modded back to run Linux or any other reliable OS.
PocketPC replaces the shell, adds some apps, and has the configuration tweaked for the specific device it's on. The smartphone variant is similiar.
Currently most software is pixel oriented (thus not really scalable). You would not want to have a crappy screen with that. A tuner module would be nice, but you can get those for USB if the need arises. I got a headache even using my MSX computer of old for too long at the time. A TV screen would mess up productivity suites (office) and internet browsing big time. And wasn't that what the computer was for?
1. From a NYT article: "The [Bush] aide said that guys like me [the writer] were ''in what we call the reality-based community,'' which he defined as people who ''believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.'' I nodded and murmured something about enlightenment principles and empiricism. He cut me off. ''That's not the way the world really works anymore,'' he continued. ''We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality -- judiciously, as you will -- we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.''"
2. Now if you believe that the above quote is just heresay and didn't come from the horse or asses' mouth, I would direct you to browse the pages of The Project For a New American Century: I would in particular direct you to this page, which is their statement of principles, and which lists among the signees such members of the Bush administration as Dick Cheney, Paul Wolfowitz, and Donald Rumsfeld. In fact, 10 of the 18 signatories of the PNAC doctrine have positions in the Bush administration.
Now whether you believe an American global empire is a good thing or not is up to your particular political compass, but it is hard to refute the evidence that the neo-cons and superhawks in the Bush administration are carrying out their plans to expand America's reach for political and economic gain, and for what they believe is the safety and prosperity of America as a whole. They want an empire.