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Steve Ballmer's $100 PC, Sans Windows
Martin_Flory writes "SolarPC has announced the $100 personal computer. Steve Ballmer's idea for reducing piracy was great after all, since this computer runs on Linux (DSL Distro). 'The design and construction of the SolarLite is consistent with the goal of an environmentally friendly computer. It uses a lightweight, recyclable, aluminum case that has a 20-year warranty. Its VIA chipset based "long-life" motherboard is a "green" lead free product. Like all SolarPC computers, the SolarLite operates on 12 volt DC power and can be run from a solar panel, car battery, or human powered (with a bicycle-based generator). The cool and quiet SolarLite uses approximately 10 watts of energy, just a fraction of what a standard PC consumes.' Sounds amazing right? This could change education all around the globe... a new Information Era is coming, and everyone is invited." The site claims they'll be available next month (minimum order 100,000 units), and promises a demo at SCALE 2005.
I have visions of slaves in third world countries on generator bicycles, all outside pedaling away, while the local bigwig surfs porn
********* sig: If you don't like the law, get filthy stinking rich, and buy a better one.
...they sure do have a ghetto website. :P
-fren
"Where are we going, and why am I in this handbasket?"
using flash drives....whats the lifespan on these given ther write limits on the drives...
Thi is the level that many retailers buy at. You're looking at Walmart, Target, Circuit City, Best Buy, etc., numbers.
There's nothing Intelligent about Intelligent Design.
this will give kids whoo dont's have much money a chance to have a computer and learn. It also allows schools to buy computer cheaply w/ software already installed. I think SolarPC is doing a great thing here and should continue on with more ideas like this.
Can I get even one piece of useful information pertaining to the actual performance of this thing?
-BMojo
Are you kidding? Imagine a green beowolf cluster of these...
-- When did Ignorance Become a Point of View?
Assuming this is like their other PCs, a power supply is not included. So unless you already have your own 12V DC source handy, you're going to be spending more than $100.
Still, a nice deal assuming it has decent specs.
Well, he wants a 100$ computer... If he's looking for it to be running Windows, he'd better bump that up a bit! :)
WTF, stylish? It looks like a metal project box from radio shack.
Check it out.
Damn, at first I read this as ""a new Information Bra is coming". I kind of like my way better.
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
Subnnotrenbiooklds are fgreast!@ Teh keybboardas sizzzxe dsolen't boethre me at allk!
It would be cool if it didn't suck.
No It's a really bad joke on Ballmer.
A few weeks ago Ballmer made the annoucement he wanted $100 PC's for the 3rd world countries. He of course wanted them to run windows.
the joke is that the reason you can't have a $100 pc running windows, is because you need to spend $50 on just Windows. Hardware guys are already running at 1-3% profit per machine, Unlike say MSFT windows and office which are running at somewhere around 400% profit per license sold.
What Ballmer fails to realize is that people will balance that equation out. Both sides should be no higher than 30% Guess who will suffer more?
i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
It's the solution to America's obesity problem: Stop buying computers with power supplies, just make your kids pedal away.
All your Sybase are belong to us.
VIA may have produced a lead-free motherboard, but VIA abuses its workers and integrates lead into other products.
So, rather than purchase products which would actually satisfy you when they are available, you will instead continue to shun the company and do without.
If I were the company, and I made an effort to make you happy and then, you, rather than take the opportunity to show me that you are willing to support me when I offer what you want, rather continue to tell me I'm horrible, well, I'd take the impression of:
(a) You're jerks.
(b) There's no pleasing you.
(c) May as well continue what we were doing because we won't be selling to anyone that cares about our increased "green" efforts, anyways.
(d) Let's never try this waste of money again.
If you could be told what you can see or read, then it follows that you could be told what to say or think - BoC
After some enhancement in Photoshop, here's what it really looks like. It resembles a very basic mini-ITX box. No connectors are visible.
This could be the ultimate Automotive PC. You need some USB, and some firewire would be ideal but is not required. A GPS hung off the USB bus would be excellent, and you could connect a camera to the system the same way. I realize that linux navigation is not yet here but when it is I want to be ready.
If that screen is available in a touch version for less than three hundred dollars, and the system has enough processing power to, say, play a fullscreen MPEG4 video, then I'll buy at least one, and probably two. (If I can buy the screen and the overlay for three hundred bucks, same thing.) I can't imagine them omitting USB which means I can get wireless ethernet at suitable rates for my purposes.
One of the largest problems in automotive computing is handling the power in the vehicle. With a computer that runs on twelve volts DC, all you need is a simple regulated power supply with some filtering in order to protect the machine and provide it with adequate power. You can of course buy the stuff off the shelf for not too much money. It's also a serious benefit that it's so small, as it will fit well up under the dash where it will be difficult to steal :)
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
The company that "makes" these is nothing more than a Navada sales company. There is nothing "revolutionary" about this product, it's a miniITX. BFD. This is not a computer company, and as usual, Slashdot got sucked into a free Slavertisment.
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
Not that it's much fancier, but their main website is at SolarPC.com.
There are two kinds of people: 1) those who start arrays with one and 1) those who start them with zero.
My point was, if it's $100, minimum order 100,000, then obviously $100 is not going to be the retail price of this machine. Once it goes through distribution and goes to retail outlets, it'll probably double in price.
I also just see a box on their website's illustrations. I don't think $100 includes the cost of the monitor or the keyboard/mouse. So by the time you're done buying those "optional" items and can actually USE the computer, you're looking at maybe $400. Which is the cost of a low end Dell shitbox, which almost certainly has better specs. So I don't see that we've actually gained anything.
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
Sure, maybe not to lower-middle-income residents of wealthy nations, but where these things might be needed and better suited, a VILLAGE might not be able to afford $100.00.
I very much appreciate the exercise, that of making the cheapest possible PC, but we really need next-to-nothing PCs if they're supposed to liberate as we expect. Otherwise, it's just more throwaway stuff for what the poorest nations would call the "well-to-do."
If Nalgene water bottles are outlawed, only outlaws will have Nalgene water bottles.
I am really surprised that so far no one has used google yet to get any more information. A quick 1 minute search revealed. http://www.solarpc.com/about.html http://www.solarpc.com/ there did not appear to be any google cache available for this site. What we are talking about here is 500-600 mhz for the 10 watts model and ~20 watts models are around 1 ghz. They readily admit that they are not the fastest in the market... but they are quiet and the 10 watts model has no fan at all. They are also using the C3 processor. there is also a faq on the site as well. happy slashdotting.
They have an XP based one on their web site for about $270. It's a Celeron 2.4 Ghz with 128 megs of ram and a 40 gig hard drive, but no monitor. The $200 one they used to have ran Lindows (whatever they are calling now). If you take $270, subtract $60 for XP Home OEM, subtract $20 for a 20 gig drive, and $40 for a power supply, that gets the price down to $150. I'm not sure how much Lindows costs, but if it was $20, then the price is $130 and starting to get really close to the $100 cost of this one, and you can just buy 1. To me, a $100 computer sounds like a perfect Citrix or Web client.
Why would the reseller need to double the price? If they buy 100,000 units for 10,000,000 dollars, and sell each for 120$, than thats 2 million in profit. And I think the point of this is not to make money for the reseller, but to be used in schools/third world countries, where they can't afford "normal" pc's.
WTF, stylish? It looks like a metal project box from radio shack.
How is that not stylish?
I am a viral sig. Please help me spread.
Perhaps becuase it is vapourware?
Could it be that the product does not exist yet, but the "supplier" figured out that it could be manufactured cost-effectively if there were a guaranteed build quantity of 100k units?
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
But it does nothing so efficiently!
Damn Small Linux has a special "Frugal" mode which is intended to minimize the problem you point out with write limits. I don't know much about it, but my impression is that it does things like spool writes for as long as practical in order to reduce their total number. That, and continuing improvements to flash memory, should help quite a bit.
:)
DSL is not nearly as full featured as bells-n-whistles live distros like Knoppix / Mepis, but dang it's pretty neat for 50MB
timothy
jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5
I know it was a troll, but their website does actually cover that eventuality... http://solarpc.com/beowulf.html
Yeah - they have to turn off stylesheets when it gets too cloudy.
We already have SkypeOut, and SkypeIn is coming soon, and Siemens has those Skype compatible phones (Alternatively there are USB devices for using any phone with Skype)
Combining SkypeOut and SkypeIn means that Skype may finally be viable for completely replacing a traditional phoneline (In eastern Canada we have "naked DSL" with no extra costs, and cable internet doesn't require it either).
I envision taking one of these 100$ PCs and using it as a Skype gateway; SkypeIn and SkypeOut provide incoming and outgoing POTS service, the 100$ PC runs skype, and the phones (Which are wireless, so the base stations can be where the PC is) provide the final link.
Now, the only problem is that SkypeOut charges for local calls, which are normally free (for a monthly fee) here. If you make a lot of local calls, even at the very affordable SkypeOut rates it might become expensive.
This would be a truly bitchen little file server/print server. If the system boots from a read-only CF, but uses an external USB2 drive as the shareable space and home for the print queue, it would be splendid.
You really don't need that much horsepower to serve files/print queues. Hell, a 486 can do that without breaking a sweat.
Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power multiplied.
How silly of me.
What's the capitol of Africa again?
+++ATH0
Just a word Hamsters lots of them, the best and one of the cheapest power sources available, just imagine a couple of hamsters in their exercise wheels powering your new 100$ computer.
And I have prayed unto You, O Lord U**X in the time of the Will of Linux.
The SolarPC website also lists their specs for their other computers along with the price so maybe you can deduce from there what the $100 model might contain.
This quote from the home page is interesting, too:
- "A no cost license to manufacture SolarPC designs is available for educational and charitable groups participating in the Global Education Link project. Please contact SolarPC for additional information."
FWIW, a review was posted touting their computer as a great war driving machine.Sig cancelled due to lack of interest
If you really want environmentally friendly computers, why can't more be done to improve reuseability. From experience working in locations where it isn't easy to get laptops and PC's repaired, the following would be useful:
1. Laptops in which the screens have a video-in socket. This would allow the screen of a functioning laptop to allow the use of a laptop with a broken backlight/display.
2. Having LCD backlights which could be replaced without having to take apart the entire display.
(I personally had this experience with a laptop repair shop - the PC was completely dead because the invertor had fried; the technician told me nothing could be done. Unplugging the invertor and using an external monitor allowed the PC to start up normally).
3. Have the motherboard of a PC in it's own slot - replacing a motherboard wouldn't require dissassembling the entire system. Many users seem happy to throw out a perfectly usable power-supply, cooling fans, chassis and frame, network, audio and video cards just because the motherboard has fried.
4. With new video cards coming out every six months, and the availabilty of chipsets in the MXM form factor for laptops, would it be possible to design desktop video cards so that the memory chips, and GPU could be inserted/removed individually, rather than having to buy a completely new chip but with exactly the same circuit board.
Vintage computer adverts: http://www.vintageadbrowser.com/computers-and-software-ads
This is what happens in a free market, with enough competitors properly funded to actually work in the market. The production quantities over it's lifetime on a pc chipset are HUGE, typical orders running in the 100K units range, and those orders will repeat. Early in thier run, new chips demand a premium, companies can quickly amortize the development costs off against the early run on a given chip. Once that's done, they can supply into the market with very slim margins, and still be profitable because the numbers get staggeringly huge. Since there are multiple vendors of a 'motherboard chipset', a large volume motherboard producer can, and will, have a bidding war between them to determine which chipset is used on a given motherboard design. You can bet your last dollar, Via, Intel, Nvidia and the rest will all get out the pencil sharpener when Asus comes looking for a quote. A design win with Asus will justify the entire chipset line.
Back in the 80's, there was only one supplier of x86 processors into the pc marketplace. Processors were EXPENSIVE by today's standards. The mac with it's 68K processor was threatening to become a serious player, then the clones in x86 space started to show up. pricing in the x86 market started to reflect cost of production rather than 'what the market will bear'. The rest is history, and now we have single chip integrated systems, because they are ultimately cheaper to produce in quantity, even tho the engineering costs up front are staggering.
On the software side of the equation, this type of competition has not happened, mostly because parts are not interchangeable. You can swap an ati video out of a machine and toss in an Nvidia. You cannot swap a windows program out, and swap in it's linux equivalent. Competetive pricing on software, based on 'cost of manufacture' rather than 'what the market will bear' will only happen when the predominant components can be interchanged. In the hardware world this is done by using common signalling on standard bus. In software, it's only going to happen if there is common and interchangeable api systems, and the common api ends up with the lions share of the market. From a software vendor point of view today, the only common api to work with is the Win32 api.
It's in the hardware vendors best interest to undermine the cost of software. they have known this for years, but they are currently hostage to the Win32 api to sell hardware. Software vendors are in the same boat. The real solution to a free market, is to have an alternative vendor from which to purchase the Win32 api for deployment on new machines, or for both hardware and software vendors to settle on an alternative api. Neither of these are going to happen in the short term. If the Win32 api remains single vendor, single source, it's inevitable the market will migrate to an alternative, but, it may take 2 more generations (people generations, not those 18 month hardware generations). Any time you do a product in the design phase, a major consideration is the risk attached to single source components. In today's market, the risk/reward equations favour the single vendor Win32 solution. Eventually, the market will abandon the single source solution, but, that wont happen till the risk/reward equations come up in favour of the alternative.
If they can take orders at 100,000 units, then they can manufacture them. You're probably right that they're probably only sitting on prototypes right now, but we know they can do it. Either way, they're demoing them at Linux Expo in February.
No power supply, but you can use a standard $10-$35 power supply, I'm sure, depending on what the requirements are.
However, this looks like an excellent opportunity to use Spheral Solar's latest products, which
!!! Are out now, and for sale !!!
www.spheralsolar.com
I'm hyped about it.
Correct Horse Battery Staple: 72 bits of entropy. Enter "Correct H" into google. When it generates the phrase, that's
VIA abuses its workers?
... until you consider that if that factory closed down, she might work 4 hours a day as a child prostitute instead.
Let me ask you something. How badly are they abused? Are their fingers being cut off? Are they having firey bamboo chutes shoved into exit-only orifaces? Are they "made" to work long hours? what constitutes worker abuse, exactly?
Look at this way. Presumably, these people work an abusive VIA factory because for them, currently, _that is the best thing going_.
Yeah, its upsetting that a 10 year old girl might work 14 hrs a day in a factory somewhere.
I think its better for the child to keep on working for nike as opposed to polishing 30 year old men. How about you ?
My opinions are my own, and do not necessarily represent those of my employer.
Typical flash today is good for a million writes per cell.
You wish. It's more like 10.000. 1.000.000 is the figure for EEPROM, but there the access time is quite a bit longer.
The second problem with Flash: the access is not on the "cell" level (I guess you meant each bit or addressable word), but by sector in the best case scenario. Sectored Flash RAM is a bit more expensive, and sectors tend to be large: 64 KBytes for an 8 Mbit (! MByte) Flash RAM, for example.
Sigged!
And as the production lines just keep running, every first-world sale at $150 could subsidize a $50 half-price unit for countries that could otherwise hardly afford one even at $100.
I agree with your assesment.
I guess it's lucky that Linux is begining to boom while the win32 api is about to be written out of exsitance by MSFT. Lognhorn is supposed to kill off the iwn32 api and replace it. My guess is that is why they bought Virtual PC, so that they could run windows inside of longhorn.
Also hardware manufactors have been replacing hardware tasks with software ones inside windows for years. I think that is part of the reason for such buggy drivers, as they are trying to do to much in software and not enough in hardware. If the Hardware did the really hard work, of communications then the software would be more reliable.
Of course the opposite is the MSFT way.
i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
400% profit? Can you elaborate please?
400% of what? The purchase price?
Slashdot has been quick to dismiss Windows XP Starter Edition as a competitor, localized and with a lot of help for first time users. Screenshots of SE suggest a very clean and attractive GUI.
Microsoft is well known and accepted at street level in the third world, something an eastern buyer has to consider when commiting to a million-dollar purchase. I am not convinced that Linux is the right marketing decision for the SolarPC, however big the PR win in the western Linux press, where nothing is at risk.
Well, since you mention it, here you go.
I remember back in the 80's a quote by a former Commodore computer exec.. "Computers for the masses, not the classes".
The price point that seemed to be "special" for the consumer (at least back then) was $200 bucks. We have to remember though that at that time when you bought a C64/Vic20 it did not come with ANY storage (sounds a lot like the unit above!) and hardly any apps (a couple of cartridges I think). And for display you hooked it up to a TV.
Why can't that model work now? Are we SO used to having SVGA (or better) and Hard disks that an embedded computer (which is what the C64 and Vic20 was) can't make it?
Over 25 MILLION C64's were produced. The person that can tap that same market again (el cheapo PC) can make $$$$
http://http//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commodore_64
It's a real distro, it came with my Linux Format magazine/DVD. Not bad, it's based on Knoppix and meant to be small enough to boot from a business card CD, I would say it would be more usefull on a jump drive. It has XMMS, some simple text programs, a couple of video games, some terminals and the Links web browser. It's good enough for basic work without ever having to write to the host system hard drive.
The preceding post was not a Slashvertisement.
but I guess it doesn't really contribute much to your statement anyway....
Back in the 80's, there was only one supplier of x86 processors into the pc marketplace.
That's just plain wrong.
The neatest of several 8086 chips was the NEC V20/30, which not only was a drop-in replacement for the 8088/86, but had a switch in its flags which, when set, would make it act like an 8085 (or maybe it was a Z80, I forget which). With a little software (called UniDOS) which provided a special CP/M BIOS, this could run practically ALL the legacy CP/M software (which was abundant in 1983) without modifications, on a PC. NEC built a PC clone with a 16-bit data bus which could have used the 8086, but with their V30 this not only ran DoS at about twice the speed of an IBM-PC, it would also blaze through CP/M software at seemingly demonic speed. Jerry Pournelle usta rave about this rig, because it allowed him to keep his favorite CP/M text editor while upgraging to the new PC technology.
I digress. AMD had a technology exchange agreement with Intel (in the late 70's, supposed to last 25 years) to share x86 IP. (Among other exchanges,) AMD got the 8086/88 and Intel got the small masks for the 2732A (that's a 32 Kbit UVEPROM, organized as 4KBytes at 350 & 250 nS) which were half the size of theirs. AMD consistently dieshrank, outyielded, outperformed, and outpriced Intel on the 8085, 8086/88, 80186/88, 80286, and 80386. (I used to have price lists to prove this stuff, before the SO made me reduce the size of my "legacy hardware library".) I remember buying cheap 12MHz 80286 motherboards (at $179 when most were over $200) that came equipped with 10MHz Intel 80286 CPUs and crashed when these overheated. I replaced the CPUs with AMD 80286LP-12s which co$t le$$ than the 10MHz Intel 80286s and ran frosty cool, but at $40 they killed the low price of the deal. AMD sold 40MHz 80386 chips while Intel abandoned it at 32MHz and introduced the 80486, early versions of which (at 25MHz) could not keep up with the 40MHz AMD 80386 (and, of course, co$t much more). Several other pretty recognizable guys like Cyrix, IBM, and TI also built the 80386 & 80486. I remember buying a Cyrix 80387 that was half the price of Intel's and outperformed it, partly because it worked beside an AMD 80386-40.
Intel determined (unilaterally) that the 8086-family technology exchange agreement did not extend to the 80486, and refused to give the masks to AMD, AMD sued and won. With the "Pentium", Intel abandoned the 8086 series part numbers (critical to the court decision) so they did not have to give it to AMD, and it took AMD many moons to reverse engineer it. 120MHz AMD 80486s (Intel never made them past 100MHz) outperformed the original 50MHz Pentuims, but the 100MHz Pentium, coupled with the new WinBloze 95(tm)(r)(C) "Operating System" did away with the 486. When Intel introduced the MMX extensions, they refused to completely document them, and this gave AMD additional RE headaches. Coupled with billion$ in mass media advertizing, Intel became the name-brand CPU, even though AMD's have generally been as good or better, and always cheaper.
Processors were EXPENSIVE by today's standards.
You coulda fooled me. As I mentioned above, I bought AMD 80286-12s for $44, when Intel's sold for about $60 (top speed of the day was 20 MHz at $100). What does a P4 co$t? A motherboard with CPU and without RAM co$t about $200, is that really much more than we're paying now? Enough RAM to run it co$t $50, to really load it up co$t $100-$200, that hasn't changed, though of course the size and speed have done dramatic things. It's the iron that was expen$ive. Hard di$k$ used to co$t $250! Now they're more like $125.
To be sure, AMD does exert considerable price pressure on Intel. Without them, you would see expensive CPUs.
Your statement makes more sense in the context of complete systems.
For a year or two, IBM enjoyed a monopoly on the PC. They got $1
Exceeding the recommended torque is not recommended.
Anone remember the thinknic? it was cheap, low power, ran linux..
It was a few years ago, and it booted off the CD-ROM, and had like 4m of flash for bookmarks/emails etc. pretty basic machine, but essentially the same idea of these things. The ThinkNICs didn't last very long before the company went out of biz, why would this one do any better?
Get on an excercise bike serious enough to have an electronic load and a power readout, and see how trivial 50 watts really really is.
A bicycle racer makes about 3/4 horsepower (to go 28 MPH).
One horsepower is IMU something like 785 Watts. Translation of this to SI units is left as an excercise for the reader.
I found 300 Watts to be a semi-sustainable pace, four years after buying a car and parking my bikes. It would have been quite easy when I was riding 10-15 miles a day (at around 20 MPH).
The above discussion about massive banks of slaves on generator bikes was ridiculous. Two decently-nourished slaves could easily power a w1K3d game system.
Exceeding the recommended torque is not recommended.
I think the 10what vesion should be good enough to play mp3s.
It is! I've used to play mp3s (with mpg123) on an old Pentium 200 MHz running FreeBSD (with X and all), and the load average didn't even exceed 0.20 or so. Even while running 'make buildworld' did mpg123 perform very well! Considering that my Soekris net4801 runs at 266 MHz and uses approx. 5 Watts, I'm pretty sure that the 10 Watt version will do just fine.
cpghost at Cordula's Web.