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Chinese Company Produces $150 Linux PC
srinravi writes to mention an Ars Technica article about another ambitious 'inexpensive computer' project. A Chinese manufacturer, YellowSheepRiver, is aiming to make available a $150 Linux PC built with inexpensive hardware components. From the article: "Urging potential customers to 'Say no to Wintel,' YellowSheepRiver is devoted to using its own Linux distribution and hardware designed and manufactured by Chinese companies. YellowSheepRiver hopes to close the "digital divide" by making computer technology available to the Chinese public at an affordable price. The Municator, which comes with 256MB of RAM, uses a unique 64-bit CPU with an instruction set based on a subset of the MIPS architecture. Designed by a Chinese company called BLX, the the cheap chip is clocked at 400 or 600MHZ and supposedly provides performance comparable to that of an Intel P3."
Bear in mind that $150 dollars probably means a lot more in the Chinese economy than it does here in the U.S.
Basically, how much is $150 to the average chinese citizen?
With the death of commodity of PowerPC computers imminent with Apple's switch, this can fill the niche for commodity alternative architectures. I'd get one if it comes here. Hopefully it won't be a "Lisa Lionheart."
But can it run (my) Linux?
There is a danger that GNU/Linux will get a bad name because it mostly installed on very cheap systems. Often these projects tend to fail and then the scape goat will be GNU/Linux. Better would be that large hardware firms put GNU/Linux on there system. Just imagine Ubuntu on all Dell, HP ... systems. That would be the break for GNU/Linux
With that kind of configuration, we will be going back to the 1990s. It is not worth 150 bucks. If you pay 200 dollars more, you could get a emachines desktop computer with the latest technology.
To be fair, that's 600 MHz on MIPS, which is quite a bit more clock-efficient than a Pentium 4. Saying "zomg, the P4 has four times the gigahurtz!" is not exactly a fair comparison.
I've upped my standards, so up yours.
I bet this thing filters questionable content right out of the box!
http://religiousfreaks.com/Wow, this is much better than a $299 dell (which includes monitor and windows). Not!
Who greenlit this idea? A custom chip, a custom linux distro, a crappy processor. This is a nightmare waiting to happen.
I'm sure $300 is a big difference vs. $150. But when you consider $300 is the before sale price of Dell and I didn't even shop around on pricewatch. It's a no brainer.
I expect this to sell as much as the new lenovo thinkpads.
Designed by a Chinese company called BLX, the the cheap chip is clocked at 400 or 600MHZ and supposedly provides performance comparable to that of an Intel P3."
When you watch american kung fu flicks (chuck norris) they automagically get the "out of sync english voiceover" effect.
I see it as a powerful thin client... hmmm. nice!
I ain't drinkin from that river!
It maybe be crap, But it's WAY more realistic than the U$ 100 bucks laptop project.
of course it's a clunker... its $150! but look at the target buyers, first time computer users on a VERY limited income. They arn't aiming at the hardcore gamers, even the casual web serfer is well above the bar that they are aiming for. let me put it another way.... if all you can aford is a mo-ped, will you really be complaining you didnt get a BMW?
It'll be insanely tough to convince customers that a 600mhz, 256mb ram linux machine is equivalent or better than a 2.0ghz, 512mb winbox
You don't have to. You just have to convince them it's a better bang for the buck. Not everyone drives a Mercedes - and it's not because they think their Kias are better cars.
Seeing as you can get a Pentium III processor for about $10, 256MB RAM for $25 (both on Pricewatch)... throw in a motherboard ($25) with onboard video, sound, etc. and a hard drive ($30 for a 40gb EIDE) and you have a similar product for cheaper, and we didn't even have to resort to OEM/bulk pricing.
The unique feature is a 64 bit RISC chip and S-video out for a TV interface. No need for a computer monitor.
In another lost in translation marketing descision an Chinese firm decides to put "Yellow and River" together in their name. I'd call that a piss poor decision?
I'd think the most likely reason these won't sell well in the US is marketing and incompatibility. For one, good luck outmarketing Dell and Intel here in the US. For incompatibility, who the heck will be writing compatible drivers for this sort of system for us geeks to add video cards to, connect MP3 players to, etc?
All in all it's certainl possible that these will be functional web browser systems, but I wouldn't expect a single thing else from them. For $150, you get what you pay for.
Clearly with specs like this it's not going to run any heavy-duty apps, so I would think a typical application would be to run a browser and web/intranet apps to keep the client footprint small. Instead of a 40GB drive, why not put 2GB of flash onto the board formatted as a file system, and make the spinning drive optional? That would reduce power consumption and increase reliability.
...it tastes baaaaaaaaaad!
I understand this ... u understand this ... slashdot understands this ... but all i was saying was that the customers that walk into the store would not ... they'd think you're feeding them a line of bull ...
Haha. YellowSheepRiver has to be the most awesome chinese name i've heard yet! Forget LongShine!
Oh but yeah, the pc sounds good too...
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-920346214 8706105599&q=Municator&pl=true
here's a demo of the product.
09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B - D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0 45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
People at linuxdevice have a good article on it and even a link to a interview with a chinesse seller in video made by a french reporter! I post this a some time ago, but people here don't like my syntax.
Ceci n'est pas une Signature !
It'll be insanely tough to convince customers that a 600mhz, 256mb ram linux machine is equivalent or better than a 2.0ghz, 512mb winbox
Hey, I'm a techie and I'll buy one.
Wanna know why?
Small and obviously perfectly runs linux, I can create my self one hell of a media center with it (or irc console, or office machine, or browsing, mailing), but in the same time require as less space as possible.
I'm very satisfied with buying Opterons for my workstations (and I got 10 of them), but for my media center or low-needs purposes, this machine is more than ideal. Or at least it seems so. Why would anybody wanted to buy something small but overpriced or something big and clumsy if he doesn't need it.
Signature Pro version 1.13.2-3 release 83.5 beta3try7 after-breakfast edition
http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=24882
It's a knockoff. The sad thing is that an American company that tried the same thing was sued out of existance. They were innocent but they couldn't afford the lawyers.
Our court system is giving a huge advantage to the Chinese.
My boss is hooked up Intel. "Well look 3.2GHZ, AMD sucks their pieces of crap.". Every time my AMD Athlon XP 2500+ chip outperformed/outlasted the intel chip and it was alot cheaper. Its not about GHz.
Obligatory blog plug: http://www.caseybanner.ca/
See, the unique feature is that it's all chinese. Do their bits read from left to right?k eyboard.jpg
The most expensive part, though, will be the keyboard!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Large_chinese_
"No one will really be free until nerd persecution ends."
It's easy to make stuff cheap when you are stealing IP from the USA. Thanks again China!
r ticle.jhtml?articleID=166402034
http://www.eetimes.com/news/design/business/showA
Here is a link to a good video from CeBIT 2006 http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-920346214 8706105599
I am intrested in purchasing many of these but they will not return any contact
If they really wanted to make a killing, they'd hamstring the machine to ensure that it could never run Linux, and then the company would make outlandish claims about how Linux will never run on their machine.
Then, there would be a rush of people trying put whatver toaster oven version of Linux on the thing. Within weeks, the free publicity machine would splatter screen shots of those first beautiful lines of [FAILED] [OK] [OK] [FAILED] [DEAR GOD, WHAT DID YOU DO?]I scream. You scream. I assume that means we're both acquainted with the problem. We proceed.
to clarify ... i was not denying the fact that techies would love / eat this up ... i was only saying that non-techy customers would not ...
Maybe, but it doesn't help that the average consumer will go "ZOMG the P4 has a number 4 times as much, and only costs twice as much for a full PC". Good luck getting it to sell to anything but the techno-geek crowd in the western world.
OK...
Communicator
- Communist
----------------------
Municator
These guys better watch out for one of these letters. Ah, wait a minute -- they're in China, so, on past form, aren't they immune to American IPR?
If one enough sheep in valley that river runs yellow, then wise man refrains from swimming in river.
I have an SGI Octane with dual MIPS R12k 300 mhz and it outperforms a P4 2ghz on floating point ops all the time. Integer performance isn't as good, but that's the way the things are built. Some of the reason it's faster at floating point than a much newer P4 is because each chip has 2MB cache, and MIPS chips have way more registers than intel+friends, but still...it's a ten year old machine.
Even if the MIPS implementation these guys are using is dated and has a teensy cache, 400-600 mhz MIPS would be roughly in the ballpark of a P3... and 64-bit to boot. And have a lot more registers, which makes it easier to write fast code because you dont have to swap things out of your primary (what, four? =P) registers to do anything, like on Intel + friends.
(Please restrain yourselves from flaming about Linspire, TigerDirect, Celeron, etc.... this IS a CHEAP machine. It does, however, show what can be done at the low end of the market.)
I don't read your sig. Why are you reading mine?
Plus, who can afford a TV with S-Video inputs but can't afford a low-end VGA monitor?
Arguing about vi versus Emacs is like arguing whether it's better to make fire by rubbing sticks or banging rocks.
I'm tired of the 'hook' of Linux is that it's free -- it should be seen as an equal alternative; albeit one that is free/open and community supported. I'm sure this scares folks off, but to have those fears doused simply because something is cheap seems the wrong tactic. I remeber seeing those crappy 200$ eMachines PCs running some hacked up KDE desktop (that looked about 2 years out of date) at Fry's, and the whole thing was cheap. Cheap keyboard, cheap mouse, all onboard crap, cheap, cheap, cheap. Why not produce a reasonable box for home use? Look at how inexpensive some Dell's are, and they're not using just cheap crap, some of their components are good, and their case design has come a long way. Having them as an equal alternative to a Windows box would be my wish. Before I get the na-sayers, yes, they are equal for 80% of the population; they can surf the web, check email, listen to musak, whatever most of the ppl do...they don't need 14 kinds of cd burning software to choose from for example...Linux has all the apps they need. At that point it would fall to brand recognition, which many would still go with Windows, but I bet more would go for an alternative if they saw it as an equal value, and not just some cheap hacked together box. .02
fak3r.com
No, *you* can get that stuff for those prices.
Can the Chinese people that this is actually intended for also do so?
It's official. Most of you are morons.
With China's policies on internet, I think using their system would be akin to using an OS designed by the CIA.
People here don't like TigerDirect? I love it. The rebates are annoying and Newegg is usually cheaper, but occationally TD is has the better deal. Since they have a different method of calculating shipping costs, it's cheaper to buy in bulk from TD than from NE.
From another article (which, predictably, I can't find), it sounded as if there are some issues with the processor design that keeps this processor from being marketed in the US. It's not really my area, but does anyone have insight on this issue?
Other than that, I'm thinking we might be looking at the next Audrey or something. I'll never figure out why they don't put every piece of documentation on the web and open the box up to the hacker community. Seems straightforward to me, but I'm no marketer (thankfully).
ceci n'est pas un sig.
My first x86 computer was a 386 with 2 megs of ram and a 40 MB hard drive.
I used it for word processing, spreadsheets, charts, databases, basic programming and even games!
Our need for something faster is somewhat artificial. People don't need to have the latest and the greatest unless they want floating transparent rotating windows or to play duke nukem forever.
Our perception of utility and function has been distorted by our voracious consumerism.
By our logic and reasoning, if we were ever visited by a more advanced civilization, all of our technology would become obsolete instantly. The fact that it worked right up to that moment is completely irrelevant.
-----------
I sometimes drive my 17 year old car for fun and it works great. It is looked down upon by society, but it does the same basic tasks that the newer cars on the street can.
You could also by the same thing at Fry's for the same price. Therefore, there's no need to restrain yourselves from flaming about TigerDirect, at least! ; )
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
A chinese company can. That's the point. This computer isn't cheap.
Is it so difficult for the article submitter, to provide a link to the actual product ?
#
#\ @ ? Colonize Mars
#
$270 American vs. $150? Linspire vs. whatever PRC government-approved distro this is?
Big deal (or not, really).
Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced.
The box from YellowSheepRiver may sound like a bit of an April Fool - too bad it's not called the Munchicator and boots from a .baa file since we are talking sheep - but what we're seeing is another early step from the Chinese economy towards designing, manufacturing and assembling all its own IT stuff right down to the microchips. This may not sound much right now, but it sure will before long. The folks at Intel, AMD and other Wesern chip houses, Dell, etc., must feel a little queasier every time they see an announcement like this. I guess the same may eventually be true on the software side. The box is shipping Linux, but then didn't Microsoft recently ask the Chinese authorities to stop producing naked boxes with no OS on board? I guess the Chinese are now doing exactly what Microsoft asked.
Las qué passoun
tournoun pas maï
Apparently this is somewhere between 2 months to half a year old. Someone on digg was trying to get ahold of these for mass purchase and failed to get any replies. I haven't seen any pictures floating around of this thing in the wild online. You can't buy them anywhere. Multiplied by the fact that BLX hasn't acquired a MIPS liscence (their CPU likely borrows certain patents originally designed for MIPS, given how similar it is), I doubt you'll see many of these floating around on eBay. Some theorize it's a grandstand by the Chinese government to demonstrate how much better they are than other local countries such as Korea, Taiwan or Japan. Plausible, but I suspect this is just the first visible vaporware company out of China.
In summary, it's not a 150 dollar device until you can acquire one somewhere at that price.
I Browse at +4 Flamebait
Open Source Sysadmin
So... you can get the same machine for $50 more with one difference: A Celeron instead of the non-intel processor. If the almost-MIPS thing has the power benifits that I'd expect it to have, then for the rural chinese market it could easily be the better deal.
-- The act of censorship is always worse than whatever is being censored. Always.
I'm tired of seeing these el-cheapo computers heralded as an achievement. X Box costs $150, PS2 is $130. Both of those systems could run linux probably as well as or better than this box.
Looks like it would make a decent little headless server, for http/imap/ftp/etc. The Godson-3 (successor to this Godson-2) chip plans look even more interesting. basically take a 4-pipeline 64-bit superscalar MIPS chip (Godson-2) and put 4 cores on a chip.
n 2_1.html
http://www.infoworld.com/article/05/08/01/HNgodso
Assuming, though, that legal and patent issues don't prevent it being sourced in US-bound computers and components...
MORTAR COMBAT!
It'll be insanely tough to convince customers that a 600mhz, 256mb ram linux machine is equivalent or better than a 2.0ghz, 512mb winbox
Why should they even try? It's a Linux box, that costs $150. In parts of the world where $150 is a considerable amount of money, I would think that would be a pretty strong selling point compared to a $2K dual-core SLI Windows machine.
Downmodding is the refuge of the weak. Don't downmod, make a better argument!
People who already have a TV?
Am I the only one that doesn't exactly see this as a terrible thing? I don't think it would be a good idea for familes or individuals to have this as their main computer, but think of the other options. Think of public libraries: dozens and dozens of computers where people just want to do Internet research, nothing else. Card catalogues where the only software the computer runs is either a browser or a card database. Think of public kiosks that could be made with free internet access. I'm sure the thing is a piece of crap to run a lot of software, but if you just want a system that runs basic applications (especially a browser), I don't see anything wrong with this.
Do not mark in this space. For official office use only.
Yes but with this computer all the money is staying in China! China sees no reason to give billions of dollars of it's money to the US for Windows or for Intel/AMD cpus.
They see no need to be tied to the X86 ISA.
It makes a lot of sense in that it helps China become more independent of the West and possible make the west more dependant on China.
You want to sell systems to the Chinese government? Someday it may have to have a Chinese CPU in it.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
It'll be insanely tough to convince customers that a 600mhz, 256mb ram linux machine is equivalent or better than a 2.0ghz, 512mb winbox
I don't think they're trying to do that. A lot of people are more concerned with cost than performance.
But can they buy them in sufficient quantities? You quote $10 for a Pentium 3, but they no longer manufacture them; how long before the supply dries up? How long before that before people realise that they're suddenly worth something to someone, and jack the price up?
It's official. Most of you are morons.
I'm curious to know how the PC mentioned in TFA will perform compared to those of VIA's current offerings.
Apparently downstream from the semiconductor foundaries...
Agreed. If the cheapest pc the chinese can make is $150 there's no way anyone else can make a $100 laptop.
This isn't about the fact that it's vaporware, because that doesn't make a difference to the Chinese people. Let's face it, the entire government has failed to deliver the republic to the people in a country named the PRC. And it's not about patent issues. Don't like our IP laws, we'll just crash your economy silly Americans. (They could if we weren't busy trading our country into even deeper debt to them...) And it's not about showing they're building IT from the ground up there, because eventually, that's a given. WHAT IT'S ABOUT IS laying the ground work for distributing PC's to everyone in China with the intent of including a distributed client to calculate the empirical formula of the perfect sweet sauce for spring egg rolls. Failure to recognize this means I have to believe that Slapdot is slipping... :(
another ambitious 'inexpensive computer' project
You know, purely based on context, the meaning of the word "ambitious" starts shifting to a new meaning of "brave but clueless".
Why would I need a computer based on non-Intel chip for? Is there any software for it? The article says we'll do it to say no to WinTel. I need to buy a $150 worthless piece of hardware to say no to WinTel.
Are they targeting kindergardeners or something?
That's like selling cheap Internet that's however not Internet so you can't connect to any site or anything.
They claim their chip performs like P3, that kinda doesn't matter since what will I benchmark it with. Photoshop? 3DSMax? AutoCAD? Ah no, none of them will run on an exotic 64-bit chip under Linux.
They run on a WinTel...
I would expect video card drivers to be produced for this platform as video cards get into the same pricing bracket w.r.t. video cards that this machine is w.r.t. PCs generally - I would expect this to be true not just for video cards, but any sort of add on devices that require drivers.
As far as MP3 players go, most of those I've run across (not many, perhaps, but the ones I have seen) don't require drivers - the simply map as a USB drive and files can be copied back and forth. Some of the USB cameras behave the same way. If the device is made to those kinds of standards, there's no real need for a driver.
"The Internet is made of cats."
Where can you get a motherboard for $25 with onboard video, sound, and the works?? You're looking at at least $75-$100 just for that.
My sig beat up your sig.
These things aren't actually as crappy as most everyone here seems to believe they are.
... good luck.
I challenge anyone here to actually go out and purchase the equivalent, new (not refurbished/used,) components and put it together into such a small footprint as this thing, with the ability to power it by lithium-ion battery, for under $150 USD.
The most appealing spec to me is the size. This thing is t-i-n-y. With that in mind, here are a couple uses I have thought of for them:
1. Car PC (media player, engine performance monitor, GPS navigation.) You can roll your own Car PC's these days, but for $150?
2. Home automation controller (have a touchscreen monitor mounted into a recessed area in a wall, with this thing inside a small space, which would also be recessed into the wall, under the monitor.)
A much more appropriate name would have been YellowCheapRiver. Ha Ha.,
Thank you. I'll be here all week.
[alk]
Can you install XP on it?
Correct me if I'm wrong, of course, but I would have thought that the different style of CPU would make things difficult in terms of driver support, and maybe breaking existing applications for obscure reasons. Though the Chinese will obviously test it thoroughly, I can still forsee architecture problems.
I doubt the target market for such cheep computers is families at home - as many people pointed out, it'd take 4-6 months pay for them. It's businesses that will make most use of this hardware, and in bulk orders of hundreds per company.
-- Sig down
Not if they work. Unless the hardware is complete crap, it will work. The same factories are already making reliable electronic devices, including PCs that everyone else rebrands. If they don't work, the reputation will be cured by the next $100 device that does work.
This is just the first of the cheap machines. There will be many more and the price point won't support anything but free software. As long as they don't have DRM dongels built in, all sorts of things can be made with them.
imagine Ubuntu on all Dell, HP ... systems.
I can do that myself already but I don't unless I haul it out of the trash or a used computer shop.
Those major brands have major problems and repair records show that people are happier with cheaper hardware. While 3/4 of all PCs are white boxes, the majority of computers that show up at the computer store are major brand. It may be that major brands are brought to the computer store because people think their computer is worth repairing, where the white box owner just buys a new one. In any case, the legions of people working on both home and office PCs indicates a serious reliability problem.
Dell, HP and others will follow or die.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
I'm kind of surprised the Chinese government hasn't cut a deal with Sun to buy a boatload of Sun Ray clients. They could give them away to their universities and people ($100 a pop) and look like good guys while promoting computer literacy, helping the economy, and avoiding Microsoft. They'd have a better/cheaper upgrade path since the clients rarely ever have to be upgraded and it since everything is done server side they could spy on/censor their people and their people's surfing habits far easier than they could with a million desktops.
So these machines might not be affordable for rural families, but what if an organization funds 1-4 of these per village. Much better then not having any computing.
Hmmm... Pie...
This was featured on Rocketboom on March 23, 2006.b _06_mar_23.html
You can view the clip here --> http://www.rocketboom.com/vlog/archives/2006/03/r
This is old hat.
"...the shortest distance between two points may be straight line, but it is by no means the most interesting."
"Yellow Sheep River."
Well, I guess it beats "Sheep Yellow River," which can sometimes be found downhill from where large numbers of sheep are grazing.
> Chinese Company Produces $150 Linux PC
Chinese Company also Produces $150 Pirate Windows XP PC
Have you ever tried using a TV as a monitor using S-Video?
Yes I do use my 27" TV as an arcade-size monitor for StepMania.
If you're not using software specifically designed for it (MythTV/Media Center) then it's all but useless.
This is a new platform. Software will be specifically designed for it.
it just isnt' accurate enough to make legible text unless that text is pretty big.
Text at 14 point in a suitable font shouldn't be too hard to read.
This is extremely similar to Seiko's crappy watches, Toyota's crappy cars, or Intel's crappy computers back in the 70's & 80's. Clayton Christiensen calls it disruptive technologies. You can read more about this phenomenon in his book, "The Innovator's Dilemma". Dr. Christiensen gave a talk at OSCON2005 (I think) that roughly described the contents of the book if you're too lazy to read the whole book, download the podcast at itconversations.com (called Capturing the Upside) and see how cheap crappy (yet decent) products eventually turn the tide. Companies in the past have avoided the cheap low end market simply because they don't want their name associated with it, and plus the margins at the high end sector is usually much more appealing to investors. Dr. Christiensen's ideas were one of the reasons Andy Grove created the Intel Celeron brand to compete with the extremely low end market.
Hey, they gotta do something with that warehouse full of Speak 'n Spells....
"But this one goes to 11!"
Or for $180 you can get one with an AMD geode.0 06/02/17/15325.html
http://www.netaffilia.com/ad/electronics/frys/i/2
do not venture far from the web browser
Ok, lets sum up the arguments:
1) The specs suck. 2) It doesnt need big specs because the target market is lower/middle class in China that dont currently own a PC. 3) Linux will effect it poorly somehow, or it will poorly effect Linux. 4) Its a no-brainer for a Chinese budget PC to use Linux, since the CPPRC has been pushing for a domestic IT industry based around Linux/FOSS for several years now. 5) Its probably based off of that "Dragon" mips chip we heard about a year or two ago. 6) Could be good in other parts of the world for a "thin client" type station or simple 4th grader net terminal... so when the kiddo breaks it, its no big deal. 7) OMFG CHINA COMMUNIST EVIL! FREE TIBET! BASH THE COMMIES AND THIER EVIL RISC BASED HERESY! 8) Poor people in China dont need this, they need $CONSUMER_GOOD_X 9) This cant compete with Dell. 10) Nothing to see here, move along.
You mean SELinux? wait thats NSA not CIA
Municator? Did they mean communicator but were too cheap to hire a translator?
Apart from the cheap jokes, I wonder if that cheap PC will still be cheap if we tag on the cheap monitor, cheap keyboard, mouse, and of course a pair of cheap stereo speakers on it.
Will it include a legal mediaplayer and recorder for mp3, dvd, avi and what not?
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
The Chinese are getting fully licensed computers. I'll bet that's not what Microsoft was hoping for when the Chinese made that promise :-) And not only that, they're using a superior chip to the Intel/AMD kludge. Unlike a certain American company that switched. It looks like soon the Chinese will be setting the standards for tech and civil rights(that's not good).
What?
Someday it may have to have a Chinese CPU in it
I don't know what it is but when I saw "Chinese CPU" I just couldn't help somehow imagining a CPU with asian physical features and trouble handling the letter "r" in strings. Someone with a talent for art could have a field day with that line.
90% of the wealth is in 2% of the pockets. Bummer to be in the majority.
it's a much better idea to buy a nice monitor and a dirt cheap computer.
Only if Bill Gates tries to port Windoze and WMV to it. I've never had sync problems with xine like that, even on a 233 MHz PII. This machine should work as well as a PIII and that's good enough to play movies and do other things at the same time. That S video will be nice to have.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
There are many university graduate programmers in China that work for about $12 to $15 per day. When I used to work with Chinese graduate students, I was impressed with their ability and cleverness at working with low spec hardware and hacking software. Considering the value of the computer to a worker ($150 being between one and four months wages for shop clerks and factory workers), the problems encountered by the buyers of such computers would increase the need for GNU/Linux technical consultants. Combine this with the push by Microsoft and others for China to improve its IP protection, the Chinese government's mandate that all computers be shipped with an OS, the 90% software piracy rate in China and the $150 box becomes a reasonable--and legal--alternative to Wintel computing.
My 250MHz, 64M RAM Linux RISC machine outdoes wintel boxes in many areas. For example, checking RSS feeds and reading eBooks while taking a dump at work. 770 rules. My TI-84 outdid 3GHz wintel boxes for doing quick calcs (1 second boot time).
'Once scientists, even the dim-witted social scientists, get muzzled, the Western Civilization is finished.' - oldhack
N/T
All I could think when I saw the specs was YowSeR, YowSer, YowSer! The Mac Mini purchase just got put off indefinitely.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
hahah regulating gnome or kde
China has an upper class and middle class of about the same numbers as the US - 25 million and 200 million, respectively. But it has a huge poor farmer and urban labor lower class- thereabouts 800-1000 million.
If you restrict the discussion to the middle class, they are probably making about $10,000 in equivalent US purchasing power- about quarter US median income. That number is a little dicey, because economic sectors vary widely and the Chinese currency is assumed artificially lower than free market price by 50-100%.
I try to get Beijing condo prices out of visitor-owners. China has been replacing traditional housing with condo-towers for some years. I heard numbers of RMB 10,000 / meter2, whihc is about $100 / sqft US. A starter condo is about 50 meters or $50,000. It works out to five years salary of average middle class- not wholly out of line with US middle class housing.
I've two of them here, and full of them all over the world: Celeron 500Mhz (second hand, apparently), floppy 15 GB Disk, 128 RAM, 100MBps LAN, USB and so on, OEM XP Home.
For total of $80, I can throw in a 15 inch CRT, keyboard mouse and speakers.
So what, does that make me a "yet another ambitious cheap computer" project initiator or I just have more common sense that the rest of the world.
Why is everybody afraid of second hand electronics?
None of my TVs have S-Video inputs. I have 3 CRT NTSC TVs at home, ranging in size from 13" to 29" and in age from 5-10 years. Two of them have composite inputs, one only has cable RF.
Maybe new TVs come standard with S-Video now, but as I said a low-end VGA monitor would be just as cheap and offer at least double the resolution.
Arguing about vi versus Emacs is like arguing whether it's better to make fire by rubbing sticks or banging rocks.
The $100 laptop project is being developed by a non-profit organization and is not intended to make a profit. That cuts out some percentage of markup--admittedly not a huge difference, since hardware tends to have slim margins, but still a difference. It is also innovative technically; they are using a dramatically less expensive LCD display.
"Realistic" is a fairly arbitrary term that means little in the context of an altruistic project like the $100 laptop initiative. If you want to be realistic, stop giving food to starving people, and Darwinian principles will prevail. However, compassionate people are not "realistic" in that sense.
I think the Chinese $150 PC is a nice idea, although it's certainly neither original nor all that attractively priced; you still need to buy a display, or have a very clear, sharp TV set that won't ruin your eyesight.
Walmart marketed a $199 linux PC for a while, though they seem to have discontinued it. Some people mentioned a similar Tigerdirect model, but I haven't found it on their site. You have to really look for these deals.
I suspect that as Linux matures and especially as Wine improves, the cheap Linux PC will make a comeback, though it's awfully hard to sell the public on something that works with about 50% of the stuff out there--devices, software, peripherals--when for another $50 you can get something that works with 90% or 100%. I just did my taxes using Turbotax 2005 running in Crossover/Wine on my fedora workstation, and while it basically worked, a few features such as help pop-ups were broken and I had to do a lot of manual data entry because the stock investments download feature didn't work perfectly. Would I pay $50 more to avoid this kind of aggravation? Of course and so would everyone else.
The other thing I would worry about is compatibility. Is it worth paying $150 for a machine that uses a non-Intel compatible CPU? Especially when slower Intel/AMD cpus can be had for quite cheap these days. If it's just a matter of national pride--it has to be all Chinese-built--well, come on, almost all computer parts are made in China already, so just go buy any PC you like--Lenovo, Dell, Toshiba--and chances are it'll be 80-90% Chinese content.
it's = "it is"; its = possessive. E.g., it's flapping its wings.
From the srticle summary:
... A Chinese manufacturer, YellowSheepRiver ... ... Urging potential customers to 'Say no to Wintel,' YellowSheepRiver ... ... Designed by a Chinese company called BLX ...
:-)
>>
>>
>> is devoted to using its own Linux distribution and hardware designed
>> and manufactured by Chinese companies
>>
Why is it that when the Chinese promote a product as being "made exclusively by Chinese companies" and urge the customer to "say no" to American products (e.g. Wintel) that it is okay.
However if an American company were to promote a product as being "made exclusively by American companies" and to "say no" to Chinese companies then everyone would be screaming xenophobia and making jokes about fat-lazy-suv-driving Americans???
Of course that last part is just hypothetical since Americans don't actually make anything anymore
You should compare it to a mac mini and tell me if anything is not made in China these days.
Red Flag, Microsoft, same thing. Good thing you don't need either. Expect to see a lot of activity with Debian MIPS.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Those who do not remember the NetWinder are doomed to repeat it.
The next Cmdr Taco duplicate will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and see it early!
I already have a $150 PC with PIII performance...it's called an XBox! I can get it even cheaper if I buy it used.
Did china ever see a reason to pay billions of dollars for Windows? Just curious.
How would a cluser of say 10 of these things perform? 100? 1000? At ~$1500 for 10, I would imagine that it would be pretty good considering you can barely find a decent server for that much. For some applications like a web or mail server just load balance the requests. Other applications probably wouldn't be as successful Forget virtualization, when you need a new machine, just buy X of these to fill that need. If one breaks, throw it away as it would cost more in tech support to have someone actually take a look at it. Don't know how the power issue would be, but this could be an interesting idea...anyone know of a reason it would/wouldn't work?
When I have a kid, I want to put him in one of those strollers for twins and then run around the mall looking frantic.
Frys has a better system then this that is on sale all the time for $149.95. Regular price is 179.00. In fact, it was on sale on black Friday for 99 bucks. AMD Sempron 2200, 40 gig HD, CD Rom, Internal Video, 128 megs RAM, Mini tower case, speakers. Loaded with Linspire. Here it is WAY overpriced at Outpost. http://shop3.outpost.com/product/4714029?site=sr:S EARCH:MAIN_RSLT_PG
But you can't watch TV on it (not without an expensive TV-to-VGA box anyway). If you can only afford to buy one, you buy the one that can do both. Kinda like the old days with the Commodore 64, it was a good way to get your parents to buy you a TV for your room.
Support Right To Repair Legislation.
but all i was saying was that the customers that walk into the store would not ... they'd think you're feeding them a line of bull ...
Using cars as an analogy to computers works well on many levels. In this case, I would compare it to a small four cylinder engine, when designed properly, tweaked, and with the proper supporting components, can outrace a stock V6 from another vehicle. And it will probably use less gas in the process.
It's a rough comparison, but it begins to paint the picture. Raw power means nothing if you can't make it efficient.
I'm tired of seeing these el-cheapo computers heralded as an achievement. X Box costs $150, PS2 is $130.
Both the Xbox and the PStwo are subsidized (even if only in R&D and marketing costs) by the sale of licensed games, enforced by a lockout chip. This is an achievement for a non-subsidized device running a Free operating system out of the box.
Misaligned loads and stores. Google for more info.
I doubt that the Government and major companies pirated all the Microsoft Software they use.i d=a8xcRyjeh_YU&refer=top_world_news
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000087&s
As you can see Microsoft is making a big push to get people in China to stop pirating.
BTW some of the billions of dollars I was talking about was going to Intel and AMD. Via could be an option but I doubt that sending money to Taiwan makes China happier than sending it to the US.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
S-Video to composite connectors cost about 10p each in bulk --- they consist of two or three resistors wired together. I'll possibly agree with you that the RF-only TV, but if you really needed to get it working, video modulators are only a little more expensive --- remember all those 8-bit micros that had them?
600MHz is sufficient for a lot of stuff. I had my old PII-166MHz installed W98 with Apache and FileZilla. If the end-users use it for office applications, web browsing, emailing - it should be more than sufficient.
"I'll possibly agree with you that the RF-only TV, but if you really needed to get it working, video modulators are only a little more expensive --- remember all those 8-bit micros that had them?"
Yes I remember those 8-bit micros that could display a maximum of 40 chars/line. Gee, perhaps such an application could make UNIX command brevity relevent in the 21st century.
Here is the link ... it took me a while to find it: http://www.ch2000.com.cn/download/redownload/RedOf fice2.0_ForLinux.tar.gz
I'd prefer to pay 300 bucks for a P3 that is mine over paying 150 bucks for a P6 that isn't under my control.
A Pentium III is a P6. The CPU core known as Intel P6 debuted in the Pentium Pro, and later versions of P6 were used in the Pentium II, Pentium III, and Pentium M processors.
But I too would pay more for a Pentium III based PC than for an Xbox, especially now that "loophole" games are harder to find (with silent upgrades that fix the buffer overflows) and newer versions of the Xbox BIOS don't allow dashboard replacement.
maybe they could afford to buy an s-video to composite cable like I did.
this sig is deprecated
It is projects such as these which will make the propritery OS companies make a run for their money. Just think of it... The company making these hardware devices need only invest money for the hardware and not for the OS. The OS comes at an unbeatable price. Thus they are able to bring down prices of their devices and make it available to the masses. Cheap computing in the making I would say.
Linux Help
for all things on Linux
Bear in mind that $150 dollars probably means a lot more in the Chinese economy than it does here in the U.S.
Indeed it does. The average working Chinese is much poorer than he should be. The Chinese government sets the exchange rates relative to other currencies artificially low, to encourage exports and employment. This is blatant currency manipulation and is against WTO rules. The Japanese public has been similarly willing to be screwed for decades as well. We in America are enjoying the free lunch they provide. But the behavior hurts the working class in the United States and should be curbed. Economic competition would work better without market distortion.
an ill wind that blows no good
I've hear a lot of discussions modern processers that Suns 'RISC' are too complex to be risc, and intels/amd micro-op code can't qualify it for disc.
Is this one the first RICE based processor?
I have a MiniITX VIA epia-800 (800MHz VIA C3 Ezra), but the hardware has finally gone flakey on me (it has only been running non-stop for about 3 years). I think taking it in and out of cases without using any anti-static protection has made it flakey.
A little 400Mhz MIPS-like box with TV-out would replace my broken epia-800 nicely. The only problem I have with it is that it isn't available in the US right now. I guess I might just have to buy something else to replace my machine.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
Actually, it's the Japanese who (sterotypically) have a hard time pronouncing L's. Look at all of the Chinese last names that start with L: Lee, Li, Lu, etc.
oh ya! that's gonna happen :D
Where can you get a motherboard for $25 with onboard video, sound, and the works?? You're looking at at least $75-$100 just for that.
Alone - $25 - no. $35, yes.
Newegg has the PC Chips M851G, with onboard video, 6ch sound, and 10/100 LAN for $35.50. They have 40-50 boards under $50 meeting similar specs, for both AMD and Intel CPUs.
If you get them as combos with CPU and RAM, then subtracted out the price of the CPU and RAM... I suspect that yes, you could probably push $25 for "just" the motherboard.
he he
How many billions in exports is the Wintel platform worth to China?
How much in foreign investment? Microsoft to invest heavily in China The People's Daily.
When President Hu Jintao vists the United States, it is Bill Gates who greets him, Bill Gates he wants to see. Guess who did not bone up on China Malayasia News Online.
The world is flat.
It was Lenin's birthday on Sunday. The most important Communist Party meeting in five years was under way. And the star of the show was the world's most famous capitalist, Bill Gates.
The Vietnamese President, Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister all excused themselves from the party meeting to have their pictures taken with Gates, the chairman of Microsoft, who has more star power in Vietnam than any of them.
Gates finds it's just capital in Vietnam
Most likely, it is the BLX Godson-2, a MIPS-like 64-bit processor developed entirely in China. This would mesh well with the Chinese government's intent to encourage the Chinese people to buy Chinese electronics.
Unfortunately, we have no idea what the architecture is like. I know a lot of you think MIPS is inherently "more efficient" than x86 per clock, but that's just foolish fanboyism. MIPS-compatible processors come in a variety of speeds with different Instruction Per Clock capabilities. Some are VERY simple, single pipelined designs intended for embedded markets, while others are aggressively clocked, with superscalar designs like those from SGI.
Just making it MIPS doesn't guarantee better performance. BLX has never publically stated exact performance comparisons, and they could be comparing it to a "200 MHz P3 (yes, I know this doesn't exist)" for all we know. Think about how difficult it would be for an updtart chip maker to compete with a Pentium 3 clock-for-clock: the processor would require supercalar design with out-of-order execution, including dual integer pipelines and a pipelined FPU. This is very unlikely from a project that has only been designing processors for 5-6 years.
More likely, the processor is more like the older Winchip, with a single integer pipeline and a low-latency non-pipelined FPU. This would give the 600 MHz Godson-2 performance on the order of a P3 at 200-300 MHz.
Man is the animal that laughs.
And occasionally whores for Karma.
You can buy a Via C3 CPU for $10-20. You can even buy a motherboard with built-in C3 CPU for ~$50.
That's IN ADDITION to normal VGA. I live in Hong Kong, you can get used 14 or 15" CRT monitors free, people are throwing them out all over to get LCD screens. You can buy them in a PC junk shop for US$3. Bigger monitors ar absurdly cheap too if you have the deskspace.
The full specs of the PC are here. The video specs:
ATI Radeon 7000-M
33MHz 32-bit PCI
Internalized with 16MB DDR RAM buffers
Support VGA port & S-Video output
It's really small; weighs 650g, half the Mac Mini.
As far as initial impressions go (when you see the device in the shop), getting the outside of the machine not to look cheap is probably the main thing. A nice case, and keyboard and mouse that don't look flimsy, will probably get you a long way!
Twitter, why do you continue to lie? Whitebox PC's do not make up 75% of the PC market, they make up more like 30%. See here for more information: http://www.technewsworld.com/story/33596.html.
Of course the majority of computers that show up to be repaired major brand PC's - they are the majority of the market!
You future of "everything is free" isn't going to happen. Its not sustainable and no one who matters wants it. This isn't new, there have been many low cost PC's available that run Linux. No one is switching.
TigerDirect also has Retail Outlet Stores that you can get parts form with out haveing to pay shiping on of them is in the warehouse.
municator
To Quote Zap Brannigan from "The Problem With Popplers": ... Shhhh ... '
'People Of Earth
I've got a box with a Via Eden. 1GHz. Sloooooow. Tiny (embedded style). But sloooow. Our company was considering selling these as app devices but they are just too slow. Talked to a Via vendor at a tradeshow but Via is clueless AFAICT.
BTW, this sort of argument is what I thought about the $100 PC. You can get an almost free old PC from the local charity store. Nobody wants a piece of junk. Even 3rd world people. Rich people think poor people want their old junk. They don't. Don't give them old fish. Teach them to fish.
TimJowers
Expect Freedom.
Yellow River use IP freely!
Dell Dimension B110 for $299
Intel Celeron D 2.53GHz
XP Home Edition
256MB DDR Memory
80GB ATA100 7200RPM Hard Drive
48x CD/RW + DVD Combo Drive
17" Monitor
USB Keyboard/Mouse
10/100 Ethernet
56k Modem
B110 link
The Ratfynk
I think that the ad is expired.
"Price Good from Friday, Feb 17, 2006 through Tuesday, Feb 21, 2006."
Lenovo
In general, I would expect people to buy a CHEAP pc and as soon as they get home with it, borrow thier friends or relatives Windows XP disk to install over whatever OS the computer came with... so with these boxes being based on MIPS, those folks are out of luck! This will be an interesting!
Yes, the Lexra company was sued (then bought?) by MIPS,
But the use of similar mips chips is increasing.
I guess eventually gcc and linux kernel will support them without all the extra patches.
(called something else besides mips (or lexra) )
And Windows is what?
Do you trust or believe Windows is not related with the US Elite Power Machine???
Do you believe that US Americans are free citizens!??
"How many billions in exports is the Wintel platform worth to China?"
That is fine for exports. China makes lots of stuff for export that it wouldn't sell in China. The difference is anything sold in China with an Intel or AMD CPU and Windows involves money leaving China. If it exported then it is a net gain.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
Your looking at this the wrong way, you should be looking at the refurb/used computer export business. Working used / Off Lease P2, P3 business systems are now available here in the U.S. for under $50 complete with keyboard, mouse, and a 15 inch monitor in individual quantities if you know where to shop. I know an IT manager that works for a major cell phone company, disposal of used computers has always been a problem for them, they typically replace hundreds per month, recently they have a contract with a computer reseller that buys all of there end of life cycle computers for $10 each as is. Currently these are PIII-700 and faster, maybe even low end P4's depending on store closings, etc.
Ike
The rationale that "I can just get a used computer for the same price so this product shouldn't exist" is retarded and I'm so sick of reading it. Selling used uniform equipment would be difficult and wouldn't scale. Please tell me where I can get 10,000 500 mhz celerons, 15 GB hard drive, same brand of 128 MB of RAM, same NIC, etc etc, all used, all the exact same model, all in great condition.
I do sidework where we have to worry about these kinds of things. After we find a good deal on parts we ask ourselves "Can this company supply us enough units if this product takes off?", "Is this company going to be around in 3 years?", "Are they going to be able to supply this exact product for the next 3 years?", and so forth. Long term supply of uniform parts is a HUGE deal to companies. If you interchange your parts haphazardly you will run into issues. Issues that cost money. Any money you saved by doing so will be lost in support costs.
Building a PC for your grandma and building a PC for 10,000 customers are two different ballparks. Every screwup, every tiny cost, every little bit is multiplied 10,000 times. But I suspect many on here don't understand that.
If an officer ever threatens to taze you, say you have a pacemaker.
And if you hate Linspire, use it to download another Linux Distro and install that. After all, coming with Linspire does mean that the hardware has linux drivers.
here is the paper published by Godson team http://www.newsmth.net/att.php?p.272.15916.11.0.25 1.pdf
son of a bitch, those kinds of things really piss me off. It's the fricking white house, you'd think someone would know something about China. It's the office of the president of the USA, you're supposed to fscking represent our country to the world and you're making us all look stupid. Stop it. If I was the fricking president I would learn as much as I could about the world, foreign countries, governments, cultures. It's your job. As it is, maybe I already know more than them now since I have a friend there and I've always enjoyed geography.
simple, fast homepage with your links: http://www.ngumbi.com/
God, this is hilarious. Where do you people come from?
If these boxes really take off in China, Microsoft won't have to worry any more about all of the copies of Windows that the Chinese are pirating. Windows won't run on these boxes anyway, so no one will steal Windows!
They should throw a party in Redmond.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
I used Commodore 64 and Commodore 128 computers with S-video outputs, and I liked it, you insensitive clod!
The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
You convinced me, please tell me, where can I buy one of these wonderful SGIs! :P
Why can't
China is not treated as a "third world nation" but as a "second world nation"
Second world: Communist bloc nations, usually associated with the former soviet union
Third world: under-developed/developing capitalist (or at least non-communist) nations not under a communist regime and not associated with first world nations or alliances (e.g., NATO, etc.)
The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
Could be an odd alternative. A free PC from a dictatorship. We live in intresting times.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
for 114$ you can get a via epia motherboard with the cpu, add memory and hdd and boot it up. usual 'integrated everything' onboard, vga out, s-video out, 5.1 audio etc.
150$ for a ~400mhz 64-bit risc cpu powered machine is a robbery in year 2006. even the via epia series will probably be faster.
and ffs s-video ? most chinese people probably have 21" 60hz good old tv-s, can you imagine the impact on their eyes from looking at 640x480pixel image at 60hz with radiation of the old tech tv ?
ofcourse performance wise, geode kicks the butt of via. and most probably, they will both kick the butt of that 64 bit risc thing.
ps. does anyone have a link to a site that sells transmeta cpu's along with motherboards ?
I'd tell you the chances of this story being a dupe, but you wouldn't like it.
That may be well and good but I can buy a used machine for $59 bux and typically they have a good assortment of PCI slots to plug cards into.
Of course as long as it runs Linux I'll be all for it.
...YellowSnowRiver...
Reason is the Path to God - Anon
There is already so much hardware out there, why buy new? Get a real PIII instead and recycle. (Make sure you avoid the bad old chipsets used in AMD & Cyrix systems from the era. Try it with memtest86+. Any system with the L2 on the CPU and PC100/PC133 should have a memory bandwith of ~250MB/second. Anything less and you'll regret it.
Upgrade the memory and put in a new PATA hard drive in and you're set for the $150 or less. And a nice side affect if you're at all interested in the environment is this doesn't require more chemical production in manufacturing plants (if you don't count the additional memory & new hard drive of course).
With enough memory (512 - 1GB) and a speedy hard drive you'd be surprised how well the old computers can work.
Also if you're a developer, programming on slower computers (and even slower dual cpu systems like my dual pII 450) gives you an encentive to make faster, lower resource using code.
There: Something at a specific location.
Their: Owned by someone.
Please make sure your english compiles.
The MIPS is just an ISA. The implementation of it could be great, it could suck.
Just as both the athlon and the P4 both speak the x86 ISA, but show very different performances clock for clock.
Malike Bamiyi wanted my assistance.
The Chinese (stereotypically) have a hard time pronouncing the English letter "R".
The English (stereotypically) have a hard time pronouncing the French letter "R".
The French (stereotypically) have a hard time pronouncing the Spanish letter "R".
The Spanish (stereotypically) have a hard time pronouncing the Japanese lettter "R".
Strange, but true. Those liquids are a bitch.
-I like my women like I like my tea: green-
Imagine if the US goverment/retailers carried this thing ? I would be awesome - there would be no execuse for anyone not to have a computer...
I know this is off topic, US market not China, AMD/Intel not MIPS, but...
Why are no vendors competing with the Mac mini?
I would have expected it by now. Same basic specs, same basic features,
but $100-$200 cheaper.
I like small computers, but I am totally frustrated with the PC vendors.
If you want a smaller box, you have to pay more. Hugh??? The box
is smaller, less metal and plastic. The mother board is smaller, less
PC board. The system has less stuff in it (or potential stuff) so the
power supply is smaller. Everything is smaller but you pay a 20%-30%
premium for it? It just does not make sense.
Design:
Take a medium powerful CPU, AMD Semtron or Intel Celeron, and mother board
chip-set that includes video, 5.1 sound, USB, firewire, and either a PATA
or SATA disk interface. Build a 5 1/4" by 6-8" mother board around it
with 1 or 2 memory slots and no floppy or PCI slots. Put it in a small
case with a 3 1/2" disk and a CD/DVD -R/RW drive (maybe external USB
or Firewire). If there is space us an internal power supply, otherwise
use an external supply like the Mac mini. Design the case so it can be
mounted on the back of a LCD display. And wallah, you have an almost zero
footprint computer.
In a normal size, you can by a similar system, CPU, 256Mb, 80G, CD-DVD,
for about $300. It should not be hard to make a similar small foot
print system for about the same amount.
I see two big markets for this type of system:
Consumers who need a web browser, email, a word processor,
a Quick Books like financial application and simple games
Businesses who need to deploy 100's of systems to specific job
functions: customer service, call centers, order entry,
warehouse, and other non-computer specific jobs.
In the first case my parents come to mind. She does not do a lot with
their computer. Mostly web browsing, email, and keeping track of their
fiances. The only thing the have upgraded in their computer is memory.
Other upgrades like card readers and zip drives have used USB. The last
few times they have thought about upgrading more they have decided
to buy a new computer. Sound familiar? I think that there are many
people who feel less intimidated if the computer was the size of a long
hardbound book. My mom would like it in violet.
The second case is business. A smaller computer would mean less desk
space or floor space waisted. It would also take less power and would
use less air conditioning. With energy costs the way they are, this
is a big concern. A computer with less bells and whistles might mean
fewer distractions for the employee. And again, for a group, 20-100, of
computers what was the last upgrade you added inside the case? Memory?
Maybe a new disk drive? What I see is that when the company decides to
upgrade their computers, they just buy new computers. At $300 a unit,
it not much more than a nice office chair or desk.
What I am surprised at is that none of the major computer vendors
have made a product like this.
Just my thoughts.
RLH
Ah well... imagination often goes wild when you're Western and ignorant about other civilizations.
In Soviet Russia, our new overlords are belong to all your base.
Like it says above.
The salesman at CeBIT states quite clearly that it is intended to help poor Chinese cross the 'digital divide'. It isn't expected to go on sale in the West.
"We reject kings, presidents and voting. We believe in rough consensus and running code." Dave Clark, IETF
Yes. That's because you were looking at just the motherboard box. The HDD is an external. Nearer the end of the video you get to look behind the monitor and the rest of what's normally tucked inside a much bigger box is there, all tangled up in a large mass of cables as you'd expect.
All in all there's nothing new about the Municator except the price. Which doesn't include a monitor. And it's only on sale inside China. So it's not very exciting really.
"We reject kings, presidents and voting. We believe in rough consensus and running code." Dave Clark, IETF
An actual 600mhz MIPS processor (R14000) is actually pretty speedy, especially at floating point.. Not sure about the chinese mips clone tho. But once you consider performance per watt the mips should do quite well in any case, the later SGI machines using mips processors at around 600mhz used passive cooling on the processors, and the sgi processor modules for their highend kit could fit 16 MIPS processors in 4U while they could only fit 4 itanium chips in the same space.
http://spamdecoy.net - free throwaway anonymous email - avoid spam!
And also don't forget, that modern Intel/AMD processors are effectively RISC processors with extra (power consuming performance sapping) silicon to convert x86 CISC instructions into blocks of internal RISC equivalents.
By removing this extra overhead, you can potentially decrease power usage, improve performance (with a good compiler) and generate less heat making it easier to create higher clocked processors.
http://spamdecoy.net - free throwaway anonymous email - avoid spam!
Ah, that would be the unlicensed MIPS clone.
/ 26/0029224
http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/07