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MIT Team Working On a $12 Apple (II) Desktop
Barence writes "A new project to create a $12 computer is underway at MIT, the same University that spawned the One Laptop Per Child non-profit laptop. The PCs will be loosely based on Apple 2 machines, first unveiled over 30 years ago, and the team are actively recruiting enthusiasts of the retro computer to help develop the new PC." Update: 08/05 14:13 GMT by T : The original story at the Boston Herald has more information, as well as a photo of the team.
Maybe I can finally play Ultima II on the Apple. Seriously, it doesn't work in any emulator I've tried. Kegs, AppleWin, Mess, nothing wants to recognize when I swap in a player disk.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Apple 2's BASIC was broken!
The opposite of progress is congress
Haven't they learned from Psystar or Psyduck or whatever they're called.
Each one comes with a free leisure suit.
Proverbs 21:19
1) Give children in third world countries old computers
2) Get children addicted to Oregon Trail
3) Watch children forego sex, and therefore reproduction, in favor of Number Munchers
4) Profit!
It's bullet-proof!
Show this to your friends and family that don't know what a real hacker is
Where do I send my £12?
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
This is kind of a neat idea. Vintage PCs like Apple II and Commodore 64 were very useful tools. Mostly character based, but still lots of apps like Word Processors, and there's no reason why you could have terminal-based email, and computer programming languages, too.
4Mhz processor, 64k RAM ... such a computer, could theoretically be built on a single integrated chip very inexpensively.
a few years back (2004?), Tiger had the Tiger Learning Computer, which was based on the IIe. $149. It looks a lot like what the OLPC should have been.
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
Can it run LINUX? *ducks*
Taking guns away from the 99% gives the 1% 100% of the power.
All TFA says that it is loosly based on the Apple II. So what does that mean? Have the same CPU? Same OS? Same amount of RAM? Looks like the Apple II?
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
I can't help but think how cool this will be if it actually gets off the production line and into the hands of those in developing countries.
Back when the Apple II was initially released, we wondered what computers might look like in the future. For those in developing countries, they might be able to actually *see* 30 years into the future of computing whilst they enjoy their "new" Apple II. Pretty neat.
I've always advocated that kids should be introduced to programming on the classic 8-bit machines. These systems, especially on the assembly language level, expose how computers work better than any modern computer which can only be programmed through layers of APIs. The modern equivalent to these computers are the Atmel AVR and Microchip PIC microcontrollers, but they lack the instant gratification because they don't come with "shiny" peripheral options. If this project can recreate Apple II or Commodore 64 environments at the price of a movie ticket, it should be the ideal learning environment.
can we just mark down a pile of old engineering calculators and call it a day? I remember watching some smarty-pants play Mario on his calculator during enviromental engineering classes lo these many years ago.
or cell phones, for gods' sake, my cell phone has a 314MHz processor in it, I played duke nukem 3D and watched streaming video on PCs that were slower, this cannot be that difficult.
figure it out, people and stop cluttering up /. with these endless utopian woolgathering snipehunts; please, and thank you.
If it can play Rescue Raiders and Ultima, I'm in.
[members of] the team are actively recruiting...
the team is actively recruiting....
Will I have to put it together myself? Cuz labor is expensive.
Cool! Anyone know what they are they paying?
Was this story posted in response to a comment on the previous article?
I don't think anyone could argue that is not a more meaningful project than the WiFi trolley.
This comment is for entertainment purposes only. Any similarity to real insight or information is purely coincidental.
For twelve dollars perhaps they should codename it the abacus. It will probably be an abacus if they cut functionality to cost rather than increasing cost to cover functionality.
The original article says than: "second generation XO, which it claims will cost $75 " "To anticipate them costing $20 each is not out of the question." That's not a 12$ laptop, but then i guess the article submiter didnt read properly this part: "that can be the difference between earning $1 an hour instead of $1 a day." I guess that s where the 12$ comes from , but it s not the laptop price, but rather the eventual buyer's income for 12h of work at 1$/h
... the TRS-80 Color Computer.
- 64K OF MEMORY!!
- EXTENDED COLOR BASIC!!
- PLUGS INTO TV!!
- CARTRIDGE EXPANSION for 6809E ASSEMBLY LANGUAGE PROGRAMMING
- OS9 DISK OPERATING SYSTEM FOR "ADVANCED" USERS
(ALSO CAME WITH C COMPILER)
(note: the above was written in uppercase because the CoCo ONLY supported uppercase)
Radio Shack marketed it as a toy, unfortunately, even though it was light-years ahead of it's Z80-based counterparts. In fact, that 8-bit processor family (6800) is still going strong as the 68HC11 and related CPU's.
Step 3 is ??? or optionally ????.
Do decreed CmdrTaco in the early days of /.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
Not many details.
6502? Hang a keyboard on a gameboy?
Flash instead of cassette tape, to be sure.
Sixteen bit addresses?
6809 would give it enough horsepower to actually run an early version of unix, but then you couldn't get the low-low power out of programmable logic that you can out of hard-wired 6502 cores. And you'd still have that problem of virtual addressing facing any kid with enough ambition to try to (re)program it.
Freescales m-core might be interesting as a CPU, but then they would potentially collide with the goals of OLPC.
I'm rambling, but this touches a kind of long-term fantasy of mine -- basically, put the equivalent of a Radio Shack Color Computer (but with something better than MSBASIC) in every kid's pocket.
Computer memory is just fancy paper, CPUs just fancy pens with fancy erasers; the 'net is just a fancy backyard fence.
If we follow the pattern to its natural conclusion, we'll have $6.00 Altair 8800's, then $3.00 PDP-8's, then $1.50 UNIVAC's, then 75 cent ENIACS, then 3 Babbage Difference Engines for a nickel, and finally a Jacquard loom that you couldn't give away.
Don't laugh - it's been done.
Those drives were very smart for their day. With the right magic incantations, you could connect a C64 to two drives, initiate a drive-copy, and disconnect the computer and the drive-copy would complete.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
I wouldn't pay that much for a lousy Apple 2. Terrible architecture all around. The C-64 or TRS-80, among others, would be much better candidates.
If you follow the link in TFA to the Boston Herald article it is apparent that this is a different project to the XO 2. The article itself is a bit muddled though so it does look as though it is talking about the same system.
The summary got me to thinking about some of the PC on a chip offerings I've seen over the years. A quick google search turned up something else kind of amusing: http://tinyurl.com/5ppa9g. A PC for less than $500? No way!
Oh, and if anyone has some information on a useful pc-on-a-chip, I'm still curious.
The world is made by those who show up for the job.
Seriously though, what practical use is there for an old 8bit Apple II architecture? There are very inexpensive 32bit system on chip architectures (including MIPS - Lexra) in that price range that can at least run embedded Linux (uClinux).
It's already in production, and is a fully functioning C64 on a chip.
Just sayin' (and prolly igniting another Apple/Commodore war. :-)
If that's all the computing power they need, they might as well just write an OS for a PIC microcontroller. Those little chips cost about $1.
Though I can't imagine any computer catching on with a nontrivial number of children unless it runs games. Anyone want to port Oregon Trail to PIC? On second thought, starving African children might take the "You have died of dysentery" part of the game the wrong way...
A slashdotter who didn't build his own computer is like a Jedi who didn't build his own lightsaber.
The only way this could be cooler is if instead of basic it was designed to work around a modern interpreted language like Ruby or Python.
Domain squatters: get ethiopiaonrails.com while you still can.
Ever played those game-in-a-controller things?
Some of them have an IC that is a C64 on a chip. Faster and better than the Apple II. And a lot less money. I'm certain the IC is less than $1 considering the price of the controller.
Just use those, don't reinvent the wheel when it's been done better already.
from the article: "Hoping to make slashdot headlines and undercut all the other low cost computers coming from MIT... this new team hopes to produce a laptop that will be free." John Smith the leader of the team is quoted having said "Ideally we'd really like to make a computer that we pay you to take... but we've yet to work out the economics, so for now we're going to stick with the free computer." The team hopes to have their computer ready to go in a few years...
Uh, More than one?
Zing!
Would it really be that much cheaper to make 1980s-vintage computers? I mean, once the design work is done, are the price differences between fabbing a 6502-type CPU and an ARM or x86 that great? I thought that the price advantage of using mass-market components would outweigh any savings made by using primitive technologies.
The Mac 400KB and 800KB floppies used more sectors on the outer tracks than the inner tracks.
The PC would format a Mac 800KB floppy as a 720KB floppy.
The 400- and 800KB Mac disks also had meta-data attached to each sector to aide in file-recovery of deleted files.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
To say that the C64 had a "basic pixel framebuffer" is a big understatement.
Soiled Legacy
That is a 1MHz 8-bit processor pushing the VIC (video) and SID (sound) to their limits.
Just announced BOGO for $48!
The Commodore 64 was a better computer (more colors, 3-voice synth, etc.), used fewer chips, had more memory, and was cheaper to make. More software was written for it, and it has a much, much more active enthusiast community which has archived and preserved that software. If you're going to spread retro computing over the surface of the globe, wouldn't it make more sense to use the most popular computer of the day?
Serving your airship needs since 1995.
It aims to carve a niche among the third world's richer poor children.
Or at least the ones with better taste. More like chicken, less like monkeys.
Oh and... 12$ is probably a typo. To be LIKE Apple II it should be something like US $1298.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
My 7-year-old has been playing games on an old Dell running EduBuntu, but I found that the environment was too structured - power up, log in, menu, menu, menu, etc. I remember having an Apple ][ and a C64, and you just hit the power switch, and were greeted with "OK."
... something that is difficult to find these days. Poke-ing values directly at the SID chip has the "instant gratification" factor that's missing with today's desktop computers.
I considered building an FPGA module that contained all the necessary C64 or Apple hardware, and it's clear that today's devices are certainly up to the task (with a little help from an external SRAM.) In 100-piece quantities, MSRP would need to be nearly $100 to be viable though. I can buy a refurb desktop at that level. So I went down a different path - VICE. We're now running a C64 emulator on the linux box, and my daughter takes great pleasure in opening a terminal window and typing a command to launch a program. She still has all the hoo-haw to get to the desktop, but given the opportunity, about half the time she runs the x64 emulator. I've tossed a handful of BASIC programming examples at her, including my ancient C64 User's Guide. It has great examples that are dirt simple
I'll probably end up buying an old C64 from eBay for her, so she can bang on it without all the Ubuntu overhead. There's a gap in the learning path - today's kids don't have the hands-on opportunities we did. Based on cost and performance, a modern equivalent of the C64 should retail somewhere around $20-$40 (relative to the mainstream desktop offerings.) I don't think that's going to happen, as there are more effective ways to spend that same money (i.e. I can buy a used C64 with the floppy and the joystick and a pile of discs for $40.)
Why not Linux? Am I missing something here? Or is it just retro for the sake of being retro, if so, I'll probably break out my NES and we can have a party.
And a lot more fun.
We must be alert to the danger that public policy could become captive to a scientific-technological elite. - Eisenhower
There is already a simple way to buy an Apple II for $12. It's called "E-Bay"
eBay tells me the Apple II, C64, TRS-80, PC Jr, et al, are all 12 dollar computers already.
Each one comes preloaded with "Little Brick Out" and "Lemonade Stand".
Towards the Singularity.
Ford reissues the Model T as a fuel efficient inexpensive alternative to gas guzzling expensive SUVs.
This sounds great. Once they make it, they need to be sure to sell it in places like Walmart and Target, so lots of kids get their hands on these and not just those with Slashdot-reading parents.
Yet another reason to continue developing for OLDER browsers!!
-_-
The third world is likely to be eaten by a grue.
But in all seriousness, Visicalc, Bankstreet Writer, and a flat-file database would do the job for a whole lot of people.
Sure, it is easy enough to set up one kid to do his homework on an old calculator or cell phone. Maybe a dozen kids. But the only way to distribute, train and support hundreds of thousands of these into the field in any cost effective way is to have all of them running almost identical hardware and software.
That is the role these ultra-cheap, mass-produced, low-end computers can play.
In fact, these projects are leveraging the pile of old, obsolete devices that are out there, just as you suggest. Except, rather than re-using the old devices directly from the garbage pile, they are re-using the excessive manufacturing capability that has been built up to serve the general consumer market and using it to build affordable, reliable, educational appliances.
Surely the answer isn't to reimplement the Apple II, but to use something like an off-the-shelf ARM based SoC (an older, now cheap one with a display controller) with a cut down Linux (or indeed, RISCOS, as that was an ARM based OS with built-in BASIC and desktop which seems ideal).
The alternative is far more expensive - either using FPGAs to reimplement the Apple II hardware (and this is nothing new anyway, other 8-bit systems have been reimplemented in FPGAs already, from the Amstrad CPC to the C64 and beyond), or designing your own ASIC which would increase up front costs dramatically.
This will be great until they sell out and try to put Windows XP on it.
"MIT Team Working On a $12 Apple (II) Desktop"
Damn, I was working on rather pricey machines while at Cambridge and even pricier ones while at OSU. Never were times so hard at the University that we had to work on Apple II's. Has MIT indeed wasted *all* of its money on random crap like robots?
I like basketball!!1!
That had more to do with the PC not being able to multitask well rather than lack of a CPU in the floppy drive.
If you operated in protected mode using an OS with floppy drivers that took advantage of it, you could format a floppy without tying up your system. While the 80286 offered protected mode, this didn't become practical until the 80386 chip though. In practice, this meant waiting until the 1990s.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
Just use cellphones and have a way to use a real keyboard and screen at home so it doesn't suck to type or see anything for extended periods. Developing nations are leapfrogging the wired data infrastructure in favor of going straight to wireless, so there's your web connectivity already. Concentrate on making applications that work off of low end, low powered cellphones and can immediately see and make use of the difference between the built in keyboard and tiny screen and then the normal sized screen and keyboard. That exists now, just make it better and cheaper.
You could have bought a Commodore One, which is a variety of 8-bit computers implemented in FPGAs ... several years ago. Even the C64 gaming joystick a few years ago could have sufficed if you modded it.
And there's a reason I've kept a lot of old magazines (either scanned, or physically) ... apart from the lacking the female necessary to create a child aspect anyway, heh.
I have two apple II's in my garage that they can have for free.
"You can't fight in here, this is the war room!"
Why don't you just go buy a bunch of them off Ebay ? Problem solved !! This one laptop per child stuff.. I just don't get it. There are plenty of used computers that can be formatted and RECYCLED for use somewhere else. Develop a lightweight O.S. to run on old hardware.... oh wait.. that's been done too.....
Bad idea. Nice experiment. Invent the future, not fix the past.
---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.
Ebay
Why not something that's been done in joystick form already like the C64? There was a LOT more software made for that machine, it looked better on televisions (none of that orange/blue/green banding on 40 col characters), and much of that software was far more recent.
A new project to create a $12 computer is underway at MIT, the same University that spawned the Warcart
There, fixed it for yall.
-Billco, Fnarg.com
and I'd let them go for $12 each...
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
Unfortunately, the C-One is $269. I looked at it, but it's definitely not geared toward use by young-uhns. They're terribly abusive little critters. Similarly with the C64DTV joysticks - the mods are fragile, and probably wouldn't survive rough handling. I remember beating the hell out of a 2600, and the VIC-20's keyboard got stepped on more than a dozen times. Every once in a while, the local Goodwill gets a C64. I'll keep my eye out.
I bought a real Apple II with two floppies at the thrift store for US $6.00.
"Rather than a laptop, the unit will act as a desktop computer and plug directly into a standard television."
A big expense for cheap computers is the monitor. So instead they're going to make it work with a standard TV like the original Apples did.
Keyboards in bulk should be easy to get cheaply. You can get a keyboard for $4 on NewEgg. No doubt they cost NewEgg half that or less. Since these computers are using such old tech they could probably fit the entire computer into a standard size keyboard.
Work Safe Porn
What are they going to do with it? Play Karateka all day?
Hell, here is a guy browsing the internet on an Apple II When what you want is text, pretty much anything will suffice. http://www.sics.se/contiki/perspective/browsing-the-web-from-an-apple-ii-with-contiki.html
To me, the funniest part of that video is that they pointed a camcorder at the screen, when they could have just directly captured the Apple II's NTSC video output.
http://hothardware.com/cs/forums/t/39577.aspx
Because that might be close it...in TFA they even mention "consoles with a keyboard" that are apparently popular in India as their starting point (adding to them network functionality).
BTW, the TFA is wrong about one detail - those consoles aren't based on Apple II, they're NES clones (still...the same CPU as in Apple II)
So I guess if you want to see what their machine will be capable of, check Contiki ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contiki ) on C-64 with ethernet adapter.
One that hath name thou can not otter
Apple II? The only reasons to choose this architecture are (1) it's generic - the easiest one, (2) Apple II were horrendously overpriced (sound cool saying that a 64K Apple was $2638 when introduced, $12 now), (3) maybe they're trying to challenge or recreate Woz talents.
It's completely impractical in this era to create a brand new design on such prehistoric architecture, which was mostly based on low cost. Even the MSX hardware (similar to Colecovision) would be a better choice. Main problem is the 6502 CPU.
There are better CPU choices than the 6502... The 6809 provided ways for re-entrant and relocatable code (unix and multitasking friendly), the Z80 is hardware friendly (often used as a coprocessor, like in the Genesis/MD). Microcontrollers were even based on the same architectures (6800, 8080).
Also, most modern stuff need lots of processing power. Try reading a JPG file on a Apple II. mp3s? A 486 @ 33Mhz can barely play them!
Compatibility: Why? A $12 PC running commercial software that costs more? Linux? impractical... unless they use something more powerful like the 65816 used in the Apple IIGS, and SNES, or a better CPU.
Apple II Hardware: What hardware? As generic as a CoCo and PC XT. Other 6502 stuff like the NES, C64, Lynx, and 8-bit Ataris (even the 2600) have vastly superior hardware. Some of these provide perform things 6502's lack, like hardware multiply. The only good thing on Apple IIs was the 80 column capability.
Sound: 1 bit speaker beeps? Why not using a generic SN76489 sound chip? (Sega Master, PCJr, Colecovision). Apple realized how idiotic was not having any sound chip... The IIGS had an Ensoniq chip that was also used in professional synths. It had better sound capabilities than the Amiga and Sound Blaster 16.
The Mega Kid MK-1000 is a lot like it. You can find more Famiclones here.
In Asia they already have an 8-bit $12 computer, it is the Famiclone series. Based on the Nintendo NES aka Famicom (in Asia it was called the Famicom) and its clones are the Famiclones.
MIT is trying to make a legal version of a $12 8-bit computer, but they already exist.
Some US malls small cubical and cart shops sell the Famiclones really cheap. Although they sell for more than $12 due to import costs.
Remember, Slashdot does not have a -1 disagree moderation, and no, troll, flamebait, and overrated are not substitutes.
Gotta admit, owning the original hardware is much nicer if it is working. I will get myself a CPC 464 again one day...
vTech has a kids laptop out for $50 that does almost everything they want. Just remove the display, add a flash/sd media drive and a networking or RS232 port, port over Contiki OS and you're set.
http://www.retrothing.com/2007/12/vtech-laser-128.html
You say things that offend me and I can deal with it. Can you?
Which Apple ][ BASIC are you talking about? I extensively used both Wozniak's Integer BASIC (original ][) and the AppleSoft BASIC supplied on cassette and later incorporated in the AppleSoft ROM board and the Apple ][+, //e, and //c. While there were a small number of bugs in AppleSoft (produced under license from MicroSoft), I don't remember any bugs with Integer BASIC or the Sweet16 virtual machine interpreter included in the original ROMs.
For full disclosure: I am a published author of Apple ][ series software (Nibble magazine).
If I am not for myself, then who will be for me? If I am only for myself, what am I? If not now, when?
Apple ][ forever!
When the Apple ][ was waning I bought a "Zip Chip" for it that ran at 10 mhz!!! WOW! What a difference!!! It still works too.
Zip Chip 10Mhz 6502
Apple ][ Accelerators.
The 6502 is limited by those darn 8 bit registers and 16 bit address space though... sigh, if only someone made a 64 bit version of the 6502! Maybe it could be done open source! Get to it.
Ok, someone made a 32 bit version but come on, 64 bits rock!
32 bit 6502
Maybe it'll be a kid in the third world using one of these reconditioned Apple ]['s that invents Skynet for afterall: "In the science fiction movie The Terminator (1984), starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, the audience at one point is treated to a view through the T-800 Model-101 robot character's eye/camera display with some 6502 assembly/machine code program fragments scrolling down the screen. The program was listing the Apple ][ Disk Operating System (DOS) 3.3 decompiled program listing." I almost fell out of my seat during the first screening of Terminator when I saw the 6502 listing for I could read the darn stuff! It's nice when they make a multimillion dollar action-scifi movie just for you!
Then of course one day I was in a used computer store where they had a sign attached to a pile of Apple ][s that said "Apple's by the pound"... literally... I think it was $1 a pound or something like that... worked out to maybe 10 bucks each.
Go get'em MIT!!!
The first reference shouldn't be redundant, maybe troll, but not redundant
Because there's an enormous pool of software for the Apple II - a pool of free software, not just commercial software, and free educational software to boot. And it's designed to work well with a standard TV set as the display.
The capabilities of the hardware are a minor issue. None of the alternatives you list are all that much better, and none of them have the huge pool of free and abandoned software. Computers aren't about hardware excellence, or we'd be using Amiga-derived computers now instead of IBM-PC clones. Computers aren't about processors, or the x86 would have died a well deserved death in the '80s. Computers are about running software. You get a computer that runs the software you want to run, and for an educational platform that has to hook up to a TV, the Apple II is probably the best choice.
I would hope that they used the 65C816 instead of the 6502. It's not a great CPU, but it would let them emulate anything up to the Apple IIGS, which gives them more software to choose from.
Because it's all about the software.
This reminds me of the BBC Micro on a chip which is currently available for about $60, though without a keyboard.
If you connect to a television you could save the expense of a keyboard by using a light pen; a shame this only works with CRTs.
-- Ed Avis ed@membled.com
The C64 was an copy (put out years later) of the Apple ][ with 16k more memory (stock Apple ][ maxed out at 48k installed but had eight expansion slots) and a less reliable tape interface. The TRS-80 maxed out at 16k of memory and with a 4mhz Z-80, was slower than the 1mhz 6502 in either the Apple ][ or the C64. The Atari 400 and 800 models were similar to the C64 with slightly less memory and the same 6502 microprocessor.
My Apple ][(purchased in 1977) was eventually expanded to include 128k memory, AppleSoft ROMs, 40 char lower case display Z-80 CP/M coprocessor board, dual 160k floppies, 80column display card and monitor, serial and parallel ports, and modem before I put it aside in 1984 after Apple cut off support.
If I am not for myself, then who will be for me? If I am only for myself, what am I? If not now, when?
Crapple ][ sux, C= 64 rulez!!!
"you know who you are."
They've already made a version of this for about $30 that plays Commodore 64 games:
http://www.amazon.com/Commodore-64-Games-One-Joystick/dp/B000701CSM
They're cheap and easy to make in part because all the hardware is known.
The thing to remember is that they are trying to make a *teaching computer* to teach basic OS and programming concepts, not a first computer to enter the modern world.
Anti-Globalism, Traditionalism, and FreeBSD.
In its back to school sale. Its not half as cool as an Apple computer, but approaching One-Laptop pricing with commodity standards.
(stuff that is) missing with today's desktop computers
I used to think I was just sentimental about my old computers. I grew up on Amigas, and since college have been collecting all sorts of vintage systems. My kids, on the other hand, have only had PCs with Win95 or newer for their whole life. My oldest two have their own Vista laptops, the other three share a couple XP desktops.
Recently, I rebuilt a couple of neglected Amigas and my 11-year-old asked if he could buy one off e-bay with his birthday money, so I gave him one of my A500s. He will set aside his $1300 laptop to come play on the Amiga for hours at a time, booting up games off of my old floppies. His younger brothers stop playing on the Nintendo to gather around and watch. I doubt they are awed by the low-res 32-color graphics, even their DSes are far superior. Any I haven't even brought up the subject of BASIC, yet...
I considered building an FPGA module that contained all the necessary C64 or Apple hardware
FPGAs are certainly up to that task, since folks have managed to recreate an Amiga on an FPGA, complete with interfaces to more modern peripherals like flash storage and PS/2 keyboards and mice. Running them in such small quantities, it does cost a bit. On the flip side, how much longer will you be able to pick up a (working) C64 with a pile of (working) floppies for dirt cheap? I found mine for free, but I had to disassemble three systems to get one working pair of C64 and 1541, and the one box of disks I got were almost all worthless.
Handily, the C64 emulator is based on a cheap FPGA, some flash and some RAM. Exactly what I would specify for a cheap generic computer that can be upgraded to new architectures. It might make sense to integrate these into mobile phones, which now seem to be getting very popular in the developing world. Out of the box, the 1541 communicated at 1200bps. Slower than the Sinclair ZX Spectrum's 1500bps tape loader. But of course neither stayed standard for long.
They probably are not planning to build the computer exactly the same way it was done in the 1980's. They are probably planning to copy just a few stylistic items.
For instance, a modern micro-controller CPU would integrate almost the entire Apple II motherboard onto one chip, including the RAM, ROM, and peripherals. You can use the cheap hack (like the Apple II did) to generate composite video signals from just a few TTL output pins. If you pick the right microcontroller, DMA can be used to automatically output the video bitstream, and a built in counter timer can be used to generate the video clock. Additionally, most microcontrollers have I/O pins designed for keyboard scanning built into them. The result is one chip and a few miscellaneous components accomplishes everything on the motherboard of the original Apple II.
Unfortunately, you will still need a case, power supply, and keyboard. The keyboard could be the most expensive part of the design.
The rough approach of creating a bootable computer from a microcontroller is in widespread use. When I start a new micro-controller design, I frequently program a small boot monitor into the early versions of the CPU. This allows me to download new programs and manually test the on-board peripherals. Communication is done via RS-232 to a local PC. Occasionally, the same approach is used in Windows and Linux when doing kernel debugging from a remote PC. There is nothing to stop someone from programming a microcontroller in a higher level language like BASIC. Parallax has built a product around it, namely the BASIC Stamp. In practice, if you already have an in-circuit programmable microcontroller attached to a PC, then it is often easier to program on the PC and transfer a compiled C program as opposed to hacking with BASIC and assembly. However, this varies from application to application, with what the designers preferences are, and how old-school and hard-core of a hardware hacker that you are dealing with.
I can say the text quality on a CRT television is absolutely horrible, totally unusable for browsing or programming.
Is this a CRT SDTV, a CRT EDTV, or a CRT HDTV? I know my Wii console's Internet Channel looks a lot better on a CRT EDTV through component cables than on a CRT SDTV through composite cables.
Here's an awesome demo from a microcontroller you can buy in bulk for ~$2. The demo is displayed to a VGA monitor, but could also be done to a TV composite or component input.
Total cost including keyboard, much greater storage, and a second graphics chip for more computational possibilities could easily hit the target cost including keyboard but not display. Even a small display with any decent resolution would double the cost of the device.
Blessed are the pessimists, for they have made backups.
that was one of the better machines to learn on how to program, probably the only one better was the BBC-micro.
MP3 Search Engine
And here I tossed out my 6502 assembler book, just last week!
:-)
The silicon at that low end doesn't cost anything different. You could have a 16-bit 65816 and a real video controller of the Apple IIgs. To be honest you could probably build an Acorn RISC laptop for $12 too.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
One of the developers bought one.
So they are not proposing to create this, which already exists. If I understood correctly they want to upgrade it so it can do more stuff, like surf the web.
Unless you totally botch the implementation, I guarantee it would be cheaper.
Think - What's the cheapest x86 mass-market processor you can get? Secondly, what extra hardware (chipsets, clock generators, multiple power supplies, DIMM's, etc) do you have to also use to make this "mass-market" processor work? Thirdly, how much power is all of that going to suck?
A 70's computer is unbelievably simple. A 6502 has 4000 transistors and a single +5V core voltage, compare that to a Celeron. It doesn't require any cooling. To handle interfacing to RAM/ROM, the only "north bridge" required is a bit of 74xx logic to do address decoding.
Implementing all of this in an ASIC is laughable - modern microcontrollers implement many more RAM/ROM/peripherals/etc than a equivalent 6502 system, and you can get them for a couple of dollars. Plus, they draw milliwatts of power!
Overall, cloning an Apple II isn't a bad idea. About the only "modern convenience" I'd add to such a computer would be a SD card slot for moving files around. As much as I love retro computing, 5-1/4" floppies can stay dead.
Looking at the linked Flicker album this actually looks like an old Nintendo system, which is also still sold in Brazil (but for much more than $15). One of the pictures did have some Sega characters but the rest looked very familiar. Somebody might have noticed the 6502 processor and thought it was an Apple II or perhaps the MIT group was inspired by this to create something similar but based on the Apple.
What is broken though? The display? The keyboard?
Why couldn't we make a case with jacks for keyboard, mouse, network, video and power that would hold cellphone guts?
The hard part would be the video. Is there some way to translate the LCD signals going to the cellphone display into some other format like HDMI on a cheap FPGA? Some earlier poster suggested putting the CPU inside the FPGA, but one that large would be pretty expensive. I think that's the key: leverage the cpu and memory from the cellphone to keep the size of the FPGA down.
The key would be finding a large quantity of identically architected cellphones.
They ARE out to get you simply because They are in it for themselves and they don't care about you.
Since most Catholics ignore "official teachings" and use contraception, that's kind of beside the point. In Italy, where the Church arguably has more influence than any other country, the fertility rate (average number of births per woman) is 1.3, way below the "steady-state" rate of 2.1. Similar figures apply to other western European countries.
The main predictor of family size is not religion but wealth. Poor people have big families, rich people don't, for a variety of reasons. Yes, there are lots of well-known and well-off Catholic and Mormon families with umpteen kids, but most population pressure comes from social groups where poverty is endemic.
Are Apple II's still even worth $12? I mean, you can get even a Mac Plus for $5 these days..
You just got troll'd!
At $12 a go, could make for a nice super-computer if you build a nice cluster of them.
Death and taxes are both inevitable, however, death doesn't get worse year after year.
I may build one, even if it's not cost-effective. The kid's reaction has much more value. I think the big attraction is the instant-gratification of having low-level access to the machine. Kids like to demonstrate control over their environment, even if that's setting a register value and getting a horrible screech out of the speaker.
As you pointed out, used hardware in workable condition is a limited resource. I'm not emotionally attached to Apple, Commodore, etc, so I really don't care which architecture the target is. However, I have limited time to invest in this, so I can't say I'm particularly thrilled with the prospect of getting a machine that I'm unfamiliar with (say the Atari ST; never used one.)
The other night, I explained that the "load from tape image" option in VICE had to do with old-school data storage. My daughter was perplexed - she has audio cassettes, but the thought of using the same cassette for computer program storage was completely foreign. I'm gonna have to rig up some ancient tape-loader so she can share the experience.
I'd say the only problem is the display. If you hook them up to a tv, there's a big world of possibilities ahead of you. Lots of microcontrolers know linux. But you can _only_ do it in huge quantitities... for anything less sneezing on each would drive the costs up.
and -50 bad joke.
Last I checked, and this was a few years ago, you could get an Apple IIe for less than $10 on eBay.
I cannot wait until in a few years we have a $12 Amiga, and I can brag about my 4096 color display and 4MB of memory.
If you look at some of the things people are making with mircocontrollers, you can see that something Apple II level is quite achievable.
Getting under $12 is difficult for one-offs but if you make a huge number it is easier. For example one Parallax Propeller if $12.99 but if you buy 5000 it's $7.53 (leaving $4.47 if you are going for a $12 box). The AVR has less power than the prop but still way more than an Apple II. if you directly drive a video signal from the processor, it costs you quite a bit.
I've seen sources for sub-$5 keyboards, sticking a microcrontroller inside the keyboard gets you a computer quite easily. At that sort of level the bigger cost is just getting cables and power supply.
In a way, they should be using the zx-80 as a guide. A bare bones design like that with a decent micro ath the heart would be fairly usable.
-- That which does not kill us has made its last mistake.
z/VM ?
Thanks in advance.
Cordially,
Kilgore Trout
Seriously, all the companies, schools, libraries, houses, etc. I've ever set foot in have a bunch of old Pentiums that just take up space. Eventually everyone ends up throwing them away.
Why make a NEW $12 computer when you could find used computers that are a hell of a lot better and cheaper/free/people pay to have them taken away? Maybe MIT should spend their time creating a giant used-computer catapult to launch our unwanted technology across the Atlantic to Africa.
The IIgs and //e card for the Mac LC contain a "//e on a chip" called the Mega II.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mega_II
Just add processor.
Isn't the original Furby also driven more or less by a //e?
By endorsement of Captain Jack Sparrow.
I feeel like eating a whole barrel of Apples just thinking about it. About those Apples that aren't thinking about it, they look undernourished and bruised. Steve Jobs should keep his damn dirty LSD fingers off them tweaked Apples.
Commodore model/Type-R, "fastest RAM dump and flush to Disk-On-Chip for quick resume and standby operation, without the manhole."
Here is the page of the project:
http://design4dev.wetpaint.com/page/TV+Computer?t=anon
DNA in your Linux: DNALinux
To get to the barest, lowest cost computer, you don't really have problems with CPU, RAM and ROM - all of those can be had in quantities VASTLY higher than an Apple2 for a couple of bucks on a single chip microcontroller. That's pretty much the minimum price for a single chip with anything useful inside.
Display can be a TV - but you'd want to resort to Apple2-like techniques to avoid having all of the complexity of video circuitry. However, there is no particular reason why that can't get slurped into your $2 chip - but you're going to need a couple of external resistors & capacitors and such.
The keyboard is a big problem - you see $15 keyboards - but making one much cheaper than that is tough.
Networking can also be largely done in software - I doubt that you could get WiFi into a $12 price point - but a dialup modem interface could be done easily for almost $0.
Disk drives are out of the question at a $12 price point - but if you have an internet connection then one PC with a couple of terabytes of hard drive space could provide network storage for a few thousand users at a speed that would be pretty acceptable (given programs and graphics small/simple enough to run on an Apple2 class computer) - and a PC like that could be amortized across enough users to add very little to the cost of the system.
So - aside from the keyboard - I could easily imagine a $12 device with TV for video, dialup for ethernet and mass storage, and a single chip device for RAM, CPU, ROM, OS, Modem and TV interface.
Fact
Anyone got a link for the computer that you can already buy in India?
Unfortunately, it seems this project is based not on the classic Apple computer, but on Nintendo's 8-bit video game system. Computerworld reports (where Derek Lomas of MIT commented to verify the story's accuracy).
Email this guy? He says he got the Apple II version working with more ease than the DOS version. And Richard Garriott sent him a crossbow!
http://liquidben.com - Aspiring to an 'under construction' gif
No, no, not Mac OS 9, the real OS-9.
I jest. Sort of.
That is, the old Color Computer did run OS-9.
The TI calculators look like some of them could run a decent *nix-ish system, if the there's a 68K (probably Cold Fire?) in it and 100K or so of RAM and a Meg or so of Flash not in use by the calculator software, there was a version of OS-9/68k that might have run on it, a long time ago.
DSL? Puppy? NetBSD? I have vague memories of reading somewhere about somebody installing one of the modern *nixes on a TI.
Computer memory is just fancy paper, CPUs just fancy pens with fancy erasers; the 'net is just a fancy backyard fence.