Indeed they could. If Freeview boxes are £35 these days, then for £100 they could have a reasonable PowerPC system.
For your information said freeview box (my girlfriend's was a Sagem) includes a 255MHz integrated PowerPC processor. It isn't too hard to think in quantity about a MPC5200 running at 400MHz that'd outperform the AMD Geode processor (and ironically has a DDR memory interface on the processor, giving it more memory bandwidth than a G4 with it's SDR FSB) connected via PCI to a cheap I/O solution and graphics chip. Maybe Freescale or IBM sell an integrated PowerPC that includes graphics and audio as well, but an external solution could have the power to run the Mac OS X interface, thus making the slower processor less of an issue.
I reckon Apple could make a $299 laptop using the above kind of setup. Is it worth it? Not really.
Is it worth it? I don't know. But then, MS gives hundreds of millions of dollars worth of computers and software away to schools and libraries. Is it worth it?
Sure it is. They then are wedded to the MS ecosystem. Apple should have the same initiatives. In the long run it would help them.
Aaargh!!! I can't believe they would turn down Mac OS X on these for "open source" grounds. What a load of crap. Instead they'll give them something that they can't run any popular applications on. It's not like someone wouldn't make Linux available for the machine anyhow. If I was anywhere near these people, I'd beat them over the head with my "open source isn't the holy grail" stick.
Of course the whole idea is nothing new, the goal behind the "simputer" was the same thing:
The bottom line is that the students will get vastly less utility from a linux laptop than they would a MacOS X laptop, and the students are losing out because corporate politics is going to guarantee RedHat is the OS.
Aaargh!!! I can't believe they would turn down Mac OS X on these for "open source" grounds. What a load of crap. Instead they'll give them something that they can't run any popular applications on.
What "popular applications" are you speaking of?
These are 128MB RAM computers we're talking about here. Not exactly CS2, FCP type material.
What do we think these people are going to be doing on a $100 laptop? Editing the next great independent film in FCP 8.0 HDDD?
My guess is write papers, some spreadsheeting, surf the web, and check email. I am missing anything here? Oh yeah, plan and carry out riots in France via iChat. If that is the case, then yeah, anything but Windows (resource hog) should do fine.
If they get out of that relm, then most adults are not smart enough to teach 54 gazillion kids how to turn on a computer much less program their TiVo.
Macs are more intuitive than Linux boxes for your first timers, but at basic tasks, they are all about the same (minus resource requirements).
I say Apple got to the game late and missed the PR boat.
If Apple releases a version of OS X for the laptop, I'm sure a lot of institutions would run it instead. Steve doesn't have to get anyone's permission.
These machines are for the third world. I'm not even sure that spreadsheets are in order here.
I'm not being prejudicial, but these kids are lucky to learn how to read and do arithmetic. Many are lucky just to get to school.
We can be assured that they will take better care of them than kids in programs here, and will actually appreciate having them.
While I'd love to see some form of OS X on them, they won't be using iTunes, or iMovie, or iPhoto, or most likely not iChat either.
This is for the basics. These kids will take them home, and the time they have there, they will will be learning with them. Because they desperately want to.
If Apple releases a version of OS X for the laptop, I'm sure a lot of institutions would run it instead. Steve doesn't have to get anyone's permission.
I suspect they chose Linux because of the availability of educational SW, most of which runs on PCs. Besides, this way they avoid the whole political quicksand of getting in the middle of the OS war.
Anyway, I don't see someone with Sj's legendary touchiness persisiting after he's been turned down on a donation.
These machines have very little RAM, no disk drives, and flash memory instead of a hard drive. I doubt OS X would even run on them. And don't expect to see a pretty Aqua interface on an 8-bit black & white "e-ink" screen.
It was nice of Apple to offer, but Linux is free and open source and will do just fine for the purposes of the organization. As mentioned before, no one's stopping them from releasing a free version of OSx86 to developing nations if they want to do so...
Anyone else noticed the similarity to the Newton eMate? That was designed for schools as well. Time for a revival of this OS with an update? There's enough software available on this OS for school use.
We have a problem with political correctness in this country.
The responsibility for education belongs in the hands of the students, and their parents. No educational system ...
It's been shown decades ago that the school has little influence over most students, ...
Political correctness indeed. The US spends colossal amounts of money on its schools, but has a lousy educational system. Why? Because very little is spent on actually teaching. The NEA's primary focus is preventing any assessment of teacher quality. If you resist assessing quality, you can bet it's lousy. Pointing fingers at the parents is disinformation from the teacher lobby.
On the original topic, I like the idea of a low-power, flash-based laptop. The screen sounds terrible (very fuzzy), but surely we can make a light, thin, flash-based $500 laptop which has a good screen, days of battery life. Call it the iBook nano. Credit card ready!
Pointing fingers at the parents is disinformation from the teacher lobby.
At that young age, it is parents responsibility. If my parents had not made homework a priority for me, it wouldn't have been a priority. Enough before I get banished to AO!
I just read that OSX was declined in favor of Red Hat. One of the projects spokespersons was quoted in the article saying that they declined Apple's offer to provide copies of OSX for free because it is not open source. They want the users of the laptops to be able to tinker with the OS. Unreal....some twit from M.I.T. thinks people just learning to use computers are going to tinker with the operating system. Whatever.
I had hoped they would use Ubuntu Linux, truly an Open Source environment, rather than Red Hat.
But yeah, I can easily see them balking at OSX. Not only are the unnecessary "whizbang" GUI graphics going to grind the performance to a halt, but getting stuck with buying a new OS every year to guarantee compatibility with some must-have app (Apple's current modus operandi) is not a model that favors the impoverished.
These machines have very little RAM, no disk drives, and flash memory instead of a hard drive. I doubt OS X would even run on them. And don't expect to see a pretty Aqua interface on an 8-bit black & white "e-ink" screen.
It was nice of Apple to offer, but Linux is free and open source and will do just fine for the purposes of the organization. As mentioned before, no one's stopping them from releasing a free version of OSx86 to developing nations if they want to do so...
[B]Political correctness indeed. The US spends colossal amounts of money on its schools, but has a lousy educational system. Why? Because very little is spent on actually teaching. The NEA's primary focus is preventing any assessment of teacher quality. If you resist assessing quality, you can bet it's lousy. Pointing fingers at the parents is disinformation from the teacher lobby.
That's absurd!
The environment the school is in takes a far greater toll on educational results than teaching staff.
You're just restating that correctness theorem again.
It's easy to knock teachers.
I've always found it to be interesting that when kids do well, their parents take the credit, but when they do poorly, it's always the school.
I had hoped they would use Ubuntu Linux, truly an Open Source environment, rather than Red Hat.
I hoped that too, but I guess what made them take RedHat was the fact that RedHat has 18 employees working on this mini-version of their OS whereas Ubuntu would certainly have less due to the fact that it's busy working on their next project.
Quote:
But yeah, I can easily see them balking at OSX. Not only are the unnecessary "whizbang" GUI graphics going to grind the performance to a halt, but getting stuck with buying a new OS every year to guarantee compatibility with some must-have app (Apple's current modus operandi) is not a model that favors the impoverished.
I went to Fairfax County Public Schools. I learned very little in 12 years of school. I do agree that, without my parents' pressure, I'd have learned absolutely nothing, but still, what a horrible waste of 12 years of my life. Grade and high schools in the US are just glorified day-care centers. Of hundreds of teachers I had, maybe half a dozen were barely competent.
Now as to the "one laptop per child" concept, they are no longer using the e-ink display, but are going with a low-res LCD, with tri-colored pixels rather than a pixel stack. Not a display I'd care to look at all day, but still better than e-ink.
I've had much better success with Ubuntu than Red Hat. I think the reasons for OSS-only are to avoid licensing restrictions rather than providing the ability to rebuild the kernel.
I just read that OSX was declined in favor of Red Hat. One of the projects spokespersons was quoted in the article saying that they declined Apple's offer to provide copies of OSX for free because it is not open source. They want the users of the laptops to be able to tinker with the OS. Unreal....some twit from M.I.T. thinks people just learning to use computers are going to tinker with the operating system. Whatever.
The twit isn't from MIT.
They never meant that the users were going to tweak the systems.
The idea was that they would tweak the systems. To adjust them so that they would be more suitable with the goals in mind.
Comments
Originally posted by Hattig
Indeed they could. If Freeview boxes are £35 these days, then for £100 they could have a reasonable PowerPC system.
For your information said freeview box (my girlfriend's was a Sagem) includes a 255MHz integrated PowerPC processor. It isn't too hard to think in quantity about a MPC5200 running at 400MHz that'd outperform the AMD Geode processor (and ironically has a DDR memory interface on the processor, giving it more memory bandwidth than a G4 with it's SDR FSB) connected via PCI to a cheap I/O solution and graphics chip. Maybe Freescale or IBM sell an integrated PowerPC that includes graphics and audio as well, but an external solution could have the power to run the Mac OS X interface, thus making the slower processor less of an issue.
I reckon Apple could make a $299 laptop using the above kind of setup. Is it worth it? Not really.
Is it worth it? I don't know. But then, MS gives hundreds of millions of dollars worth of computers and software away to schools and libraries. Is it worth it?
Sure it is. They then are wedded to the MS ecosystem. Apple should have the same initiatives. In the long run it would help them.
Of course the whole idea is nothing new, the goal behind the "simputer" was the same thing:
Simputer
Amida Simputer
I'll believe it when I see it, and if they had a decent OS on it, I'd probably buy one.
Originally posted by Booga
The bottom line is that the students will get vastly less utility from a linux laptop than they would a MacOS X laptop, and the students are losing out because corporate politics is going to guarantee RedHat is the OS.
Why is that? Qualify please.
Originally posted by pmjoe
Aaargh!!! I can't believe they would turn down Mac OS X on these for "open source" grounds. What a load of crap. Instead they'll give them something that they can't run any popular applications on.
What "popular applications" are you speaking of?
These are 128MB RAM computers we're talking about here. Not exactly CS2, FCP type material.
My guess is write papers, some spreadsheeting, surf the web, and check email. I am missing anything here? Oh yeah, plan and carry out riots in France via iChat.
If they get out of that relm, then most adults are not smart enough to teach 54 gazillion kids how to turn on a computer much less program their TiVo.
Macs are more intuitive than Linux boxes for your first timers, but at basic tasks, they are all about the same (minus resource requirements).
I say Apple got to the game late and missed the PR boat.
If Apple releases a version of OS X for the laptop, I'm sure a lot of institutions would run it instead. Steve doesn't have to get anyone's permission.
The whole story doesn't make any sense.
I'm not being prejudicial, but these kids are lucky to learn how to read and do arithmetic. Many are lucky just to get to school.
We can be assured that they will take better care of them than kids in programs here, and will actually appreciate having them.
While I'd love to see some form of OS X on them, they won't be using iTunes, or iMovie, or iPhoto, or most likely not iChat either.
This is for the basics. These kids will take them home, and the time they have there, they will will be learning with them. Because they desperately want to.
That's really all that matters, isn't it?
Originally posted by strobe
If Apple releases a version of OS X for the laptop, I'm sure a lot of institutions would run it instead. Steve doesn't have to get anyone's permission.
I suspect they chose Linux because of the availability of educational SW, most of which runs on PCs. Besides, this way they avoid the whole political quicksand of getting in the middle of the OS war.
Anyway, I don't see someone with Sj's legendary touchiness persisiting after he's been turned down on a donation.
It was nice of Apple to offer, but Linux is free and open source and will do just fine for the purposes of the organization. As mentioned before, no one's stopping them from releasing a free version of OSx86 to developing nations if they want to do so...
Originally posted by melgross
We have a problem with political correctness in this country.
The responsibility for education belongs in the hands of the students, and their parents. No educational system ...
It's been shown decades ago that the school has little influence over most students, ...
Political correctness indeed. The US spends colossal amounts of money on its schools, but has a lousy educational system. Why? Because very little is spent on actually teaching. The NEA's primary focus is preventing any assessment of teacher quality. If you resist assessing quality, you can bet it's lousy. Pointing fingers at the parents is disinformation from the teacher lobby.
On the original topic, I like the idea of a low-power, flash-based laptop. The screen sounds terrible (very fuzzy), but surely we can make a light, thin, flash-based $500 laptop which has a good screen, days of battery life. Call it the iBook nano. Credit card ready!
Originally posted by cubist
Pointing fingers at the parents is disinformation from the teacher lobby.
At that young age, it is parents responsibility. If my parents had not made homework a priority for me, it wouldn't have been a priority. Enough before I get banished to AO!
But yeah, I can easily see them balking at OSX. Not only are the unnecessary "whizbang" GUI graphics going to grind the performance to a halt, but getting stuck with buying a new OS every year to guarantee compatibility with some must-have app (Apple's current modus operandi) is not a model that favors the impoverished.
Originally posted by geekdreams
These machines have very little RAM, no disk drives, and flash memory instead of a hard drive. I doubt OS X would even run on them. And don't expect to see a pretty Aqua interface on an 8-bit black & white "e-ink" screen.
It was nice of Apple to offer, but Linux is free and open source and will do just fine for the purposes of the organization. As mentioned before, no one's stopping them from releasing a free version of OSx86 to developing nations if they want to do so...
Agreed
Originally posted by cubist
[B]Political correctness indeed. The US spends colossal amounts of money on its schools, but has a lousy educational system. Why? Because very little is spent on actually teaching. The NEA's primary focus is preventing any assessment of teacher quality. If you resist assessing quality, you can bet it's lousy. Pointing fingers at the parents is disinformation from the teacher lobby.
That's absurd!
The environment the school is in takes a far greater toll on educational results than teaching staff.
You're just restating that correctness theorem again.
It's easy to knock teachers.
I've always found it to be interesting that when kids do well, their parents take the credit, but when they do poorly, it's always the school.
Originally posted by JamesG
I had hoped they would use Ubuntu Linux, truly an Open Source environment, rather than Red Hat.
I hoped that too, but I guess what made them take RedHat was the fact that RedHat has 18 employees working on this mini-version of their OS whereas Ubuntu would certainly have less due to the fact that it's busy working on their next project.
But yeah, I can easily see them balking at OSX. Not only are the unnecessary "whizbang" GUI graphics going to grind the performance to a halt, but getting stuck with buying a new OS every year to guarantee compatibility with some must-have app (Apple's current modus operandi) is not a model that favors the impoverished.
Spot on.
Originally posted by melgross
... It's easy to knock teachers. ...
I went to Fairfax County Public Schools. I learned very little in 12 years of school. I do agree that, without my parents' pressure, I'd have learned absolutely nothing, but still, what a horrible waste of 12 years of my life. Grade and high schools in the US are just glorified day-care centers. Of hundreds of teachers I had, maybe half a dozen were barely competent.
Now as to the "one laptop per child" concept, they are no longer using the e-ink display, but are going with a low-res LCD, with tri-colored pixels rather than a pixel stack. Not a display I'd care to look at all day, but still better than e-ink.
I've had much better success with Ubuntu than Red Hat. I think the reasons for OSS-only are to avoid licensing restrictions rather than providing the ability to rebuild the kernel.
Originally posted by Playmaker
I just read that OSX was declined in favor of Red Hat. One of the projects spokespersons was quoted in the article saying that they declined Apple's offer to provide copies of OSX for free because it is not open source. They want the users of the laptops to be able to tinker with the OS. Unreal....some twit from M.I.T. thinks people just learning to use computers are going to tinker with the operating system. Whatever.
The twit isn't from MIT.
They never meant that the users were going to tweak the systems.
The idea was that they would tweak the systems. To adjust them so that they would be more suitable with the goals in mind.