Quanta Building MIT's $100 Laptops (eWeek) [LWN.net]

Quanta Building MIT's $100 Laptops (eWeek)

Posted Dec 16, 2005 1:15 UTC (Fri) by bk (guest, #25617)
In reply to: Quanta Building MIT's $100 Laptops (eWeek) by rknop
Parent article: Quanta Building MIT's $100 Laptops (eWeek)

According to http://laptop.media.mit.edu/ , the machines will have primarily black and white displays (I'm assuming they mean grayscale) and are flash based (no hard drive).

I agree that these can be attractive general purpose machines provided they: a) Are significtanly smaller and/or lighter than full featured laptops, and b) get significantly better battery life. I'd like to see a machine that has the battery life of my mp3 player, something like 10-15 hours.

(Log in to post comments)

Quanta Building MIT's $100 Laptops (eWeek)

Posted Dec 16, 2005 1:20 UTC (Fri) by rknop (guest, #66) [Link]

I'd be surprised if they were significantly lighter-- you usually pay for that.

From the article, I'm not sure if they really mean B&W displays-- it may be that it's only B&W under bright sunlight, but it sounds like there may be a color mode when lighting is more reasonable?? The advertising pictures show color screens.

Also looking at the article, it looks like they won't have standard networking, which would rule them out as (even) dumb terminal-type workstations for my kind of use. (Of course, for that, I can in principle use recycled 500MHz desktops, if I can find them.)

-Rob

Quanta Building MIT's $100 Laptops (eWeek)

Posted Dec 16, 2005 4:34 UTC (Fri) by dlang (subscriber, #313) [Link]

no, they're planning electronic paper displays, which are B&W (except for the bleeding edge versions), in fact the common ones I would expect them to use are only 4 bits or so of greyscale.

given the planned use, I would be surprised to see a cat-5 network interface (it's a way to get gunk into the machine and wires to break), but I would expect some sort of slow-but-reliable wireless capability (not nessasarily 802.11, bluetooth would work for it)

Quanta Building MIT's $100 Laptops (eWeek)

Posted Dec 16, 2005 8:00 UTC (Fri) by irios (guest, #19838) [Link]

They will all have WiFi, in some sort of self-weaving ad-hoc mode that does not require access points or manual configuration.

Quanta Building MIT's $100 Laptops (eWeek)

Posted Dec 16, 2005 11:55 UTC (Fri) by dlang (subscriber, #313) [Link]

they will have some form of wireless networking as you describe, but will it be 802.11 based (as implied by the term WiFi) or something else?

going with 802.11 has the advantage of interoperability with othe systems (but how you get the self-weaving ad-hoc mode without conflicting with other uses of 802.11 and being able to interoperate with them is tricky)

going with something else could still result in interoperability if there are access points available (just like you can use bluetooth to connect to a cell phone, you could have a cheap box that is a gateway to a landline, or satellite phone. you only need one per community for everyone to share)

Quanta Building MIT's $100 Laptops (eWeek)

Posted Dec 16, 2005 12:30 UTC (Fri) by Duncan (guest, #6647) [Link]

The sources I've read (several of them in the couple months of coverage
I've seen) indicate a dual-mode display, similar to what's in many
portable DVDs today, color at something like 640x480 under indoor
conditions, black&white at 3X the resolution where needed, as in bright
sunlight.

The networking will be ad-hoc wireless mesh network built-in, no Ethernet,
altho they have several USB ports so you could use USB/Ethernet adapters,
if desired. (Note of course that these adapters would add significantly
to the cost, at the prices we are talking.)

One source I read, possibly unreliable, stated that Apple was willing to
donate a version of their operating stack, but it was rejected due to the
strings attached -- lack of truly free licensing. If that's the case,
then the wireless networking will likely be decently free. With the
volume they are looking at (double- to triple-digit millions, block
purchases of a minimum of a million at a time, minimum 10 million ordered
to start production), they could hard-wire the connection frequencies such
that the laws blocking full source availability in some countries wouldn't
apply, since the hardware couldn't be programmed outside its allotted
frequencies in any case.

Power will be flexible, including a hand-crank good for 20 minutes
operation, and batteries, probably C or D cell, widely available
worldwide. Other specs include 128 MB DRAM memory, 1/2 a gig flash memory
non-volatile storage (no hard drive due to expense and fragility), several
USB ports.

Note that several stories have mentioned non-conventional uses as well.
Preliminary versions used in parts of SE Asia have been in places without
electricity, so the laptop ends up being the brightest light source as
well as the only computer in the home. Consider it operating in B&W mode
with an all-white screen, hand-cranked a couple minutes every 20 to
provide light for the home.

The computers should also be available retail, altho at significantly
higher prices, likely $200, possibly $300. One can imagine Walmart
ordering a million of these and selling them at $200-250 each, $250-300
including an accessory kit with an AC adapter, a USB/Ethernet adapter,
perhaps a USB patchcord and MSWormOS computer sync software, etc. (One
imagines these operate as USB-hosts, so that patchcord would need to be a
host to host patchcord, probably with a box in the center with two
USB-gadget interfaces, thus, not just a simple USB cord. Unless the
computer comes with say four USB host ports and one USB-gadget port, like
those old Ethernet hubs with an uplink port.)

Duncan

Quanta Building MIT's $100 Laptops (eWeek)

Posted Dec 19, 2005 9:53 UTC (Mon) by ekj (subscriber, #1524) [Link]

Did you ever wonder how come, when they invented usb they repeated that braindead error of ethernet where there's two different sorts of cable, one crossed, and one non-crossed where it's hard for an untrained person to see, or understand the difference ?

With usb it's not the cables, but the simple fact that you cannot simply connect any two devices equipped with usb -- one requires one "host" and one "gadget", rather than the usb-bus being completely neutral.

USB

Posted Dec 20, 2005 8:58 UTC (Tue) by Duncan (guest, #6647) [Link]

USB was defined by Intel, back when x86 CPUs were first going over about
500 MHz and they were searching for ways to use more CPU, so they could
continue to sell faster chips, given that 500 MHz was really the level at
which the CPU was "fast enough" (on x86) for what most folks did with it,
for the first time in history.

Thus, USB is a CPU intensive hosted protocol, requiring a CPU at the
"host" end, altho it requires far less at the "gadget" end. Compare it to
the "Fire Wire" of the time, a similar usage protocol, similar cables, but
MUCH faster, and using a peer2peer protocol rather than the hosted
protocol of USB. The p2p interface required a more expensive interface
chip in each item, but as it was p2p rather than hosted, it didn't use as
much CPU and all ends were the same. The additional incremental expense
for each gadget, in addition to the fact that Apple tried to keep the Fire
Wire name proprietary at first, and the difference between Apple and
Intel, was the reason USB became popular much faster than Fire Wire.
(Apple eventually relented and yielded the Fire Wire name to the industry
group defining and controlling the standard, but it was really too late by
then, and the incremental cost add of the interface for gadget makers did
nothing to help.)

Duncan

Quanta Building MIT's $100 Laptops (eWeek)

Posted Dec 19, 2005 9:48 UTC (Mon) by ekj (subscriber, #1524) [Link]

They'll have 802.11 of some flavour or other, combined with some sort of software to create ad-hoc mesh-networks when in the vicinity of eachother.