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Quanta Building MIT's $100 Laptops (eWeek)Quanta Building MIT's $100 Laptops (eWeek)Posted Dec 16, 2005 4:34 UTC (Fri) by dlang (✭ supporter ✭, #313)In reply to: Quanta Building MIT's $100 Laptops (eWeek) by rknop Parent article: Quanta Building MIT's $100 Laptops (eWeek)
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)
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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 (✭ supporter ✭, #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 coverageI'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 about500 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
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