My point is that there is another agenda behind building a $100 machine (or at least the intended target audience is way off target). It may have more to do with changing the economic fundamentals of computing, with a tertiary affect of dislodging Microsoft in this niche market. (They should “do an Apple” and add a sub-circuit that would prevent the installation of Windows on the computer!) Anyway, the low price tag would seem to remove any possibility of adding in much of a profit margin in the production of these things, so forget it being designed or built in the United States or Europe. That being so, why is MIT all over it?

Whatever the point to it is, it has little to do with helping the third world.

This is only partly true. In India most of the computer users I know do speak English enough to manage the OS, but they have a “Romanized” version of their own mother tongue, whatever that might be.

A huge problem is that there are often no standards in Romanized transliteration. Even though I can limp along in Hindi, I often can’t make ANY SENSE of Romanization Hindi. It’s like 500 years ago in English when spelling was pretty free form.

So, it would be very helpful if scholars would develop standardized ways to type local languages on a standard QWERTY keyboard. But most scholars are old-farts and find Romanization offensive and would actively oppose teaching it in school.

But, in my observation, ASCII (or ANSI.. whatever) has more than enough characters to faithfully reproduce any spoken language. And most of the younger generation are not at all offended by it. They just want to SMS and IM each other so they are making it up as they go.

- for this to be actually as useful as their creators wish it to be, people in those poor countries have to learn to speak english, if only to be able to benefit from what’s on the Internet. The Internet is mostly in English, and most useful stuff is in English. Software first editions are also usually in english. I was fortunate to live in a country where I could learn english as a second language from age 10, but in many countries this may not be the rule.

- flash memory is far from indestructible. It has a limit on read/write cycles (I think it’s 1 million?) which may look high, but when you consider that these computers may be used for a long, long time (is 10 years would be expected?) it may not be enough.

- old tech is cheap, but it can also be quite effective. I own a very old Mac LC 475, running System 7.5, and it has my favorite UI of all PCs I’ve ever used. Not perfect, of course, but I challenge anyone to come up with anything – except games – that can’t be done on that little Mac. Not my current PC, of course, it’s CMOS battery died a long time ago and I can’t find a spare…

- and finally, being so utilitarian may not be ‘in’ in the US, but it can end up having the charm of the old VW Beetles, and therefore becoming extremely popular, even if only for a very short period – a passing fad.

WinBoxes can be serviced in dumpy back-alley computer shops by swapping-out the faulty component. And they often need fixing! The humidity and dust are just killers on computers.

So what would _I_ design for the developing world?

I’d go for the “Ford Falcon” of computers… something bare bones, biggish and clunky, but easily fixed at home, by amatures, with components that easily pop in-and-out with no tools.

But the weakness of WinBoxes is the power… in many developing countries the electricity drops to 75 volts then spikes to 275 volts and then goes out all together… often in a matter of seconds!

The battery doesn’t need to be high-tech. It could just be a motorcycle battery. Come to think of it… better yet, would a 12 volt computer and each user decides how to power it, depending on the local situation. (Because of cars, everybody seems to know 12 volts.)

(And, of course, the OS has to be price-competitive with a pirated copy of Windows which is about $2 in most countries!)

As far as flash memory goes, how much do you think is needed? Many LiveCD’s are under 700MB and come with more than enough programs than students need. They don’t want to allow a lot of room or kids will have all kinds of crap on them.

For the rest of us, most people don’t care that much how pretty their laptop is – but they don’t want to be running Olde Technology if they can help it. Today’s applications are happiest with major computing muscle – and that’s going to be unavailable with a $100 price tag.