Game developer David Braben creates a USB stick PC for $25

http://www.geek.com/articles/games/game-developer-david-braben-creates-a-usb-stick-pc-for-25-2011055/

by bluesmoon • 15 years ago

518 91 15 years ago

geek.com

wlll• 15 years ago

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2517136

mrshoe• 15 years ago

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2517822

;)

wccrawford• 15 years ago

The other news I read said they claimed they could create a version of it for $25, not that the existing one costs that. That's quite a bit different.

angusgr11• 15 years ago

Their own page at http://raspberrypi.org says simply "The expected price is $25 for a fully-configured system."

pdenya• 15 years ago

Article mentions it's ready to browse the web by default, how is it connecting to the internet though? No mention of ethernet or wifi.

kqr2• 15 years ago

It has a USB2.0 port so presumably you can hook up a hub with additional peripherals such as a wifi adapter.

The preliminary specs are listed on the website:

http://www.raspberrypi.org/

AndrewJG2• 15 years ago

If you look in the picture you can see that is exactly what he is doing. I wonder what that other box is though.

nl• 15 years ago

I'd be guessing a USB network adaptor?

That's what it looks like if you look at the pic on http://www.raspberrypi.org/

VB6_Foreverr2• 15 years ago

If pretty much every home has a PC, if the schools teaching ICT have computers then how is this going to make people 'learn computers' better? Would kids be more turned on by this than by, say, developing apps for android phones?

VB6_Foreverr2• 15 years ago

I know I shouldn't query downvotes but can the downvoter(s) explain how this will address the problem he outlined (ie schools teaching people how to use MS Office rather than teaching computer science)

greendestiny4• 15 years ago

It gives developers a single hardware target built on open source software that can be safely modified at any level without messing with a families or schools expensive computing systems.

lukifer• 15 years ago

1. Cost. This can be deployed in places here and abroad where computers are still not widespread in the classroom.

2. Personalization. These are cheap enough that each student could have their own, for a fraction of either iPad or OLPC.

Of course, the fact that it requires a connection to a not-cheap HDMI display mitigates both these somewhat.

angusgr11• 15 years ago

not-cheap HDMI display

As a few people have pointed out, their site says Composite or HDMI.

DanI-S• 15 years ago

HDMI and DVI are interchangeable for this purpose; most computer displays manufactured in the last 5+ years have DVI ports. With a $10 adapter they can use the screen from their parents' crusty old Dell.

angusgr11• 15 years ago

I'm guessing the idea is to provide a throwback to the days when computers were more hands-on and more nuts-and-bolts (think Apple II era). If the computer itself only costs $25 and boots from MicroSD then you can let students have their own and customise them with things like soldering new connections to it, mounting it on a robot, making very simple games, etc.

developing apps for android phones?

I guess now that Android phones are coming down under $100 as well then this is becoming a possible alternative. You don't get the "nuts and bolts" aspect of it, but you do get to teach both programming & fun.

wtracy3• 15 years ago

Well, when they're this cheap, you can give one to every kid, and it's not the end of the world if they break one.

fosk• 15 years ago

A neat device. I can use this in my spare time instead of much bigger Arduino boards

brianwhitman2• 15 years ago

Very cool, but i'm not sure how he can get it to an actual cost of $25 unless it's heavily supported by donations, grants, "give one get one" etc. For small runs (<10K?) the cost of production has to be a large multiplier on that.

Other options in this space (far more expensive! but similar ARM on a board style)

http://gumstix.com/store/catalog/index.php (although sadly they don't seem to carry the basix/connex, which are the same kind of power class as this)

http://beagleboard.org/

angusgr11• 15 years ago

The cost of $25 looks a bit more believable compared to similarly specced devices like the VT8500/WM8505 series <$100 netbooks/tablets[1], or the FriendlyARM Mini2440 which sells on ebay for $98 as a bells-and-whistles development board.

The board he's built would have lower BoM cost than either of those. And if he's manufacturing them in similar quantities then maybe he can get the cost down.

If he's looking at production runs of similar numbers to wireless routers then I think $25 is completely believable, as cheap end wireless routers approach that cost new now.

[1] http://s.dealextreme.com/search/wm8505

[2] http://www.friendlyarm.net/products/mini2440

[3] http://cgi.ebay.com/320583793422

brianwhitman2• 15 years ago

Sure... but realistically, what kind of quantities is he going to pull off? And is he really going to contract out to a chinese factory? I mean, i'll get a few :) but if this is for education and nothing else.... I'll check back in a year for sure.

For now, the Trimslice is pretty exciting (and shipping, and of course in a very different world)

http://trimslice.com/web/

Thanks for the pointer to the Mini2440 -- i haven't seen that one yet.

sedachv• 15 years ago

Gumstix is way overpriced. If this really does come out for $25, it will be really disrupt the hobbyist embedded market. The closest similar systems are Bifferboards (http://bifferos.bizhat.com/ 35 pounds for 150mhz 486) or the Teensy++ ($24 for an AVR).

dangrossman2• 15 years ago

If a tiny ARM-based Linux computer is appealing, there are a number you can buy now based on the Marvell Plug design. I use a TonidoPlug[1] with Ubuntu for an ultra-cheap backup and media server. Only uses ~5-10 watts so you can have it on 24/7 at virtually no electricity cost.

1: http://www.tonidoplug.com/

wtracy3• 15 years ago

This is interesting because it supports connecting a monitor and keyboard, and is designed to be used as a desktop/gaming machine, rather than as a home server.

tropin2• 15 years ago

I haven't seen the specs, that I suppose are much better, but it's four times more expensive.

reginaldo• 15 years ago

You might be interested to know that you can do the same with a $25 DockStar. The process is kind of clumsy, bit it works.

http://hunterdavis.com/archives/843

erik• 15 years ago

I looked into this recently, and wasn't able to find a DockStar for sale locally. It seems that the reason you could buy them for so cheap was that they were being discontinued. Which is too bad, as it sounds like a very nice piece of hardware.

dangrossman2• 15 years ago

I think the TonidoPlug and the Dockstar have the same hardware -- they're based on the Marvell design I mentioned.

pornel• 15 years ago

> Only uses ~5-10 watts so you can have it on 24/7 at virtually no electricity cost.

Idling MacBook Pro (screen off) uses 8-9W according to Apple (http://images.apple.com/environment/reports/docs/MacBook-Pro...).

If you already have laptop running most of the time, addition of such device probably doesn't save much (if anything).

riobard• 15 years ago

I want to buy one, hook it to a big monitor, and work on it whole day via SSH. Perfect! :D

AndrewJG2• 15 years ago

This is exactly what I do with my Cr-48. I hope these hit stateside, I would be all for an SSH machine for $25!

brianjolney• 15 years ago

sounds like an excellent device for wall-mounted dashboard monitors

angusgr11• 15 years ago

After my initial excitement of "wow, cool" and "wow, tiny" and "wow, cheap" wore off, I'm also becoming skeptical about what niche this fills for educators.

Why? Because an old PC with equivalent specs is essentially free (anything from ~2000 onwards.) Thousands of them, desktop and laptop, will be being recycled or landfilled every day.

Linux on x86 hardware is standard enough that you can effectively call it a standard platform for developers, already, same as this.

The remaining key advantage (I guess) is size. And maybe the fact that it's easier to get kids excited about playing with a tiny brand new board than with a 10 year old computer.

hrabago• 15 years ago

It may cost more than $25 per computer to collect computers being recycled, evaluate them for suitability, clean them up, and install a fresh copy of Ubuntu on them.

Also, the size difference could be significant, as well as allow novel ways of using it. For instance, if the goal is to get this machine into areas outside cities were computers are more common, shipping costs could be significant if recycled desktops/laptops are used instead.

I can imagine that you can conduct a class where kids take these computers home, along with a school-supplied keyboard, for use with the TV set they have at home, to work on computer (programming) assignments. This would allow the school to avoid the cost of acquiring monitors.

greendestiny4• 15 years ago

I don't think there is any possibility that you could provide a large number of students recycled computers with similar hardware capabilities for essentially free.

angusgr11• 15 years ago

Why not? When we recently opened our Hackerspace a friendly e-waste dealer gave us 10 SFF Pentium 4 1.8Ghz Compaqs. He said they're not worth the effort of selling any more, and to let him know if we need more. He had palette-loads.

Last week my coworker bought an ex-government ultra-small-form-factor Dell PentiumD 3Ghz for $30 in an auction, they were selling dozens that way in single quantities for between $20-$40. 3Ghz PC with 1Gb of RAM!

A friend showed me the disposal tunnel at the local unversity, they have palettes stacked 1m high with old Pentium4-era computers and old CRT monitors waiting to be picked up for recycling. The university pays for them to be taken away.

I'm in Australia, but I expect if you look around most developed countries you'll find this is the situation - old computers all over the place scrapped, resold or shipped off-shore. The developing world is where a lot of those computers end up, so in those countries a $25 USB-stick-computer with no excess shipping cost may still be a better option than paying for shipping a crate of old machines. However, I guarantee you there is no shortage of old hardware out there.

pshapiro• 15 years ago

If anything, at least we could give one to each child much more easily than a desktop or laptop.

nicpottier• 15 years ago

I'd say that is definitely true, especially in America and the like.

In the developing world though, I imagine there are some huge advantages to the power consumption of this. These may make it feasible to run a computer lab off of solar panels.

There are already computers that draw low enough currents to do this now but they are quite expensive. ($3-500 as I recall)

demallien• 15 years ago

Well, I think the immediate advantage is that you can make sure that every PC has the same hardware configuration, which makes 'fleet' management much easier. Also, now the school pays for screens and keyboards that stay, but when they decide to upgrade the computers in three years time, it only costs $25 per student to do so.

daniel_reetz• 15 years ago

With respect to size, you could easily get a suitcase full of these into any developing country, while a suitcase full of "pentium-class machine" contains only 1. You can also own and carry these things without making yourself a target.

On the power front, the power requirements are minimal, allowing them to take advantage of the solar infrastructure in places that rely on car battery power (central america is covered in solar). Also to run on 12V SLAs which are a common feature in places with unreliable power.

You might be surprised to learn that your city may have a recycling contract with the landfill. Those thousands of landfilled PCs are effectively unavailable to you or anyone else, no matter how feel-good the project.

I think this is a Good Thing and I hope it becomes available to everyone.

cicero2• 15 years ago

As an educator, I would LOVE to have access to these. One of the hardest things I have found is to provide a development environment for the kids at home that is the same as they have at school. You can tell them to install Ubuntu and Greenfoot on their machine at home, but there is no way to help them get things set up, or fix configuration problems unless you have access to their machine.

With this, they use the exact same machine at home and at school, and it is easy for them to carry back and forth. The only downside is that they would also be easy to lose, so there would need to be a big lanyard attached so they can wear them around their necks.

EDIT: I added some explanation of the problem.

angusgr11• 15 years ago

Thanks for explaining, I hadn't thought of that.

mwarkentin• 15 years ago

Could you set up and provide them a Vagrant box that's pre-configured?

haspoken• 15 years ago

Reminds me of the rossum's RBox: A diy 32 bit game sonsole for the price of a latte.

http://rossum.posterous.com/20131601

jeza2• 15 years ago

If you want to teach kids about hardware, wouldn't it be better to supply them with something slightly larger where they can install the CPU, RAM, etc. Perhaps supplied as a kit. At least that way they can at least identify the different components that make a computer what it is. They might also have a choice between selection different components, say a memory card vs. a small laptop hard drive, network cards, etc. As a learning tool, I think that'd be better value for $25 than a tiny USB stick sized thing. I think the fun of assembling would outweigh the coolness of being tiny.

regularfry4• 15 years ago

Make it tiny, and you can pot the whole thing in epoxy and make it essentially indestructible. That might be important in a school environment.

cakeface• 15 years ago

But then you cannot crack it open and actually see the components that make the thing run. If this is about educating kids on computers I think that it is really useful to be able to see where each part of the system lives and what it looks like.

jeza2• 15 years ago

For $25 a kit, there's no reason why you couldn't give one to each student (or have them buy it as part of their stationary requirements). I'm sure they're not going to destruct their own little project.

diya• 15 years ago

25$ cost is definitely possible. The cost of many smart routers lie within 25$ range. This unit is not any different

hasenj2• 15 years ago

What about the cost of TVs and keyboards?

I like the idea, but I don't think the place for this device is in schools.

In fact, I hope computer science never gets into high school curriculum, it will only make students hate programming. Just look at math. Programming is even harder; and chances are if you're a programmer you're not really likely to become a high school teacher. Conversely most high school teachers will not know how to program.

nyellin• 15 years ago

Computer science is an optional part of the high school curriculum in Israel. Depending on which matriculation exams you take, the classes teach basic .NET, Java, or Assembly.

There's room for improvement, but the classes are widely successful. I have a number of friends who learned to program from high school alone, without a serious effort to learn additional material by themselves.

adrianN• 15 years ago

But programming is easier to teach, because you have visible results. It's much easier to get kids excited about writing a Tetris clone than calculating a derivative.

roel_v• 15 years ago

Except that in each class there are going to be, at best, one or two people who can reach that level of programming competence. The vast majority of students struggle to make the LOGO turtle do a Z-shaped movement, it's totally unrealistic to expect them to get to the level of writing Tetris within 1 or even 2 years of 1 hour a week programming education.

Starmonkey• 15 years ago

"I hope computer science never gets into high school curriculum, it will only make students hate programming. "

I'm a bit of touch at 41, but are you sure that it isn't already available as an elective for students? Perhaps you meant making it mandatory, which I agree would probably not be very productive.

I took programming in High School, but back then it was all using BASIC. We learned the concepts of variables, memory, loops, and even simple algorithms. And if we finished our homework ahead of the rest of the class, we got to play games. Quite the motivating factor for me at the time.

ColinWright3• 15 years ago

  > Just look at math.
  > Programming is even harder;

Wow. There's someone who has a substantially different idea from mine as to what constitutes math, what constitutes programming, and what constitutes "hard."

  > ... chances are if you're a programmer you're
  > not really likely to become a high school teacher.

Ditto mathematician. Most high school teachers I know of who are teaching math have no idea what math is really about.

  > Conversely most high school teachers will not
  > know how to program.

So, no different from math, then.

hasenj2• 15 years ago

Programming is harder to break into a set of rules and formulas that you can just apply to an artificially constructed problem.

You just can't "fake" it. You either get it, or you don't.

Most high school teachers won't "get" it.

> Ditto mathematician. Most high school teachers I know of who are teaching math have no idea what math is really a

I know, but they can fake it, because the curriculum is designed as a set of rules that must be learned.

> So, no different from math, then.

The difference is that programming cannot be taught as a set of rules that must be learned and then applied without much understanding.

wizard_2• 15 years ago

I had computer science and electrical engineering in my high school, they taught the CS majors c++ and the EE majors do networking (what was then the ccna) and both of us got digital logic. I was an EE who loved both, I'm very very happy I had this available to me. So were most of my friends. It was the first kind of classes where we could be good at it and see a purpose.

FrojoS2• 15 years ago

Oh boy, this reminds me so much of One Laptop Per Child (OLPC). Almost every geek cries out "I want this thing now and play around with it." But the inventor is like "No, no, its all for the kids. You can't have it."

The OLPC Hardware could have been a huge commercial success if it had been gone into production soon after the orignal presentation. But no, it needed Acer and their EEE-PC to satisfy that demand.

Why develop a "universal purpose something" specifically for children? You're not a child anymore so its way easier to build something YOU want than imagine what exactly a child wants or needs. In fact, I'm sure this guy wants the USB-PC more than anyone else on the planet. Also, if you mass produce you bring down prices anyway.

But most important, everyone knows what children want in general: They want to be just like their adult idols! Don't tell kids: "This is for you. I wish I had it when I was a kid. Now, have fun, while daddy works on his Mac."

woadwarrior01• 15 years ago

EEE PC was from Asus, not Acer.

FrojoS2• 15 years ago

Thanks! The two names always confuse me. Owning two Acer EEE PC didn't help ;-)

tropin2• 15 years ago

What makes this dupe from yesterday (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2517136) much more interesting today? It features even the same pictures.

ColinWright3• 15 years ago

Earlier submission, much discussion:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2517136

I honestly don't see how this is gong to encourage people, especially kids, to further wonder about how computers work, and what actually happens. It's smaller, and if anything even less accessible than a desktop machine.

I learned about computers and computing by building my own from a Z80, 8KB RAM, 8KB ROM, random logic, etching my own circuit board and soldering the components and sockets in place.

Should kids do that these days? Would it help?

anti_veeranna• 15 years ago

Very nice, but when do we finally get a new version of Elite/Frontier type of game? :)

jonty• 15 years ago

I dropped them an email with some questions:

    > 1) How long do you think it will be before the boards become available?

    I'd say three or four months. As you can see from the screenshots, we
    have usable Linux, but we're waiting to get final versions of the the
    chip from our supplier.

    > 2) Are there any plans for a version with onboard ethernet?

    I don't think we're likely to do onboard Ethernet; we will have an
    onboard 3-port USB hub so people can add an external adapter.

    > 3) Are there any plans for a version with onboard wifi?

    Yes. The final version (though maybe not the first distributables)
    will have onboard WiFi (probably 802.11n) in the price point.

    > 4) What are the power requirements, both under load and at rest?

    At rest I'd say 50mW (we could trim this if it was really important,
    but it gets a bit fiddly below this point), under serious load
    (original XBox class graphics or 1080p30 H.264), 700mW.

I'm looking at this as a replacement for the Bifferboards [1] I often use in projects, they're similarly priced (£35), but significantly lower specification.

[1] http://bifferos.bizhat.com/

angusgr11• 15 years ago

At rest I'd say 50mW (we could trim this if it was really important, but it gets a bit fiddly below this point), under serious load (original XBox class graphics or 1080p30 H.264), 700mW.

I wonder if this means you actually can power it from HDMI's 5V pin (which is limited to 50mA ie 250mW) for some uses?

tluyben2• 15 years ago

Sorry, but how does this teach kids how computers work? What you do is educate them about boolean algebra, then explain how different boolean components can be bought in a microchip. After that you explain how large combinations of those make up something which can process 0's and 1's and thus (which they should already know by then) strings of 0's and 1's.

The brighter kids will already start trying to make something 'work' out of that. You continue further about how a CPU works, completely in the language of boolean components. And then they get to design and build one themselves.

That will really teach and show them there is no magic and how it works. Even with the insanely small and complex systems you have now, you can rest assure that in the core they are basically just like the one you made when you were in school. This kind of practical way of working with hardware (even simulated), gives a lot more pleasure and teaches kids computer hardware design, cpu design, microcodes, assembly and tons more.

I was taught from 'Micro computers' by A.J. Dirksen (ISBN 9789021015934); it (+ the teacher) gave me enough insight to quickly learn Z80 assembler, 68k assembler and add / replace hardware on my '80s computers.

EDIT: I forgot; it would be really stupid to not release this to the masses. Everyone wants one, but only the kids can it; I agree with the rest here; that makes no business sense. Charities are businesses too.

jamesgeck0• 15 years ago

This is neat. Now we need some Linux environments for kids to make cool stuff. LÖVE [1] is a neat Lua-powered game development library, but it's fairly source-code oriented, which may be a barrier for some kids. When I first learned programming, Game Maker [2] was extremely useful. It had a drag-and-drop GUI which was easy enough to mess around with until figuring out how to do things in it's built-in (and extremely forgiving) programming language.

1. http://love2d.org/

2. http://www.yoyogames.com/gamemaker

cicero2• 15 years ago

I've used Greenfoot [1], BlueJ [2] and Processing [3] successfully with High School kids, and they all run on Linux. Squeak Smalltalk [4] is another possibility. I've had pretty good luck with Game Maker, but have not tried LÖVE.

1. http://www.greenfoot.org/ 2. http://bluej.org/ 3. http://processing.org/ 4. http://www.squeak.org/

inoop• 15 years ago

This is a $100 mobile phone without the baseband, WiFi, Bluetooth, screen, casing, battery, sensors, buttons, microphone, and speaker. I guess $25 sounds about right.

phlux• 15 years ago

I would like to see some other concepts taught using these devices. Specifically clustering, meshing, cloud etc.

You get a bunch of these devices and arrange them into a cluster/cloud of nano-nodes and teach kids (teens) how to setup clusters of webservers, memcache, micro-dbs etc.

You effectively use the devices to teach large technical infrastructure with tiny physical representations.

Here is how I would do it:

I would whiteboard out a network diagram showing the different layers of tech infrastructure in contemporary cloud designs.

Draw the nodes and connections.

Define the role of nodes in each layer:

Firewall, load balancer, web server, memcache, app server, db server

Then do a micro-config for each of these and run them on the little buggers.

Get velcro tape and tape them onto the diagram in the appropriate location.

Physically wire them all together.

Have it run a website that the students build.

Run analytics...

This would be the ultimate in showing them how The Tubes actually provide them with the data they view every day.

By drawing this, then physically attaching the units to the diagram and running it there will be ZERO confusion and I guarantee that every student will grok the internet more fully.

The thing does not need to be high performance - but it does need to be fault tolerant.

Have the students pull devices out while its running and they are watching monitoring. Have some subjectively F5-ing the little site they made while you drop a few nodes.

Hell, I am ready to do this... anyone want to help me get some of these devices/similar devices?

kleiba• 15 years ago

So is this really a "PC" as the headline claims as in IBM-compatible?

The computer will apparently be able to have network access, presumably wireless, and enough storage to run standard desktop software.

Oh, well, as long as it runs Emacs... ;-)

CCPancakes2• 15 years ago

I don't see how this PC works. How do I plug it to a monitor, keyboard, mouse, and outlet?

Even if the PC only costs $25, will schools have to buy extra equipment to allow use of the above accessories?

burgerbrain2• 15 years ago

Did you look at the images? It has use and hdmi.

CCPancakes2• 15 years ago

I did look at the images, and I already figured out that this $25 computer has USB and HDMI outputs.

I don't see how most keyboards, mouses, and monitors will be able to connect to it.

This device has one USB output. A mouse and keyboard will need one USB output each, so to use this $25 computer you need to buy an additional device that allows the connectivity of multiple accessories. Not all keyboards and mouses connect via USB, so some users will have to buy new keyboards and mouses just to use this "cheap" computer.

And not all monitors will be able to connect via HTMI. Users with another kind of monitor will need to buy some additional technology that allows these other monitors to plug into the $25 computer.

So how do I connect my equipment into this computer? It's not obvious just by looking at the picture.

7952• 15 years ago

It would be better to give away cheap feature phones and a pair of headphones. Connectivity and content is more important than the size of the display. Even a system that can only do audio would be an amazing educational tool with the right content. An mp3 of a story or a lesson is content rich, a small file, and very cheap to play.

Game developer David Braben creates a USB stick PC for $25

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