2 ms·
> OLPC was also ruggedised, had replaceable parts and had things like crank charging for areas with no/little power, it was a well thought out machine all aroun
by robinsoh 5y ago
> OLPC was also ruggedised, had replaceable parts and had things like crank charging for areas with no/little power, it was a well thought out machine all around
No, it did not. The crank charger was never supplied commercially, it was purely a marketing tactic. Same as the Potenco Pull-cord generator http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Peripherals/Hand_Crank http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Peripherals/Hand_Crank , http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Peripherals/YoYo http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Peripherals/YoYo
Both were ideas which even basic calculations tell you aren't viable.
In addition, your other claims like "ruggedised", "replaceable parts" contradict what I saw with OLPC XO. I would say the product was a one-off that had almost no consideration for long term reuse. Things like the wifi bunny ears prove that the product was driven more by marketing tacticians rather than reality and cost. Honestly, my opinion is that OLPC was a huge scam to take money from unwitting unsophisticated developing country funders who didn't know any better and waste it in swanky offices in One Cambridge. It was one of the worst options about how to expend public funds.
- redis_mlc 5y ago> OLPC was a huge scam I would call it a pipe dream to inflate the status of Negroponte. Since children and education were involved, that's worse than a scam. People who focus on OLPC hand-chargers simply can't see the forest for the trees - the OLPC was a piece of junk with no educational software. The OLPC was an effort to make a new general-purpose computer platform, whereas a sane plan was to write educational software first. http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Our_software http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Our_software Even today parents' groups focus on getting computer hardware into schools, without regard for educational software. They end up being a 2021-version typewriter class. Apparently 600,000 OLPCs were distributed - I'm curious about any educational results, beyond e-waste.