it never shipped as more than a concept because... right, exactly. As far as the human energy cost not mattering i think you misread that, unless you are not

it never shipped as more than a concept because... right, exactly. As far as the human energy cost not mattering i think you misread that, unless you are not responding to me. what i am saying is that the human energy of poor people is no different than the human energy of wealthy ones, so the argument that poor people in particular would not have the energy to use a hand crank is nonsense, because, as you rightly say, turning a handcrank is exhausting, but it is exhausting for everyone. (and i know that from experience. we used to mill our own flour with a handcrank) bike pedal mechanisms for electricity have been spotted in some OLPC deployments, as far as i remember. but a laptop is not the only thing using electricity, so if pedal mechanisms are a good idea, i'd expect to see them more often. my impression is that they are only good as a last resort, when better options are not available.