How Cheap Can A PC Be? 1152
geoff lane writes "Ballmer wants a $100 computer. OK, can we build a reasonable PC for just $100 and a copy of Linux? The rules are: It's assumed that a monitor, keyboard and mouse are already available. Ethernet connectivity must be provided. All components must already have Linux support. All components must be new and currently available. The result must be electrically safe for the home. Is it possible?"
the Xbox (Score:5, Funny)
Re:the Xbox (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:the Xbox (Score:5, Informative)
looks pretty cool, and prolly fulfils the reqs for this article
Re:the Xbox (Score:4, Informative)
Re:the Xbox (Score:5, Informative)
Re:the Xbox (Score:3, Interesting)
- Yolego
Re:the Xbox (Score:4, Informative)
that's without windows (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:that's without windows (Score:3, Insightful)
They don't cost much more than $100 for the consumer, but thats because Microsoft is losing money selling them for that price. They rely on revenue from the games to recoop the cost. What Ballmer was talking about was a heavily government subsidized computer. He isn't interested in selling the hardware, only the stripped down version of XP to go with it.
Sacrifice hardware for the good of software? (Score:5, Insightful)
Perhaps Windows should be cheaper to support high hardware prices. Cheaper software might also reduce piracy since the it would be more affordable.
Re:Sacrifice hardware for the good of software? (Score:5, Insightful)
I for one would much rather spend my money on hardware then software. $100-200 for a piece of software is rather pricey. When I'm looking at pieces of software and seeing prices over $60, I get a bit suspicious. A boxed copy of Nero Burning rom cost $100, Intervideo's WinDVR is $80, and ever tried pricing a piece of data recovery software? The prices are so absurd you'd think they were just joking.
It's really weird. My secondary computer is a gentoo box, and installing software is as simple as "emerge _______." I don't even have to pay anybody.
Re:Sacrifice hardware for the good of software? (Score:4, Informative)
Have you priced Office 2003 lately? Absolutely REDICULOUS pricing model MS has.
Re:Sacrifice hardware for the good of software? (Score:4, Insightful)
Flawed but understandable reasoning.
Re:Sacrifice hardware for the good of software? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Sacrifice hardware for the good of software? (Score:4, Interesting)
And it includes a pretty good spell checker.
Re:Sacrifice hardware for the good of software? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Sacrifice hardware for the good of software? (Score:4, Insightful)
Is it fair to the guy who pays full retail price because he's honest?
Is it fair to the teacher in a developing country who gets less than US$50 a month in salary?
Re:Sacrifice hardware for the good of software? (Score:5, Funny)
But Office 2003 comes with a spellchecker. Could be the best investment you've ever made.
Re:Sacrifice hardware for the good of software? (Score:5, Funny)
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Sacrifice hardware for the good of software? (Score:5, Funny)
You clearly don't understand economics. Hardware is like a public good -- you have to pay a certain amount upfront to design and build the hardware, but then the cost for helping each user becomes trivial. The marginal cost of hardware marketing is so low that the hardware makers are really price-gouging by charging us $1000 for a PC.
By contrast, software (like MS Windows) has to be carefully customized for your hardware. Adding a 128mb DIMM? Well, then Bill Gates is gonna have to recompile the user interface. Want to move the mouse across the screen? Bill will have to manually edit the binary codes in your kernel. Of course, no two users have the same amount of memory. And all these things like moving the mouse or typing or sending an IP packet... this is what makes the user experience unique. So Bill's work for one user doesn't help any of the other users. That's a lot of stress for Bill, and it naturally keeps the marginal cost of software very high.
So, I ask: why are PC's so expensive? How can we reduce the cost and get PC's to poor people? The software cost reflects a labor-intensive process, and it can't be reduced. Hardware is a public good, so the expense must come from price-gouging by the hardware makers. Therefore, to enable the poor people of the world to catch up with current technolgy, we must tell those over-priced Taiwanese hardware makers to stop ripping us off. (Why, I even heard that FIC makes more than $1 profit off each motherboard. That's outrageous!)
Maybe you should read an economics textbook.
Reasonable Computer (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Reasonable Computer (Score:5, Informative)
*Typing this on a 21 inch monitor he bought at North Dakota State Surplus for $20*
Re:Reasonable Computer (Score:5, Funny)
I tend to find that monitors are better off as displays, rather than input devices..
Re:Computers are FREE (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Computers are FREE (Score:5, Insightful)
I bought one (Score:4, Informative)
Dump... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Dump... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Dump... (Score:3, Funny)
Or use it to operate your flight simulator [slashdot.org]
Re:Dump... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Dump... (Score:5, Interesting)
With this you can throw together a linux router on the cheap, like you said: $0.00. With the free software and hardware we put together Cisco 2600 comparable routers for free, MP3 servers and have created various other uses.
We even got a Mac G3 once.
We plan on moving our operation over to a ricer part of towns dumps to see what we can find.
Re:Dump... (Score:4, Interesting)
Assuming $1/W/yr (which seems pretty reasonable), and assuming it uses 75W, 24/7, that's $75/year. Or you could get a $15 linksys router which would do it all nearly, and pay $10/yr in power...
Re:Dump... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Dump... (Score:5, Insightful)
Reminds me of the joke about the mexican and working to buy a bigger boat:
The American investment banker was at the pier of a small coastal Mexican village when a small boat with just one fisherman docked. Inside the small boat were several large yellow fin tuna. The American complimented the Mexican on the quality of his fish and asked how long it took to catch them.
The Mexican replied, "Only a little while."
The American then asked, "Why didn't you stay out longer and catch more fish?"
The Mexican said, "With this I have more than enough to support my family's needs."
The American then asked, "But what do you do with the rest of your time?"
The Mexican fisherman said, "I sleep late, fish a little, play with my children, take siesta with my wife, Maria, stroll into the village each evening where I sip wine and play guitar with my amigos, I have a full and busy life."
The American scoffed, "I am a Harvard MBA and could help you. You should spend more time fishing; and with the proceeds, buy a bigger boat: With the proceeds from the bigger boat you could buy several boats. Eventually you would have a fleet of fishing boats. Instead of selling your catch to a middleman you would sell directly to the processor; eventually opening your own cannery. You would control the product, processing and distribution. You would need to leave this small coastal fishing village and move to Mexico City, then Los Angeles and eventually New York where you will run your ever-expanding enterprise."
The Mexican fisherman asked, "But, how long will this all take?"
To which the American replied, "15 to 20 years."
"But what then?" asked the Mexican. The American laughed and said that's the best part.
"When the time is right you would announce an IPO and sell your company stock to the public and become very rich, you would make millions." "Millions?...Then what?" The American said, "Then you would retire. Move to a small coastal fishing village where you would sleep late, fish a little, play with your kids, take siesta with your wife, stroll to the village in the evenings where you could sip wine and play your guitar with your amigos."
Comment removed (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Absolutely (Score:5, Insightful)
Absolutely; They're sold by a company named "used".
Seriously though, do we really need a $100 disposible pc when there are so many functional used machines stacking up in corporate closets?
-Chris
Re:Absolutely (Score:5, Insightful)
2) To answer your question, it's a matter of labor costs. To make those corporate used machines usable, they need to be checked (half probably have at least one part broken), disks erased and a new OS installed. Once you consider the laber involved in doing this, it's not quite so cheap. To make matters worse, even if all the computers came from the same office, odds are good that each one is different from the others. Yes, a company may get the same box for every employee, but over time the favored boxes change, and so the back room is full of all kinds of old boxes. And let's hope these old boxes have enough RAM -- because buying old RAM for old boxes will cost more than an entire new box, including new RAM.
I've generally upgraded my PCs as time went on, part by part, and the old parts would accumulate in the garage. Occasionally, I'd take the old parts, and put together a PC for the relatives or friends who needed one. This worked, but I spent many many hours on it, often rememebering after many hours of frustration why I replaced that piece of hardware out -- because it was flakey! (yes, I do try to label things, but it does slip through the cracks.) And then once I gave it out, I had to support it. I may not do Windows very often, and maybe I didn't even put Windows on the machine at all, but often they end up with Windows, and so I end up supporting that.
Ultimately, it turned out to be not worth it. Now I just give stuff to Goodwill -- somebody else can deal with it. If I want my relative to have a computer, I'll give them $200 and let them buy one from Frys, already built. They even come with some tech support :) (Now, maybe if they're my favorite uncle or something, I might set them up with a computer. But I'll probably buy many of the parts news, just because it's easier than dealing with my old stuff.)
Re:Absolutely (Score:3, Informative)
non "disposable" doesn't mean that it lasts forever. "disposable" means that if it breaks you throw it away and buy another one. If my $4000 server breaks in a year....you can bet I'm not going to throw it away. If my $100 computer breaks in a year.....then it may not be worth the hastle of having it fixed.
easy (Score:4, Informative)
Get a 486 for $20. eg -
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&cat
Install;
http://www.ipt.ntnu.no/~knutb/linux486/linux486.h
Re:easy (Score:3)
My 8 year old pc runs W2K, in your face! (Score:5, Insightful)
Let's try here... (Score:5, Informative)
Case: MGE ATX case w/350W PSU $10 (one day special) (http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?de
Mobo: PC Chips Socket A mobo $26 (http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?de
CPU: Athlon 1.33GHz $41 (http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?de
RAM: Rosewill 128MB DDR $21 (http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?de
HDD: Maxtor 40GB $45.50 (one day special) (http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?de
We'll stop it here. We're using SHIT components, and we've got $143.50, without shipping, IDE cables, CD-ROM drive, etc., etc., and using one day specials.
It's possible, but not DIY.
Pah, you're wasting money. (Score:5, Funny)
$21 Rosewill 184-Pin 128MB DDR PC-3200, Model RW400/128 - Retail [newegg.com]
$26 PCChips "M811LU" KT266A Chipset Motherboard for AMD Socket A CPU -RETAIL [newegg.com]
$10.75 POWMAX 320W Power Supply for Intel and AMD systems Model "VP-320ATX" -RETAIL [newegg.com]
$41 AMD Athlon 1.33 GHz, 266MHz FSB, 256K Cache Processor - OEM [newegg.com]
Total: $98.75
Quick notes, I didn't buy a case so don't step on it. Also, I didn't buy a heatsink or fan so it'll only run for about 12 seconds. Also, you need to boot off the lan. Also, you won't be able to see anything, and not because the processor poofed, but also it has no video card.
For full good system, I did it once for about 220 bucks. Harddrives and cases pah! Who needs them. My system will turn on for $98.75!
Re:Let's try here... (Score:5, Informative)
32MB DDR RAM? WTF? DDR won't work on that board, I'm sure!
Also, this'll be USED components. That won't work. This needs to be all NEW components.
Re:Let's try here... (Score:4, Insightful)
32MB of RAM? Are you *kidding* me? Even my minimal setup (X.Org + Fluxbox 0.9 + Firefox 1.0 + rxvt) is using 221MB as reported by free, with one instance of each running. (Not counting caches, buffers, etc). I'd consider 256MB the bare mimumum, MAYBE 192 in an emergency, but X alone uses 59MB. 32MB might have been enough to run XFree 3.x and fvwm or windowmaker, but it just doesn't come close for even a semi-modern desktop.
(I'm running Slackware 10.0 btw)
Newegg shopping (Score:4, Interesting)
$41 - AMD Athlon 1.33 GHz, 266MHz FSB, 256K Cache Processor - OEM
$10.75 - POWMAX 320W Power Supply for Intel and AMD systems Model "VP-320ATX"
$14.50 - Artec Black 56X CDROM, Model CHM-56, Retail
= $102.25, ignoring hard drive or anything else.
So no, probably not.
cheap harddrive (Score:3, Informative)
How valuable is your data and your time to keep good timely backups?
Hedley
Ok this kinda bothers me. (Score:5, Insightful)
Now an open letter to Ballmer
Ballmer
Shouldn't people in the lower end of the population spend their money on something a little more worthwhile then a computer.
Maybe just maybe they could spend that money on their family Before purchasing such a luxury item as a computer. Of course I am not going to be naive and say they don't need a computer for some reason. But to say that I want money from the lower end of the China/India population is selfish, Specially when they have better things to spend it on..
I don't do business with your company on those rash comments. I get by without using your software. Sorry if you feel that I am not being fare.
Not saying I haven't pirated your software before, instead of attacking me you're attacking someone who couldn't even pay you if they wanted to is just harsh. Oh and by the way I used your software to learn about and then go into computers so in a indirect way your company benefitted from it.. So the very thing that you are against has kept your company afloat, by customer awareness.
I no longer use any pirated software from your company. I get by with alternate platforms (Mac, Linux)
Daniel
Not for under $200 (Score:4, Interesting)
power supply motherboard
CPU
CPU fan
CD drive
RAM
hard drive
case
You can get cheap motherboards with attached video/sound/LAN. You can technically build the PC without a floppy drive or CD/DVD burner to save more money. Looking for the lowest prices around (via Froogle), for new parts, you'll find:
motherboard-- Asus A7V8X-X, $48
CPU-- AMD Sempron 2200, $45
CPU fan-- Anything, $5
CD drive-- $15
RAM-- DDR-266 256 MB PC-2100, $40
hard drive-- Samsung 40GB HDD, $45
case-- $29, includes 300W power supply
Grand total: $227 (not including tax/shipping/hassle of ordering from a bunch of places)
Some stores, depending upon where you live, have some really decent deals on packaged systems. I'm in San Diego, and my favorite Chips and Memory [chipsandmemory.com] (yes, I hate their frames too), has a nice package for $239. [chipsandmemory.com]
AMD Sempron 2200
256MB RAM
80GB Hard Drive(7200RPM)
52X CD-RW
Onboard AGP (Up to 32 MB) and Sound & Game Adapter
Built-in LAN and Fax/Modem Module
52X CDRW (Yes CDRW Included)
1.44MB Floppy Disk Drive
Med Tower ATX Case, 300W UL/CE approved ATX power supply
1 Year Parts and Labor Warranty
To get the price lower, you'll need a used hard drive, CPU, memory, or motherboard. Then you might squeeze in closer to $150.
Re: No (Score:3, Insightful)
No, it cannot be done at todays day in age, unless you want a really bad computer. I mean, what do you want to do with the computer, just be able to turn it on? Cause thats all you will be able to do with 100 dollars. Even for word processing, you will need a decent size ram, hard drive, motherboard, ethernet port, case. That alone is already at 200 dollars.
You don't need decent size ram, a super large hard drive or an ethernet port for word processing.... unless by word processing you mean Microsoft Office. I remember a great word processor called MultiScribe from BeagleWorks for the Apple IIc that did everything that 95% of the public use Word for. Sure.... it was on a 5 1/4 disk that you had to flip over whenever you wanted to spell-check but it was fast and didn't have Clippy.
But he'll want one that can run Longhorn (Score:5, Insightful)
Linksys shows it can be done (Score:5, Insightful)
Replace WiFi with a simple VGA controller and give it a couple of USB ports and a little more flash instead of the hub and you would end up, at roughly the same price, with a usable personal computer that could run a light X11 desktop and some useful apps (browser, word processor, etc.). If you add a CF slot, people even have removable storage.
Another choice is the standalone file server appliance, also for under $100 AFAIK; it already has the USB port and also runs Linux.
And some of the game consoles also show it can be done, if you get the volume high enough.
Right now, can't be done... (Score:3, Interesting)
DIY computers got more expensive than bargain-basement Dell boxen about 2 years ago...I bought the Dell that I'm typing this on for about $300 shipped with a monitor and a copy of XP. I did it through a deal on Ben's Bargains [bensbargains.net] when I realized I couldn't build my own system for less than the price of the Dell. Now, my gaming system is homebrew, and I have plenty of homebrew systems around, but those are mostly application-specific (a music jukebox machine, a server, a game emulation machine) and a labor of love rather than practical "do-it-all" cheapie boxen.
If you want a PC for less than $100, your only option right now is really to head on over to Craig's List [craigslist.org] and find somebody who needs to get rid of their old Compaq for $50. In that sense, the sub-100-dollar PC is possible, but it's still a loss-leader for the guy who's selling his $2000 system for a fraction of the cost when new.
Now, could it BE done? Is it POSSIBLE? Of course. But, again, only by a company like Dell or IBM or whoever can afford to buy old Duron chips by the truckload and stick 'em into bargain-basement mobos for inclusion into home computing applicances. It will happen at some point. It just hasn't happened quite yet.
Balmer (Score:5, Funny)
You would think he would be able to afford something better then that...Microsoft having problems?
Hmm, not really (Score:3, Insightful)
Just to prove the point, how many MBs do you know that are under $50? How many CPUs? I managed to find a new athlon 2000+ combo for $80, but even there I was having to get special deals (pcboost.com).
A search on pricewatch returned a duron 950 for under $100, but actually going to the website showed that 'targetpcinc.com' was out of the 950 and had replaced it with a duron 1200, raising the price to $107. Not only that, but the system had no ram and no HDD. Ram starts at $18, a HDD is $40. So I can barely get a machine for $17. And if you've ever tried installing linux with no floppy and no CD, you know how 'desirable' a CD reader is. That would bring the machine to $190. Throw in a keyboard and mouse and you should just avoid breaking $200. Oh, plus shipping and sales tax.
I accept that a huge OEM would be able to get better prices. But twice as good and I start smelling fish...
Trying to answer the question that was asked... (Score:5, Insightful)
Some other comments have focused on whether what Balmer said was reasonable. Interesting topic, but that isn't the question either.
Some other comments have said, "Yes, get a used one." That still isn't the question.
The question is: Could we spec out a PC that, in volume, could sell for $100 and run Linux?
An interesting twist on the question: Can we consider it "a PC" (for purposes of this question) if it doesn't have an Intel-compatible processor? Say, a StrongARM CPU? (Note that the criterion was that it run Linux; well, Linux runs on a wide variety of CPUs.)
Re:Trying to answer the question that was asked... (Score:5, Insightful)
Except that the purpose of the hardware is to run the software. It's not "We have the hardware, now what are we going to run on it?", it's more like "What do I have to buy to get NNN?".
The intellectual property is not an afterthought - it's the central point. Case in point - at numerous points in the past (including the present) you can/could buy hardware far better designed for day-to-day use than the X86. But, the X86 reigns supreme.
Intel has twice tried to shift away from X86 towards other hardware with numerous benefits over x86, only to bomb twice, despite massive advertisement, promotion, and spending.
Why, you might ask?
Oh, because those other platforms did a sucky job running software developed on x86. That Intellectual Property is what counts! Without it, the hardware is worth next to nothing!
What's wrong with you geeks? (Score:5, Insightful)
A 400Mhz machine, even a 166Mhz machine is suffice to run lots of stuff...
Face it, we all use to use them...
A 400 Mhz machine with 128mb RAM is quite a lot of machine for what the average person wants it for:
1. Word processing
2. Calculator
3. Web browser
4. Lousy paint program
A majority of cycles are wasted with the user sitting there..
Here's an old Dell that meets your lofty needs
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewIte
For $200 you could get the keyboard, mouse and LCD monitor all in the nice form of a portable computer. Be it 500Mhz or so, Linux will run just fine.
What the hell does everyone need a 1Ghz or 2Ghz spec'd machine for? It produces tons of heat, typically noise too and eats up tons of electric with that huge power supply you all want...
flawed question (Score:5, Insightful)
Its great to ask this question, and I'm all for cheap hardware. But...given that hardware must be manufactured, consume raw materials etc. I would expect that the floor cost for hardware should _never_ go as low as the floor cost of software - especially after you get past some R&D point for both.
Can you say "monopoly"? It seems much clearer to me that software ought to have some fully commodified components and that the OS ought to be that component. Given that the world of software has (intelligently) landed on layered architectures, we'd expect to be spending money at the higher layers and have ever increasing commodification at the lower layers. Again...can you say monopoly?
Now...I"m not arguing that hardware should NOT fall under this rule, but....well....some costs associated with hardware are a given, and those costs will forever be higher than the "given" costs of software.
Just my 2cents.
Reading the Article (Score:3, Insightful)
let me acutally RTFriggin'A
There has to be...a $100 computer to go down-market in some of these countries. We have to engineer (PCs) to be lighter and cheaper,
sounds like the auto industry's way of stifling inovation to squeeze profits.
Ballmer said piracy of Microsoft's Windows and Office software in emerging markets has become a major concern for the software giant, especially among business users who can afford to pay for software.
i've always wondered. why would you want to pay for software over a programmer? Because It's cheaper, it's easier. But is it better?
Cheaper and Easier isn't always Better. (cheapest and really hard can be very good, I think you'll agree
"PCs are not selling to the lower end of the population in China and India. People buying machines there are relatively affluent. So...should the prices be lower? Not really. Until government and situational factors reduce piracy...those people...don't pay," Ballmer said.
Oh, they'll pay alright. one day, I'll make THEM PAY!!!! ahahahaha!!
Balmer didn't say that, I did.
But lower prices have become part of Microsoft's strategy for gaining market share in developing nations. In recent months, the software maker has announced plans to introduce low-cost "starter editions" of Windows XP into countries including India, Russia and Thailand. These versions will be bundled only with entry-level PCs and will not be available for retail sale.
are these guys friggin wizards of FUD or what!? Starter editions? What is redmond up to? I'm sure at the end thier intents are purely alrtuistic. But don't be suprised if the new office assitant is the Hypnotoad!
The Microsoft CEO bristled at the suggestion that Linux is gaining in popularity as a client operating system at the expense of Windows. "There's no appreciable amount of Linux on client systems anywhere in the world," he said.
how do you refute that? Maybe with that classic example of car companies looking out thier windows and seeing only american cars. Thus they think that there will only be american cars.
Just out of curiosity, do you think that microsoft actively pokes and prods linux for security holes? It would make sense wouldn't it?
Ballmer said that some governments have decided against using Linux after studying the costs involved. "You can sit here and read the drama stories and assume they are true. Paris said Linux was dramatically more expensive than Windows. In...Brazil, it's the same thing."
so france surrendered to microsoft, so what's new?
P.S. JK! I like the french! Thank you Fermat!
One exception is the city of Munich, Germany, which is planning a widespread Linux installation, Ballmer admitted. "Yes, we lost the city of Munich. But the fact that the same story gets told 65,000 times, and they are still diddling around to some degree...come on, where's the evidence?"
sure its possible... (Score:5, Interesting)
Its all about a small and efficient OS to bring life back to old hardware. Neither of which linux or windows is.
And it even has standardized user friendly level IPC, of which neither windows or linux yet has.
But AROS is currently lacking developers contributing to it.... and it is FOSS...
$112 Or bust. (Score:5, Informative)
$18 - Celeron 700MHz 66MHz 128K FCPGA CPU OEM (socket 370)
$25 - ASUS MEW-AM Mainboard Socket 370 supporting Intel Celeron 300~533+ Onboard sound/video
$40 - 1 512mb Stick of PC100 Ram $58 if 2 256mb sticks are required.
$3 - Encore - 10/100 VIA Chipset NIC
$24 - COMP-USA ATX Case w 250W Power Supply.
$2 - Generic heatsink
Total = $112
I thought it important to load up on the RAM as compensation for the trailing edge CPU. Granted, you won't be playing Doom 3 on this machine, but it'll do most anything you want in terms of office support, though I'm not entirely sure how linux compatible the hardware is. Still, a decent machine. Prices include shipping, unless I missed something.
All prices courtesy of Pricewatch.com
Cheap PC, or more efficient setup? (Score:5, Interesting)
It's interesting the way a lot of these threads are going here. A lot of what I'm seeing is, "Well, if you just need a word processor, then..." This makes me wonder if we should be focusing some effort in a slightly different place.
Maybe what we need is an operating system that "just does" word processing, web surfing, and e-mail. It would be a bit of a throwback to the old days of typewriters and workstations, but was that era really wrong?
Sun seems to be trying to encourage one mode of doing this - the blade terminal. But, I think there are a lot of companies who are very worried about taking such a big step toward this setup. Not only do you have to spend a bit of time getting the networking for that system right, but if you don't like it later, you suddenly have all of this hardware that is completely useless to you.
I think that if you could get the same setup running on the x86 machines that are already in place in most companies, and also show them how they could buy cheaper versions, that would still work perfectly if they ever chose to go back to their Windoze platform, then you would really have something killer.
I'm sure that there are now a few zealots screaming, "This is exactly what XYZ linux does!" I'd argue, though, that even linux in its current state is a bit more than what is needed. I'm really talking about a very non-general purpose machine that literally only does word-processing, web browsing, and e-mail. And, of course, the qualifier here is that it does these three exceptionally well and extremely intuitively. I think there are ways to start with a linux distro and write some extra application code to make this system happen, but it's not there yet.
Sigh, back to my current Windoze business life. Counting the hours until I can get home to my nice, debian-loaded UltraSPARC. :)
Re:This is easy. (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:This is easy. (Score:5, Interesting)
Honestly, if some inexpensive Taiwanese motherboard manufacturer wanted to, they could do a 1ghz C3 EPIA platform, and really cut it down. One IDE channel. No floppy, serial, parallel, or PS/2 ports. Kill IrDA support. Basically, give it only the following:
1x VGA
1x IDE
4x USB
1x audio line out
The CPU and RAM chips could be soldered onto the board. Bundle it with a cheap mass-market OEM hard drive, a case with a 40W power brick, and you've got a PC.
Rather than VIA, one could use Transmeta Crusoe or AMD Geode. This could be done for $100, but the margins would be razor-thin. Hell, I'd pay $100 for one of these sans hard drive with a smaller power supply -- I'm a big fan of LTSP.
Re:This is easy. (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem is that virtually none of this saves money.
Legacy support costs virtually nothing. The only expensive parts are the connectors (the interfaces are all integrated: if you want IDE at *all*, you basically get everything else) and you can just put them on a pin header if you want.
IrDA, serial, and PS/2 are all the same thing - parallel, floppy, and even IDE are usually supported on one chip. They're so cheap that there's no point not to put them on. For one thing, they're useful enough to the people testing the board that they earn their keep just that way.
The CPU and RAM chips could be soldered onto the board. Bundle it with a cheap mass-market OEM hard drive, a case with a 40W power brick, and you've got a PC.
RAM prices fluctuate too much for this to be succesful. CPU integration makes sense, although again, the price drops quickly enough for you to be left with a platform that's far overpriced in just a few months. Keep in mind, that's one of the main reasons you don't integrate the CPU and memory - price concerns.
For one thing, in the time it takes the system to get to market, the board will be a bit overpriced/underpowered for its price point. Systems that have socketed CPUs/memory are viable on the market for a long enough period for people to sell off their supplies.
The way you make a cheap motherboard is to only use the integrated peripherals in the southbridge, and then volume, volume, volume.
Re:This is easy. (Score:5, Interesting)
Fair enough about your statement with the RAM chips, although if bought in big enough batches, stuff like PC2100 DDR is already absurdly cheap and isn't fluctuating too much.
And yes, you do save on the connectors. If the volume is high enough, you can design a southbridge that doesn't have the legacy support. Or, you could go the route that nVidia went with the nForce3 -- no southbridge. Just one chipset with everything integrated. With no legacy stuff, that just means you need an ethernet MAC, and audio CODEC, IDE (or better, SATA -- fewer traces), video, memory controller, USB and FSB. That's it -- it can be a pretty small and cheap chip. Use PCI express for everything -- you only need like 16 rails -- 8 for the video, 2 for the SATA and 6 for the gigabit NIC. Or better yet -- no PCI type bus -- just have everything tightly integrated with local like nVidia does thier ethernet, and offer open-source drivers.
The board could also be small with no legacy stuff -- smaller than ITX form factor.
Re:This is easy. (Score:4, Insightful)
The Via systems with integrated CPU chips are more expensive than socketed counterparts, partially for the reasons I stated. They have to make them more expensive because they make less of them - they make less because their shelf life is shorter.
Note that there are two sets of Via integrated CPU boards - there's the Eden set, which exist for homebrew PVR and somewhat of the embedded system market. But they have a higher feature set - this justifies the fact that they're underpowered. There was also an older one which sold disastrously (Syntax is the only one I knew that actually sold it - the S8601MP and similars).
The point is that Via can't expect to sell them very cheap, because if they've got the CPU and memory integrated, then the product depreciates much faster than the board without an integrated CPU. It should also be noted that if you buy the chips in solderable packages, you're buying more specialty parts rather than commodity, though if you're the chip manufacturer, it's not such a big deal.
And yes, you do save on the connectors.
For a company which buys connectors in volume, you save nothing on connectors. Even when I've bought in very small volumes, I've been able to pull DB9s down to under $1 per. In the larger volumes, you can get it much cheaper. In fact, if you make things other than the motherboard, then they're virtually free, as it's just a fluid item. Unless you do it for space concerns, the cost of a DB9 is just too cheap to even bother not putting on. Which is, of course, why it still exists on most things.
One other thing is the fact that the LPC port is very useful for debugging and board testing/prep, as well as hardware monitoring. There's enough of a demand for low-cost motherboards that if you could save money by dropping the legacy ports, you would.
Even the several legacy-free motherboards have the legacy ports on the board.
The board could also be small with no legacy stuff -- smaller than ITX form factor.
You'd be better off, cost wise, sticking with the largest market - micro-ATX. Volume, volume, volume rules all.
If the volume is high enough, you can design a southbridge that doesn't have the legacy support.
That's the problem - it's not the volume that's important, it's the volume*margins - that is, the profit. If you're starting off by saying "this is going to be a super-cheap platform", your margins will start off being thin, and as the platform ages, either the demand falls off, or your margins get thinner as you drop the price. Now, half the problem is you still need to pay for the development cost.
I don't think you're going to see someone come out and design something like this to be cheap. It wouldn't become profitable. We're almost at the point where the commodity items are near that price point as it is.
Basically, I don't think you're going to shave much cost off from any of the methods you're suggesting. You might be able to get it started on a size argument, but I think the small form factor PCs have shown that that design can command a premium, and so they'll charge it.
One other concern that you do fail to note is that the smaller the motherboard, usually the more expensive its design, regardless of how simple it is - you simply crowd the design, and the routing becomes very, very complicated. I have no doubt that the nano-ITX boards took a few iterations to get the signal integrity reliable enough.
I think VIA might do it - but I think you'll see far more of a commodity PC than you would expect. If it's specialty, it's expensive - if it's commodity, you don't have to pay the development, and risk having stock without any demand.
Re:No (Score:5, Insightful)
A 100 dollar computer, hell a 50 dollar computer doesn't seem out of reach if it doesn't have to run all of today's windows and linux apps, but only has to be capable of running more svelte applications which do the same things.
Re:No (Score:5, Insightful)
We sell pentium 2 and 3 cpu computers to employees for $75 at my company when they get swapped out. These computers are able to run all modern business software, browsers and email. They just don't have the speed and snappiness that we are all used to. Everyone wants flat panels and small form factor PC's these days, so they just sell of these old computers and do some wacky accounting magic to write it off or depreciate it or god knows what.
New $100 computer? Only if you are a manufacturer. Used $100 computer? totally do-able.
Sounds like a Best Buy/Comp USA employee... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Sounds like a Best Buy/Comp USA employee... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Sounds like a Best Buy/Comp USA employee... (Score:4, Funny)
Salesman: Well, do you need a paperweight? 'Cause if you buy
that machine, that's all you're going to have, an
expensive paperweight.
Homer: Well, a paperweight would be nice, but what I really
need is a computer. How about that one? [points to
a second machine]
Salesman: That technology is three months old. Only suckers
buy out-of-date machines. You're not a sucker, are
you sir?
Homer: Heavens no!
Salesman: Oh good, because if you were, I'd have to ask you to
leave the store.
Homer: I just need something to receive email.
Salesman: [whistles] You'll need a top-of-the-line machine for
that. [shows Homer a top-of-the-budget machine]
That's the same computer astronauts use to do their
taxes.
Homer: I was an astronaut.
Salesman: Of course you were.
-- "The Computer Wore Menace Shoes"
% Homer looks at the price tag -- $5,000 -- and does a spit-take
% (first drinking a cup of coffee so he'll have something to spit).
% Assured by the sales man that this machine "is the best computer in
% the world and always will be," Homer agrees to the deal, running his
% deed through a scanner to take out his fifth mortgage.
%
% Homer drags his new toy home behind the car.
Homer: Hey Lisa! Check out my new computer!
Lisa: Dad! You shouldn't drag that around!
Homer: [laughs] That's right, top-of-the-line.
[the car hits large pothole, Homer bangs his head on the
roof of the car]
Stupid pothole. Don't worry, head. The computer will do
our thinking now.
You know, we did word processing before... (Score:3, Interesting)
Kids these days...
Re:You know, we did word processing before... (Score:5, Insightful)
Nowadays... we struggle to get decent performance out of machines THOUSANDS of times faster than those relics.
BTW I'm writing this on a P3-550, somewhat slower than the average of what's now found on the curb. (Methinks I need to look at a better class of curbside.
But I still use WP5.1 every day.
Re:You know, we did word processing before... (Score:4, Funny)
Re:You know, we did word processing before... (Score:5, Funny)
I remember an incident in 1981... (Score:5, Interesting)
...when I worked in a computer store in West Perth called Computer Choice, for a chappie by the name of Ed O'Connor-Smith. After watching him sell a computer, one friend of mine took to calling him Ed O'Conman-Smith which was a tad unfair even though he could indeed sell ice to eskimos or charm a starving baby away from the breast. He once sold a million-dollar mainframe on someone's petty cash.
Ed sold an Osborne 1 to a lady called Pauline Winter (no relation to the actress AFAIK) of Maritana Typing Services, of which I can find no trace on the Web. Pauline had a top-of-the-wozzer Olivetti electric typewriter which would do a steady 75 WPM and had a 16,000 keystroke typeahead buffer. She beat it. Easily.
The Osborne 1 scanned the keyboard in software in its spare time, using its (at the time) grunty 4MHz 8-bit Z80, with pretty much inevitable results. So Pauline brought it back.
Instead of refunding her, Ed upsold her to a KayPro II, which was built like a lab instrument and had a separate microcontroller in the keyboard and guaranteed 3-and-a-half-key rollover. And 400kB 5.25" floppies in place of the shiny new recently-doubled-in-size 192kB floppies in the Osborne, and a full 64kB of RAM in place of the Osborne's 48kB. Your keyboard probably has considerably more storage than everything in the Osborne added together. (-:
Pauline sat in the shop for a few days, using the Kaypro to make sure everything went well. Her typing was like rain on a tin roof, there was no way you could hear individual keystrokes, but the funniest part was watching WordStar.
WordStar is a little priority-driven time-sharing little universe of its own. It had an event loop decades before Bill knackered the one in OS/2. If it has time, it prints stuff. If it doesn't, it at least updates the display decorations. If it has no time for that, it keeps the current text looking good; and if not all of the current text, then the current line, followed by the lines above and below outwards towards the top and bottom of the display. And if not even the current line, it echoes the characters as you type them, and the last-ditch response is to just store the characters and echo nothing.
With Pauline at the keyboard, WordStar was able to echo two characters out of 3 if it was lucky. Printing happened for a few minutes some time after the start of coffee break, and for maybe 25 minutes of a half-hour lunch break, and for many hours after she'd finished for the day. She was typing at least as fast as a top-shelf Ricoh daisywheel could, and that's fast. She started with a blank data floppy every day (two drives, one for programs and one for data), and usually filled about 3/4 of a 400kB floppy by close of trade, so I'd guess that was a sustained 110-120 WPM.
Case? What Case? (Score:3, Funny)
Cases are for whimps! [g-news.ch] ;)
Re:Case? What Case? (Score:4, Interesting)
I was bored one day....
Re:No (Score:5, Interesting)
You may not be able to find a decent PC for $100 today but it won't be long until it will go for $100.
Not sure...lets see how close I can get. (Score:5, Informative)
First of all, no case. It'll work without one, so I'm not including it in my attempt. Given this, along with the fact that I'm using old, slow and therefore cooler processors, no cooling should be needed.
Second, I'm ignoring labor. If you can put Linux on your machine yourself, you can build it yourself.
Cheapest new CPU I could find was a PII-266 [pcprogress.com] for $6:
Compatible motherboard Intel 440BX [gearxs.com] for $10
Lets go with a good 64MB of ram. This one uses EDO [18004memory.com], which is $8.
Then we add a a 4MB AGP video card [aerocooler.com] for $6,
a sound card [dvcentury.com] for $6,
and a 10/100 LAN card [awedeals.com] for $4.
Power supply [pcgigs.com] for $14.
8x CDROM drive [matrixsurplus.com] for $9,
At this point, I might add that all of these things actually have free shipping in case you want to do this.
With the exception of power supplies, which are cheap, harddrives go bad the fastest, so people are always buying up the surplus ones. It makes it a lot harder to find old stock that hasn't been sold.
So I'd like to consider it separately. Right now we're at $63.
The cheapest harddrive I could find in 4 minutes of searching (about that for the other stuff) was a 20GB 7200 drive [gearxs.com] for $30 with shipping.
So...we're done at $93.
You might also have to buy an IDE cable. I was just hoping that the harddrive or the motherboard or the CDRom drive came with one.
Using this same procedure, you can probably get a case for about $20. Same low quality. But why bother with such cheap parts? Keep 'em in a shoebox.
Re:Cheap PC? (Score:3, Interesting)
Xbox port to USB converter - $8 x 2 = $16
Xbox off Ebay - $120 (seems to be average going price)
Xbox VGA box - $65
Renting MechAssault - $7 ? haven't rented in a while so I could be wrong here.
That makes it $208 and it assumes that the Xbox can be modded to boot Linux without buying a chip and you can find the right version of MechAssault.
Mind you, that's a hell of a lot closer than you'll get with almost anything else.
Re:Of course it is possible! (Score:3, Informative)
The embedded soundcard is an ac97, supported by the mainstream Linux kernel;
The ethernet chip is a sis900, also supported under the mainstream Linux kernel;
I don't know if the embeded video card is supported by X.org (XF86 did not support it 2 years ago), but if not, one can still stick with VESA;
Of course that I am talking about my board, which is nolonger on the site (the closest one I found there is this one [asrockamerica.com]).
Seriously, those boards are
Re:A computer for half the price of Windows? (Score:5, Interesting)
the problem, is you're talking about a 300MHZ Geode, and a 8GB HD, with 64MB RAM, and an integrated video/sound/ethernet.
but, it can be done, and it can be done "profitably"
Re:A computer for half the price of Windows? (Score:5, Informative)
The price point is expected to be $185, but that includes Windows CE embedded and cut down versions of Word, Excel, IE and Outlook.
Who knows what the price point would be if they had have used Embedded Linux, firefox and OO instead.
Why x86? (Score:4, Interesting)
Considering that the weight (if one could call it that) of WinCE is behind ARM, the use of WinCE for this product is pretty dopey.
These Geode tablets have been promoted since Nat Semi owned Geode (a few years back). Geode has pretty much gone nowhere and does not look like it will change. I'm quite suprised that AMD didn't rather put their effort into their MIPS device or license ARM and make an ARM device.
It is interesting to note that AMD is one of very few major CPU vendors that does not use ARM for their mobile/low-power 32-bit stuff.
Re:A computer for half the price of Windows? (Score:5, Interesting)
it runs slow as molasses on a Geode, and firefox is exceedingly slow to start up on the Geode, but runs "ok" once its up and running. If you give me an 800MHZ VIA, things work much more gooder.
OpenOffice? its a bloated piece of crap. work needs to be done on that front. I dont think that i can get it going in less than 256MB.
Re:Agree (Score:5, Interesting)
www.ikonpc.com [ikonpc.com]
or
www.tigerdirect.com [tigerdirect.com]
among many others
2) price lowest barebones case that comes *with* mobo, power supply, CPU
3) add hdd and one memory stick (as well as CD player if needed), do not add MS operating system, aftermarket software, video card, sound card, or other overpriced extras
4) pay between $120 and $150 with free shipping
5) recieve components and assemble your ultra low price computer (~2 year out of date)
6) ????
7) profit or something similar
Not quite at that $100 price point, but pretty close these days, and even closer if you are willing to pick slightly less recent CPU, mobo, and memory. And no, i am not an employee or in any way affiliated with these or other barebone PC manufacturers.
$100 PC... and some great old ideas (Score:5, Interesting)
- Why _load_ Firefox/OOffice when you can run it
in the ROM? It might run a bit slower, but the perceived responsiveness is often determined by application startup time.
- Why _boot_ a machine at all? I'm ok with developers' machines being booted, since they
stay up 27/7 anyway. But a consumer who wants
to check something on the Net or write a quick letter can't be bothered to go through a 3-minute boot cycle.
- Also, it can't hurt to modify the hardware slightly so that a LED indicates there are new emails even if the whole box is switched off, to save energy.
I hope I will live to see a real consumer computer that is as much an appliance as a microwave oven.The only idea that goes a little bit in this direction is modern BIOSes that have a built-in Web browser that doesn't need an OS.
--
Try Nuggets [mynuggets.net], our SMS search engine. We answer your questions via SMS, across the UK.
Re:$100 PC... and some great old ideas (Score:5, Funny)
Obviously you work at the same place I do.
End of the MS tax? (Score:5, Insightful)
In the old days of mini-computers, sellers would charge more for the minicomputer version of software than for the PC version, even when less people were using the PC version (ie. there was no volume discount argument). The reason they could get away with this was that people who'd paid for a $10k computer would balk less at paying more for the software.
Turning this around, while MS charges a fraction of the cost of a new PC, people are prepared to see it as a relatively insignificant expense (eg here in NZ, I'd pay probably NZD1K retain for a computer (inc monitor etc and WinXP)) and WinXP is only say NZD200 of this.
If however the computer price came down to say NZD400, of which WinXP was half that, then I'd have a much harder time brushing the WinXP cost under the carpet.
Lower PC costs will force lower software prices.
Now I have RTFA, but Ballmer probably has it in his head that people will pay NZD1K for a computer and if the hardware costs only NZD200 then he can put NZD800 in his pocket. People are not as dumb as that.
Re:End of the MS tax? (Score:4, Interesting)
A small-time shop, or independant builder, can pay retail and warehouse parts on components (read: NewEgg, GameVE, etc.) build the same PC that one of the major OEMs are selling for $2000 for about $800, add WinXP Home ($70, OEM) and Works Suite 2003 ($50), throw a 50% markup on top of that, and make a very nice profit for myself, as well as make the buyer quite happy with the $500+ savings.
I can only imagine how cheaply I could do this if I had Dell's volume discounts on parts, I'd be making a killing.
Re:End of the MS tax? (Score:4, Interesting)
Yes, I do have the ability to do it myself, but too many times I've ended up re-buying parts trying to figure out some silly incompatability.
Obviously, this is less of an issue now than 5 years ago, but it is still a concern of mine. I guess, to me, it's worth the price.
Re:End of the MS tax? (Score:4, Informative)
Incompatabilities exist, and they do not go away. The only thing one can do is to do research to minimize them. Dell does it for you -- great -- you do not spend your own people doing this. On my own machine, I will do my own research and not buy Dell.
Re:End of the MS tax? (Score:5, Insightful)
If, however, the cost of the computer came down to say $300 of which $200 was software, the picture changes completely. Now by switching to say Linux you'd be able to get your computer for a third of the cost.
For a lot of lower income countries (India, China, etc), the difference between a $1800 and $2000 price tag is academic, it is still too expensive. For an IT department buying computers 10% here or there is not a huge deal. However a $100 computer is obviously far more easy for the lower income earner to buy than a $300 computer. Similarly a 60%+ saving will make a huge difference to the IT department.
Ballmer must be nuts! A low cost computer will kill MS.
Re:End of the MS tax? (Score:4, Interesting)
The simple truth of low income countries is that when they are faced with unaffordable medical systems (including medicines and medical procedures etc) they simply die.
Re:Reduce, reuse, recycle (Score:3, Informative)
I'll tell you what: Consumers who turn up their noses at anything less than the latest because they've seen an ad telling them that's what they need to get. Trust me, back when I was handling donations I got plenty of perfectly useable second hand PC's in the Pent2 category and had a hard time giving them away to nonprofits with no budgets. When even broke nonprofits sneer at free/nearly free second hand computers, there's no way in heck to get the aver