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OLPC to sell to public

BBC reports:

The organisation behind the project has launched the "give one, get one" scheme that will allow US residents to purchase two laptops for $399 (£198).

One laptop will be sent to the buyer whilst a child in the developing world will receive the second machine

The G1G1 scheme, as it is known, will offer the laptops for just two weeks, starting on the 12 November.

OLPC is a very worthy project which probably needs your support, and buying a machine is a fun way to support the project while also enjoying a remarkable machine.

The OLPC programming environment includes not only Python etc. but also Squeak, and the firmware uses Forth, so the OLPC will probably be attractive to language hackers.

By Ehud Lamm at 2007-09-24 22:38 | LtU Forum | previous forum topic | next forum topic | other blogs | 8596 reads

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Get one!

This is an amazing machine. With the XO you can actually get to know the machine itself: its CPU, its graphics processor, its embedded hardware controller, wireless networking, etc. You can see how it's all done by reading the documentation and the concise Forth source of the firmware. And it's actually worth understanding due to the scale of production!

To me this feels like a first since the Amiga 500/1000/2000 where lots of people shared the same nice and documented hardware. Those were fun times!

By Luke Gorrie at Tue, 2007-09-25 01:55 | login or register to post comments

I'd love to get one but is

I'd love to get one but is it US residents only? Anyone able to buy by proxy? :)

By doublec at Fri, 2007-09-28 05:20 | login or register to post comments

US and Canada residents

US and Canada residents only, according to the site.

By Ehud Lamm at Wed, 2007-11-21 01:34 | login or register to post comments

Shipping internationally...

I think that folks are working around this by using mail-forwarding services:

http://www.olpcnews.com/sales_talk/g1g1/give_one_get_one_globally.html

If you go for it, good luck!

By crux at Thu, 2007-12-06 02:57 | login or register to post comments

I suggest reading the

I suggest reading the comments on that post before trying this. It all sounds very difficult...

By Ehud Lamm at Thu, 2007-12-06 03:15 | login or register to post comments

I'll probably get one, but...

There's a few issues that will have to be addressed:

1. Keyboard size - extended use on normal keyboards give me wrist pain as it is. I suppose
2. Color scheme - it's designed to look like a kids toy, in an attempt to cut down on theft/resale to adults.
3. Connectivity - the mesh stuff sounds quite awesome, but in the US, it doesn't really seem feasible, with a low density of laptops. In some areas of California it might work out, but otherwise.. The US version needs to have wifi, in other words. Perhaps the laptop already has wifi and I just missed this detail in the whole grid business.

#1 is fairly unavoidable without redesign, but #2 and #3 shouldn't be too hard.

Other than these three points, it seems like an almost perfect laptop. I look forward to using xmonad on it, and doing some haskell hacking.

Hopefully if wifi is in, this can be my college laptop. Then I can run the intense tasks like compilation, etc on a powerful desktop, remotely from the laptop.

By Michael Sloan at Wed, 2007-09-26 04:42 | login or register to post comments

It does have WiFi

The mesh network is WiFi-based.

By John Stracke at Thu, 2007-09-27 14:34 | login or register to post comments

Sweet!

Yes, looks like it is. :)

I also just came across this, detailing an OLPC introduction in peru.

Apparently the laptop will also be available in many colors, solving my #2!

By Michael Sloan at Sat, 2007-09-29 00:42 | login or register to post comments

Also: read the remarkable

Also: read the remarkable reviews posted on Ed Felten's site.

By Ehud Lamm at Wed, 2007-09-26 11:48 | login or register to post comments

One week left

Less than one week left, so if you are intrested in getting an XO laptop, don't miss your chance.

By Ehud Lamm at Wed, 2007-11-21 01:31 | login or register to post comments

More than one week left

Actually they have extended the offer to the end of the year. See
their site. I already ordered mine. I wonder how hard it will be to port one of the open source Common Lisp implementations that already supports Linux / 32-bit x86: CMUCL, Embedded CL, GNU clisp, and SBCL; and pretty soon, Clozure CL (OpenMCL).

By Daniel Weinreb at Thu, 2007-11-29 02:47 | login or register to post comments

No porting

The XO is a stock i386 Fedora box with extra software configuration. You should be able to type 'yum install sbcl' in the rootshell for example.

btw you're expecting too much of the Python parts (e.g. View Source is not implemented afaik) but luckily it ships with Squeak that's already better than what they are aiming for. :-) I'd explain more but much hacking to do right now!

By Luke Gorrie at Thu, 2007-11-29 03:43 | login or register to post comments

TWiT has an interesting

TWiT has an interesting discussion of the economic pressures on the OLPC (i.e., the Intel attack), following up on the recent WSJ piece.

By Ehud Lamm at Thu, 2007-12-06 01:34 | login or register to post comments