100 dollar computer

[trekiej]

http://computersight.com/hardware/alternative-100-dollar-computer-available/
What do you think of this?

[SamuraiCrow]

Puppy Linux will install on old computers cheaper than $100.  Also, the flash memory must be purchased separately.

[the_leander]

http://computersight.com/hardware/alternative-100-dollar-computer-available/
What do you think of this?

From the article: "166MHz clocked x86 based-cpu"

I'd sooner have a Longspoon MIPS based nettop at a similar price point.

Then again for $100 secondhand I could probably pick up a decent second hand first gen Athlon64 or late model AthlonXP.

The likely performance of this system is going to be along the lines of Pentium1s which can be had for scrap value these days.

[tone007]

A $100 cell phone would be a more capable machine than that odd little thing.

[odin]

Looks like a completely pointless and underpowered product. A far more capable netbook can be had for as little as 200 USD/EUR without the need for an extra monitor.

[B00tDisk]

The article is from 2008.

Not that it makes it any less of a waste of $100...

[gazgod]

I own one of these, mine has a 200Mhz Vortex86. The biggest problem with it is the lack of an FPU which means most linuxs (still don't know what the plural is) won't run without a kernel recompile.

Though it is a handy tool for certain uses I wouldn't recommend it unless like me your into OS hacking.

Gaz

[persia]

166 MHz, MEGAHERTZ in 2010?  You should be able to build on of these out of an ATOM for not much more....

[Perttu]

The article is from 2008.

2006 , actually.

If the quoted 8 watt total system power usage is anywhere near correct IRL , that's pretty decent,
though still an order of magnitude more than Picotux (a different market though)

The makers of the product ( http://www.norhtec.com/products/index.html )
do seem have the same box with different innards, upto 1 GHz x86 (vortex86 SoC) in the same power-envelope within the same pricerange.
Their Atom and VIA based products are obviously more expensive.

[trekiej]

http://www.thinkgeek.com/computing/usb-gadgets/c609/
I wish I could get one of these.

[Thorham]

A hundred bucks for a 166 Mhz peecee? Ha ha ha, what a joke :roflmao: Especially so since you can easily get Pentium 3 based peecees which are much faster for free.

[trekiej]

Does anyone know of any DOS compatible hand-helds?
Could it run 32 bit software?

[Super TWiT]

A hundred bucks for a 166 Mhz peecee? Ha ha ha, what a joke :roflmao: Especially so since you can easily get Pentium 3 based peecees which are much faster for free.

Yeah, shoot my 2.3 ghz pentium 4 can be had for less than a hundred now.

[pyrre]

If you (like me) have nerdy friends, and ask them nicely. you probably get parts to build a computer, for free. that will beat the crap out of that "thing".

And it will probably hold a agp8x capable MB with video card accordingly...
And you will probably be able to use it for more modern heavy software than the microclient jr.

Or you can wait till schools or large administrations a trowing away old computer hardware....

[B00tDisk]

Yeah, shoot my 2.3 ghz pentium 4 can be had for less than a hundred now.

Two years ago the local library was selling off a pallet of Dell P4 3.06ghz machines with 256mb RAM, 80gb HD, DVD drive for $45 each.