Another Retro Computer returns from the ashes

[zylesea]

So what is stopping someone making a cheap little board like that with a PPC processor?

Nothing - except nobody shells ot the money to actually do it.
What about an even more minimalistc ppc board for half the price? MPC5125 is your friend. e300 @ 400 MHz all required things within the SOC except audio. Add a little RAM (say 256 MB) and a socket for an SD card and there you go. The chip costs only 11 US$ in bulk order and runs at a single watt.
Sure, 400 MHz is not really up to date, but for 50 US$ board it would offer a lot of fun... Put AROS ppc on it and you'll have an ultra cheap little Amiga.
Or if more power is required there are ppc alternatives. ppc is only dead for the desktop, beside the desktop it is pretty alive. It's only stupid to try to build desktop computers on either way underpowered cpus (AMCCs offerings) or outdated but very expensive midclass cpus (PA6T).
While a 1500 EUR kit isn't able to compete with current x86 desktop offers anyway this is a dead end. The key (as long as the no x86 mantra is valid) is affordeable gear, say 50 EUR (e300/400 class)  to 300 EUR (e600 or e500 /1000-1500 MHz class) stuff. That kind of kit is for fun sales. While it can't powerwise challenge a Core i7, it even doesn't need to try to do so - it is a complete different kind of product and no wannabe high end desktop computer.

[zylesea]

I don't knpw, Zylesea, I don't think you're going to be able to get the price of an e600 core based motherboard down to 300 EUR. The processors cost almost that.

8610 is to get for much less. Also note that many e500 processors have a nin-insane price/performance ratio (some PowerQUICCs and QorIQ).

And I don't knowabout the rest of the family, but the MPC8640/8641 works better paired with a Southbridge (like the SB600 used on the X1000 motherboard).

Better yes, but if you leave out all the bells and whistles you can do a simple and cost intensive design. The probelm is that these chips aren't designed as desktop processors (okay the 864x was intended for general computing), so better don't try to make a desktop computer outof this. Keep it simple, tehn you'r able to reach good prices.
[/QUOTE]Considering the complexity of the board, the cost of the processors, and the necessary glue logic the price would be about double that or more.
[/QUOTE]

Now e300 cored products might be closer to your price, but they don't offer the processing power of the ARM processors mentioned here.

The e300/400 is for sure much weaker than the ARMs of the prducts listed here, but it could yield to way cheaper boards.
Look to the 5125, it has all you need and is 11US$. A 50 US$ board to play around would sound fun to me.
With QorIQ 2010 a 150 US$ e500/1000 board including a Uli M1575 SB doesn't seem like a too crazy phanatsy. Would probably not match a 150US$ x86 or the ARM board, but also not too far off and holding other benfits. Probably more difficult to sell, than a 50 US$ toy board though... But such a 1 W toy board would still run circles around all PowerUp hardware, it would pretty exctly match Efika power with worse gfx, but better usb and no crippled ATA interface. I still rate the Efika as nice fun/special use device with two major draw backs: too little RAM, too expensive. Not the board itself withits 99 US$ price tag, but you need an ATX psu, a gfx card, a hdd and a case - exceeds 200 US$ rather quickly. And for that ammount of money a e300/400 w/128 MB RAM is not too sexy again (but I still like mine).

Problem is: There is probably nobody going to make such a board. I will not do so either - my funds are currently not that big that I could take the risk, just bought a house a week ago :-)