Whatever happened to our hobby?

[Iggy]

I disagree with Franko on one point. The start of the personal computer was not a pre-made device you un-boxed and plugged in.
It was machines like SWTPC and Altair.
You built it. Often it took years to get a decent OS.
I wish I still had a 6809 SWTPC running OS9 (they're worth a fair amount of change).
One of the first personal computers. Eventually supporting both multitasking and multi-user.

[Iggy]

As small as they are, I wonder how much of a stretch it would be to just start putting commodity Arm 1.1ghz dual core CPUs and a build of android - basically a cell phone - inside any and all TVs these days?

Just pop it in there in and amongst all the other circuitry, stick an SD slot on the side of the TV for folks who want more storage...bam, Mr. and Mrs. Livingroom can phone up Jane and Johnny while they're at the university, play Angry Birds, look at photos, etc. all on the TV, no screwing around with a dedicated computer.  Just use the remote.

At commodity prices it could hardly cost more than a few bucks to outfit each TV thusly.

(Plus it'd hurt Apple, and I'm all for that.)

Apparently there are designs that start at around $25.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raspberry_Pi