Please wait...
...or when the OS on the computer is hosed and you need to get some work done in a pinch
...or when the computer is just plain broken
...or when it's someone else's computer and you don't want to mess with it
...when every flatscreen monitor *is* a thin client
Eventually you're going to get to the point where the only people with a "real computer" are the ones who are running compute-heavy software.
We need to get there.
I suspect that if Google would make it possible and easy to add an external keyboard and monitor to the Nexus 7 you'd have your wish almost instantly.
You could most likely do that now using a combination of firewire and their somwhat proprietary USB 'port thingee' but I've not actually tried it and won't speculate as to its (possible) efficacy.
makes sense.
My kids had a computer that they use exclusively for watching videos and playing online sesame street/nick Jr games. They fried the laptop we were using (poured water into it)
Need to replace it. We still have kb, mouse, and monitor.
Needs a hard disk, but precious little processing power beyond playing videos.
Be nice to get them a $45 box and an external hard disk that I can also use for my computer's backups.
the cubox is one of the very few on that list of embedded computers that contain a SATA port.
One of the others are the qubie boards introduced by Tom Qubie.
However the Qubieboard is a lot closer to the pi then the cubox by price tag;
But it has the connectors all around it, which makes it harder to add it into a pre existing housing which would prefer to have all on one side.
Another sbc of that sort just came through in the lxer-room:
http://linuxgizmos.com/pico-itx-sbc-runs-linux-and-android-on-ti-sitara/
(no mention of the price tag yet though...)
Suggestion
1. buy one of those elcheapo computer cases w/ power supply.
2. buy cheapest motherboard/processor you can find and put 1G of RAM into it.
3. Buy a 16G flash drive. Install the Linux Version Of Choice onto the flash drive which you will -- in the process -- make ***bootable***.
4. Write a custom web page containing all the links that your kids use.
5. Configure your favorite window manager (on the flash drive) automatically start IceWeasel and use the custom web page as the home/start page.
6. Teach the kids how to log in from the window manager's login screen.
Wed Sep 25 2013 09:53:40 EDT from vince-q
Suggestion
1. buy one of those elcheapo computer cases w/ power supply.
2. buy cheapest motherboard/processor you can find and put 1G of RAM into it.
3. Buy a 16G flash drive. Install the Linux Version Of Choice onto the flash drive which you will -- in the process -- make ***bootable***.
4. Write a custom web page containing all the links that your kids use.
5. Configure your favorite window manager (on the flash drive) automatically start IceWeasel and use the custom web page as the home/start page.
6. Teach the kids how to log in from the window manager's login screen.
well, It may be hard to hit a $35 price tag with that (like with a PI)
and it will even be harder to follow up on the low TCO in terms of energy use of the pi...
well, It may be hard to hit a $35 price tag with that (like with a
PI)
and it will even be harder to follow up on the low TCO in terms of
energy use of the pi...
Well, he said $45 and not $35, and he also said "and an external hard disk" with no capacity specified which, today, can be anywhere from $70 to $300 (USD).
1. I'm a she.
2. I'm buying in Israel, where some equipment is more expensive.
3. I'm playing with ideas, b/c I can probably get an unused computer from a family member. I just liked this concept.
You should see how those ceiling fans spin...
But seriously, most computer equipment is designed to work 110/220
Japan uses about the same voltage as the US, but a 50Hz frequency instead of 60Hz. Consequently, you have to purchase clocks in Japan rather than bring your own to the country, or they'll be slow.
Thu Oct 10 2013 06:53:30 PM EDT from fleeb
Japan uses about the same voltage as the US, but a 50Hz frequency instead of 60Hz. Consequently, you have to purchase clocks in Japan rather than bring your own to the country, or they'll be slow.
My generator for the radar I ran in South Korea ran at 400 Hz 110 VAC. Most things worked (some worked so well, they burned up). Anything with a small transformer seemed not to saturate, but the coffee pots and such... They boiled only a couple of times before burning up.
Nowadays, not so much ... the one in my bedroom has a DC power brick, so it must have its own internal clock source.
(It also has a WWVB receiver, which definitely won't work in Japan, but I don't plan to go there anyway...)
That's probably wise, if someone wants to sell both in the US and Japan.
Amusingly, I found my Amiga 500 (which I bought and ran in Japan) never quite worked correctly in the United States... its time always ran crazy-fast, as I guess the machine never quite figured out that it wasn't in Japan anymore.
Fri Oct 11 2013 06:23:27 PM EDT from zooerIt ran so fast it hertz.
Quite the mix of genres there zooer. Well played.
Oct 11 2013 7:33am from IGnatius T Foobar
AC powered clocks, until recently, were almost always timed by the line
voltage.
Ummmmmm.... no.
Not line voltage but frequency.
--K2NE