Laptop for US$100

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[url=http://www.engadget.com/2008/01/10/olpc-hacked-to-run-amiga-os/]OLPC hacked to run Amiga OS

Clearly a match made in heaven, the doomed-but-beloved Amiga OS has been made to run on the maybe-doomed-but-beloved OLPC.[/url]

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[url=http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2008/jan/13/computing?gusrc=rss&feed=media]The XO comes with a word processor, web browser, calculator, PDF reader, a few games, three music programs, a painting application and a chat program. It also has several programming environments of varying complexity, allowing users to access - and change - the underlying code of many of the applications. This is made possible by the fact that the XO runs the Linux operating system.

This last fact engendered initial hostility from Microsoft, though that has apparently abated. What proved more problematic was the hostility of Intel, the chip manufacturer, which may have stemmed from the fact that the XO's processor comes from AMD, an Intel competitor, and possibly also the fear that a successful OLPC would prejudice the chances of selling billions of Intel-powered machines to the world's poor.

Intel launched a competing machine, the $300 'Classmate', which looked awfully like an OLPC 'spoiler'. The PR blowback was so severe that, in the end, the chip giant sued for peace and joined the OLPC board.

It was a strange marriage. The first big contract signed by OLPC was with the government of Peru, which bought 300,000 XOs. Its vice-minister for education was then visited by an Intel salesperson, who is said to have comprehensively disparaged the little green machine. The politician apparently took notes of the exchange, which he then shared with Nicholas Negroponte, co-founder of the OLPC project, who shared them with Fortune magazine. 'It was unbelievable,' according to Negroponte. '"The XO doesn't work, and you have no idea the mistake you've made. You'll get into big trouble", that kind of stuff. We kept the sale, but when one of your partners does that, what do you do?'

I'd have kicked Intel out, but the company jumped before it was pushed, saying things had reached a 'philosophical impasse'. Nice euphemism. Like the philosophical impasse separating the World Food Organisation and McDonald's.[/url]

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[URL=http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/tech_and_web/article4472654.ece]Why Microsoft and Intel tried to kill the XO $100 laptop

Nicholas Negroponte had a vision: to build a $100 laptop and give away millions to educate the world’s poorest children. And then the fat-cat multinationals got scared and broke it...

At the World Economic Forum in Davos in January 2005, Nicholas Negroponte, supreme prophet of digital connectivity, revealed a strange tent-like object. It was designed to change the world and to cost $100. It was a solar-powered laptop. Millions would be distributed to children in the developing world, bringing them connection, education, enlightenment and freedom of information. The great, the good, the rich and the technocrats nodded in solemn approval.

And then some of them tried to kill it.

Microsoft, makers of most of the computer software in the world, tried to kill it with words, and Intel, maker of most computer chips, tried to kill it with dirty tricks.[/URL]

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- Step 1: give every kid a laptop. Step 2: learning begins?