$10 Educational Computer

[doug]

Hey all, what's everyone's thoughts on this platform playpower.org/?

Would a GOAC be better suited instead of the NES platform?

I thought that I would ask about people's thoughts here because I quickly googled for a Sega Genesis/hardware guru kind of site.

Thanks!

[jlf65]

Check this thread at SpritesMind: gendev.spritesmind.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=525

[ScroGer]

great idea but if I had kids I would just ether buy commercial game from a store for the PC or just download free older learing games off the web, theres hundreds of them and I remember playing some in like 1992. But maybe you have other things in mind.. anyways good luck

[oompa loompa]

i dunno why kids in 3rd world countries would benefit from being educated in video games . the only thing i learned from using apple ii's in grammer school is typing super fast, and playing oregon trail

for video game educational purposes in developing 3rd world countries, i wouldn't use the nes or goac at all . i would make my own computer design - at least something that's original, rather than a nes or goac. the first thing that comes to my mind when reusing these systems is piracy. i don't think piracy is such a big deal in 3rd world countries though , but that's my personal opinion . i guess it's for a good cause though - finding a good supplier that can produce these chip-on-boards for cheap, and recycling old videogames does take out all the hassle of making something original and hiring engineers

oh, goac (genesis on a chip) over the nes for sure . the genesis has much more ram to utilize some kind of basic interpreter, like the commodore 64. i think the nes has only 1k or 2k of ram, so it's harder to teach education on those.

okay, now off topic , but if i were to make my own "educational computer", it would have a 68k derivative processor, 128k ram, color video using the usual tiles+sprites engine, sd card memory (no more cartridged), sampled audio, mpeg decoder, and an adc for microphone input. for software, i'd have a basic interpreter, paint program, text editor, music tracker, and a c compiler built inside . the objective of all that stuff is to get it as close to a real computer as cheap as possible (wow, seems exactly like a macintosh 128k haha). oh, also i'd add the ability to emulate a nes . i'd be able to make the boards with the parts on board for like $15 for a production run of 500. i don't know how keyboard/mouses/joypads/ac adapters can be made so cheap though

[Tom Maneiro]

Don't forget that the SD royalties are up to $5000 yearly... Oh, wait, most SD cards are compatible with MMC, which specs are free to implement. And surely anything-MPEG-related has $$$ royalties (yes, those evil Hollywood bastards want to tax on everything!)

Piracy is almost legal here in most 3rd world countries, and Wintendo wants people, so most people anyway spends $100-200 on old PIII/P4's, load their pirate WinXP/Office/VisualShit-dot-live, and they're done. Those "NES-on-a-chip keyboards" used to be pretty common on early 2000's, but they quickly dissapeared from most markets (at least here in Venezuela, chinese retailers used to sell them by truckloads on 2000-2001, but now they're very rare)

[Tiido]

sampled audio alone sucks... I'd have a powerful synth next to a sampler if I want any sound. if you want samples alone, you need another 68K entirely for sound

[Deleted]

I bought a NES in a keyboard and, well, it is what it is.

Still no dev tools for it. Since it's the usual Hong Kong pirate NES on a chip it doesn't work with the Power Pack NES flash cart.

I think the PlayPower people thought a community and development toolchain would magically appear if they moved left and right long enough like Dragon Quest.

[TheMVRules]

This thread is over a year old!

[mrvie]

May 14, 2010 5:24:54 GMT -5 TheMVRules said:

This thread is over a year old!

This thread is over 5 years old!