I think I already heard this. It was either bullshit, or they were just looking at using the flawwed NOAC and building around that. Either way it was garbage.
Check out their wiki: http://design4dev.wetpaint.com/page/TV+Computer?t=anon They're designing a basic system around the omnipresent famiclone ic that's been around forever. It sounds like a cool project. There have been famiclones with built in keyboards and Basic in the past. Its not aiming to be a full featured PC, just something thats equivalent to the early C64 era stuff (minus the badass sound of course ) that developing countries can use to get a start. Many of us learned on C64s or Apple IIs, so I think this is cool. Some pros: typical famiclone has extremely low power requirements built in NTSC composite out It will be just like having an early 80s computer, except that you could run it for hours on batteries if you wanted to. Seriously, famiclones draw like 90mAh.
My gut instinct agrees, though it's pretty difficult to predict for a $12 budget. I'm assuming that almost solely represents costs and distribution, and they're hoping to sidestep R&D and the rest of it - there are probably more capable systems that could be built for such prices in terms of raw materials, depending on volume, but I don't imagine it'd be feasible to design and prototype it.
I hate this kind of attention seeking project, where something is shoehorned into an application it was never intended for and is ill-suited to perform. It's all about the publicity IMO, or the kudos of bastardising 80's technology - not about the cause they claim to be addressing. If they really wanted to make a cheap but powerful third-world learning computer then they'd not waste their time hacking up a NoaC. I'm sure the resources and work hours being put into this joke would be sufficient to prototype even some kind of Z80 device. One of my buddies has a quite advanced homebrew Z80-based system on hardware revision 6 now, all done on his own without the immense benefits of the MIT labs and funding. It actually gets me angry. There is the argument, I suppose, that originally the NES was shown with a keyboard etc in the US prior to launch. But that was to compete with the 8bit micro market and was dropped, presumably because it failed to do so. What these guys are going to end up with is an under-powered and hard to program device that will never see volume production or software support. This kind of platform needs hobbiests that will latch onto because it is for a good cause and presents and interesting target to code for, and a library of free open source software or very cheap shareware. This NES monster is not going to achieve any of that.
