Yet another reason to get angry with Bill...

[Eric Dunbar]

On 18/03/06, Alan McKinnon <alan at linuxholdings.co.za> wrote:
> On Saturday 18 March 2006 21:43, Duncan Anderson wrote:
>
> > According to the laptop.org website, the machine will have 128MB
> > RAM and have a 500MHz processor. That is more than adequate to run
> > a standard Linux kernel. It would be better if the GUI was icewm or
> > xfce or fluxbox or wmaker based rather than GNome or KDE, though.
>
> The specs are interesting.
>
> Hardware:
> http://wiki.laptop.org/wiki/Hardware_specification#First_Generation_System
>
> Software:
> http://wiki.laptop.org/wiki/OLPC_software_task_list#OLPC_Fantasy_Software_Teams
>
> The screen is 1110x830 monochrome or 640x480 colour. size 7" diagonal.
> Doesn't sound like much but remember that's standard VGA resolution.
> I think even IceWM is too high-spec'd for this, the best interface
> model is windows-always-maximised (like a PDA), so you lose all the
> excesses of a WM and programming becomes *much* easier - you know you
> have 630 x 470 pixels to work in and it will never change.
>
> > The storage is only half a GB, as well, so the amount of software
> > is severely limited.
>
> 500M is actually a lot, lately we are used to environments that take
> up 3G just to be compiled. 500M is slightly smaller than a typical
> drive from '98 and look at what we put on them then.

Half a GB is stunning. I still remember when my Mac was a *monster*
because I had a 270 MB drive in there!!!

I still remember <creak crack back breaking> when my Mac had its
entire GUI operating system packed onto a tiny fraction for a 400 KB
floppy with enough room left over for one or two apps and the computer
had a stunning 128 KB of RAM!!! (and, for all practical purposes it
provided as much utility as a modern 3+ GHz machine that's used for
everyday work tasks (sans internet)).

Eric.