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It just so happens I have one of the first ones from 2005. It's been in my garage for 20 years. Fired it up as I read this article, and it still works:
that thing is going to hold on to all that remains of human knowledge after the AIpocalypse
I feel all powerful. If I could only get the volume to work...
Fun concept tho. Especially in 2005:
In late 2005, tech visionary and MIT Media Lab founder Nicholas Negroponte pulled the cloth cover off a small green computer with a bright yellow crank. The device was the first working prototype for Negroponte’s new nonprofit One Laptop Per Child, dubbed “the green machine” or simply “the $100 laptop.”
The $100 laptop would have all the features of an ordinary computer but require so little electricity that a child could power it with a hand crank. It would be rugged enough for children to use anywhere, instead of being limited to schools.
A Linux-based operating system would give kids total access to the computer — OLPC had reportedly turned down an offer of free Mac OS X licenses from Steve Jobs.
Here's a nice little intro docu about it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fLJYWc6NZt0&ab_channel=ThisDoesNotCompute
Good intentions, bad execution
Though it failed, it sounds like it drove innovation all the same.
Yeah, and I appreciate the goals it had, and even tho if failed, they tried. I am using mine and trying to figure out to post on Lemmy with it, but the browser is old and doesn't do https sites, but if I can figure it out, I wanna use it for my lemmy machine. lol
Sounds like you need a proxy inside your network to connect to the https site and serve it to you without encryption
Working on that to see if I can get it to work.
I actually had one for a while (I got it second hand)
Also Pine64 did something similar with the Pinebook. It was a much better device as it didn't try to be the perfect device. It was simply a cheap single board computer put into a plastic shell with a battery and screen.
Oh, I'll look that one up, because I'm not familiar with it. Thanks!
There current stuff isn't all that great but the pinebook was amazing 8 years ago or so. It is underpowered but at the time it was fine for a few tabs in Firefox
Yep, I went down the rabbit hole all day yesterday. Decided that we have better, cheaper alternatives by just buying and hacking an older laptop.
Wrote a paper for one of my finals in college on the efficacy of these. Havent thought of the project for probably 15+ years.
It really was a fantastic idea, always hoped it would catch on but alas, the Chromebook took over in education spaces thanks to subsidies from Google for the data collection.
It really was a fantastic idea, always hoped it would catch on but alas, the Chromebook took over in education spaces thanks to subsidies from Google for the data collection.
Yep. I do wish they would revisit the whole "water-resistant, rubber/plastic tought as a Tonka truck, drop-resistant, hand crank to charge-up" ideas though!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OefB1PG0vY8
The Children's Machine -- Dual Core
Giving it a listen. Thank you!
this post was submitted on 17 May 2025
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