VE3SRE
10-13-2007, 04:41 AM
Not sure if everyone is familiar with the "One Laptop Per Child" (OLPC) project...but had a chance to look at one of the units tonight at the Ontario Linux Fest.
Basically the OLPC laptop is designed to be used by third world school kids in remote areas where there often isn't any plug-in electricity available. The plan is to sell them in large quantities (100,000+ at a time) to education ministries so that they have the economies of scale to keep costs down...in the $100-200 range per unit.
The machine runs a variation of Red Hat Linux, runs on an AMD processor, uses a flash drive instead of a hard drive, and the internal batteries can be kept running using a hand crank...like many of those "emergency radios". Also it has built-in wi-fi.
The screen can be adjusted so that it can still be seen in bright sunlight. It's also quite physically small.
There's more information at the link below:
One Laptop Per Child Project (http://laptop.org/)
Looking at the unit, the thing that ran through my mind was that this laptop would also make a terrific ham radio laptop. It would be great as a logging computer on Field Days, for "rover" stations in VHF/UHF contests and multi-county mobile stations in "QSO Party" contests. It also might be a good notebook for dxpeditioners in remote locations.
It could also be useful for emergency digital communications where there isn't any commercial electric power available.
Most ham radio software is quite "lightweight" and doesn't really require alot of computing power. The OLPC laptop could very well fit the bill.
Initially the plan was for OLPC laptops to only be made available to government education departments and ministries via these "mass purchases". But apparently there's a plan to make these things available to the public sometime in November under their "give one get one" programme.
Basically you buy two machines. One comes to you and the other goes to a third world school kid. If I recall correctly the price is around $400.
73
Basically the OLPC laptop is designed to be used by third world school kids in remote areas where there often isn't any plug-in electricity available. The plan is to sell them in large quantities (100,000+ at a time) to education ministries so that they have the economies of scale to keep costs down...in the $100-200 range per unit.
The machine runs a variation of Red Hat Linux, runs on an AMD processor, uses a flash drive instead of a hard drive, and the internal batteries can be kept running using a hand crank...like many of those "emergency radios". Also it has built-in wi-fi.
The screen can be adjusted so that it can still be seen in bright sunlight. It's also quite physically small.
There's more information at the link below:
One Laptop Per Child Project (http://laptop.org/)
Looking at the unit, the thing that ran through my mind was that this laptop would also make a terrific ham radio laptop. It would be great as a logging computer on Field Days, for "rover" stations in VHF/UHF contests and multi-county mobile stations in "QSO Party" contests. It also might be a good notebook for dxpeditioners in remote locations.
It could also be useful for emergency digital communications where there isn't any commercial electric power available.
Most ham radio software is quite "lightweight" and doesn't really require alot of computing power. The OLPC laptop could very well fit the bill.
Initially the plan was for OLPC laptops to only be made available to government education departments and ministries via these "mass purchases". But apparently there's a plan to make these things available to the public sometime in November under their "give one get one" programme.
Basically you buy two machines. One comes to you and the other goes to a third world school kid. If I recall correctly the price is around $400.
73
