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Comment by VB6_Foreverr | Hacker News Reader

If pretty much every home has a PC, if the schools teaching ICT have computers then how is this going to make people 'learn computers' better? Would kids be more turned on by this than by, say, developing apps for android phones?

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1. Cost. This can be deployed in places here and abroad where computers are still not widespread in the classroom.

2. Personalization. These are cheap enough that each student could have their own, for a fraction of either iPad or OLPC.

Of course, the fact that it requires a connection to a not-cheap HDMI display mitigates both these somewhat.

HDMI and DVI are interchangeable for this purpose; most computer displays manufactured in the last 5+ years have DVI ports. With a $10 adapter they can use the screen from their parents' crusty old Dell.

not-cheap HDMI display

As a few people have pointed out, their site says Composite or HDMI.

I'm guessing the idea is to provide a throwback to the days when computers were more hands-on and more nuts-and-bolts (think Apple II era). If the computer itself only costs $25 and boots from MicroSD then you can let students have their own and customise them with things like soldering new connections to it, mounting it on a robot, making very simple games, etc.

developing apps for android phones?

I guess now that Android phones are coming down under $100 as well then this is becoming a possible alternative. You don't get the "nuts and bolts" aspect of it, but you do get to teach both programming & fun.

Well, when they're this cheap, you can give one to every kid, and it's not the end of the world if they break one.

I know I shouldn't query downvotes but can the downvoter(s) explain how this will address the problem he outlined (ie schools teaching people how to use MS Office rather than teaching computer science)

It gives developers a single hardware target built on open source software that can be safely modified at any level without messing with a families or schools expensive computing systems.

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