Familia Toledo: The most inexpensive computer USD $99.00 | Hacker News Reader

Familia Toledo: The most inexpensive computer USD $99.00

biyubi.com

113 pointsgraderjs69 comments

It's fun to see the Familia Toledo on HN, I discovered them through the Spanish online communities quite some years ago.

There is some charm in their naivety mixed with their display of self-importance. IIRC their "own" operating systems used to be derived from MenuetOS and similar open source projects.

As a side note, one of the family member (Óscar Toledo) seems to have been performing well in the International Obfuscated C Code Contest (IOCCC).

Can you elaboraré more on the MenuetOS derivative? I've been trying to find a comprehensive (in fact, any) analysis of their OS (or any doc, review) without much success

The only reference I have about that is this blog entry (in Spanish): https://la-morsa.blogspot.com/2007/12/la-extrasima-familia-t...

It describes the visit of a group of members of a FOSS community Cofradia (https://cofradia.org) to the Toledo family somewhere in mid 00s. Several users stated that the OS "looked suspiciously like MenuetOS". This is the opinion of people active in FOSS communities that probably had contact and played with MenuetOS at that time.

The article also makes IMHO a fair reflection on the family and their merits. The father is of humble extraction, with actual knowledge of electronics and low level programming but without any formal education. His passion about the topic becomes cult-like at times, with the rest of the family following his lead.

thanks!

Do you know if anyone actually uses or used their software stack and hardware for end-user productivity?

"Familia Toledo do not manufactures G11 computers for direct sale to the public, they sell their prototypes to governments or original equipment manufactures." That's the One Laptop Per Child business model. Dead end.

You can get laptops on Alibaba starting at $80. If they just loaded their software onto them, something they could probably get the OEM to do for them, they'd be there. Instead of trying to cable stuff together with ribbon cables.

For $100, you can get a Windows 10 capable (but not including Windows 10) machine, with reasonable memory, disk, and WiFi.

It's not entirely obvious from OP's link, but it appears this offering is from 2005 or earlier (see this page listed in the "News" section: http://www.biyubi.com/computadora.html)

I think it is entirely obvious that they're not trying to sell anything for $99 in 2021.

Amusingly though the footer copyright is to 2020. (i.e. it's not automatic, and is as recent as that.)

If the date is server side script you cant tell if its automatic or not.

If the date is 2021 and it says 2020, I can at least tell that if it's automatic it doesn't work.

You can get a Raspberry Pi 4 for $35, add a $5 Micro SD card, a $5 cellphone charger, and a $10 keyboard/mouse combo, and you have a full fledged modern computer running a modern OS (Linux kernel 5.10) for $55. That is more in line with the DIY spirit of the subject, and certainly more capable, without requiring commercial software.

With no display.

A blind acquaintance of mine seems to do just fine with just earphones!

(I'm joking obviously but this fact does amaze me. Him working on his computer consists of a keyboard, earphones, and the computer unit.)

That's fascinating. Can you elaborate on how he accomplishes this?

You cna use Windows and probably MacOS and iOS without display.

I taught a Linux workshop to blind/visually impaired in Virginia this summer.

orca is the main screen reader used in Linux. Most of them were familiar with Jaws on Windows. Orca offers a kinda similar screen reader experience but the hotkeys are different (ability to re-read a line, jump a word, jump a section, etc)

They were on laptops so I could still look over their shoulder if they needed help, but after a while they all got the hang of it and we were "off to the races". It was thrilling to see it click for them and to see such a completely different user experience.

The short of it is that he uses a screen reader. The thing reads out what is shown on the screen. Things like application title when you alt-tab, page contents on websites, field and button labels/names in forms when you tab through it, etc. I see that u/grendelt already gave some software examples; for mobile I might add that you could try Talkback (built into Android).

Watching blind people use phones is probably similar.

It’s amazing to see someone in full sun using a phone, face not pointing at the phone.

> It’s amazing to see someone in full sun using a phone, face not pointing at the phone.

Hello 2006! It was super convenient back when that was normal.

Me on a Nokia with barely a color screen and unlimited GPRS data: playing music/podcasts, reading news, chatting, taking pictures, listening to radio, watching short video clips after minutes of downloading.

Me today with more than a decade of innovation: playing music/podcasts/audiobooks, reading news, chatting, taking pictures, listening to streaming radio, using satellite navigation.

The difference is that in 2006, you didn't have to constantly look at a screen. You can be walking outside and watch where you're going, not even taking the phone out of your pocket for some things like switching songs or turning on a recording when the teacher was throwing a tantrum again (I was not the nicest teenager; I hope I do better now). We're trying to find workarounds for this using bluetooth headphones' buttons that don't work half the time or get passed to the wrong app (Newpipe, Antennapod, VLC, all can take audio focus) or by using long presses or double presses on buttons like power to quick start the camera, but it's very limited what one can do with those.

That can plug into any television made in the last fifteen years no problem as a display.

You assume everyone has a television.

If you don't need top level performance, and for a cheap PC why would you, you can get a 1080p desktop sized TV (22 inches) for $80.

Old monitors can be found in thrift stores and the facebook market for $5-10 too.

Yep - I recently just gave away two 2007-era monitors that still worked fine, for free. It wasn't worth the time to try to sell them for $5...

I've been in some really, really poor parts of the world, and nearly everyone's home I ever visited, they had a tv set. What they didn't have was round-the-clock electricity (sometimes it was scheduled, sometimes it was just off and on at random) or running water.

Statistically, they're more likely to have a television than a computer.

Yep, that bring-your-own-tv is the model the Apple II, the Commodore 64, and the Atari 800 all used -- good to see that reuse is still alive.

add a 100 to that!

> For $100, you can get a Windows 10 capable (but not including Windows 10) machine, with reasonable memory, disk, and WiFi

Can you elaborate a bit? Would be interested in this. Do you mean if you built with economy parts? Or does there exist some existing package?

Alibaba, of course. There are lots of low-end laptops. Some are probably junk, and some aren't. Buy from a manufacturer, not a reseller. Quantity 1 will cost a bit more.

[1] https://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/Alibaba-Retail-14inch...

Plenty of second-hand windows pcs and monitors get thrown away daily by businesses, a flyer dropped online, the newspaper or the local shop would probably get you one for nothing

Got a second hand thinkpad t440 for 120 bucks.

But does it boot in 4 seconds?

Not to mention raspberry pi et al which are more bare bones but well under 100 dollars.

http://www.biyubi.com/eng_productos.html

Computerized Metal Detector:

> with him it is possible to discover booties of past times or relatively recent

Theres a youtube video where you can see their hw & os browser

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rzw-_qN1zSg

I love this website so much and truly have no idea what year any of this was made.

the computer page was copyrighted 2005.

Probably before 2022 right?

That doesn't really narrow it down. Why, every time I've ever experienced was before 2022!

The top of the sidebar links to Bulletin no 13 which is from August 1999.

The bottom of the page says: Site funded Apr/30/2000. Updated Mar/14/2020.

The interesting part here is the browser. It does not seem to stem from any major HTML engine known to me.

The history page is from 2005 and says about HTML 4.01. The English front page mentions advances in the browser (but HTML5 is not mentioned directly).

I wonder what can it be. The browser seems pretty custom, with support for POP3 (well, Opera used to have a built-in email client) and, in 2005 when it made sense, for ICQ. But a HTML + CSS engine is such a complex beast that very few really exist which would work tolerably with the modern Web.

I know a group of computer enthusiast back on that times where to visit Toledo house/factory. All the hardware and computers built by themselves was true but the owner and the family were very jealous about giving details about it.

They were some kind of geniuses with no interest to profit by millions from their creations.

«Created by Familia Toledo, Biyubi 5.4 is the first Latin-American browser for Internet navigation,

hacker-proof»

Hacker proof.

Edit: well, their article about the browser is from 2002.

Alternative call-out: 'internet navigation'.

In Spanish web browsers are called "navegadores" (navigators, no doubt inspired by Netscape's product). This coming from Latin America it's an understandable translation quirk.

Oh it calls it a 'browser' right before that, I wasn't making fun of the translation. 'Internet navigation' is fine if dated English usage.

IIRC one of these people, perhaps Óscar Toledo, wrote a usable OS fitting in either 512 bytes or the MBR (which is a bit smaller afaik).

This guy I think: https://nanochess.org/

Ah, indeed: https://github.com/nanochess/bootOS

Is there a way to buy or really otherwise obtain their operating system and/or browser?

I have clicked around, and I read a lot of enthusiastic descriptions, but how does one use it?

Is it only available if you buy the computer, they have designed which you can't buy?

I feel like I have clicked around in circles several times without gaining an understanding of how or when it was possible to use them?

One of the most interesting things I found in the Familia Toledo site is the resources about Didxaza (also known as Zapotec) http://www.biyubi.com/did_consulta.php

Really interesting language!

reminds me of those cheap atom netbooks years ago entry level was around that price though they could not handle much browsing and word proccessing in a small portable form(video was a issue though). most today do a lot better in that form but are usually in the 250$ or so range for entry level.

I remember drinking the koolaid of the familia toledo back in 2006 hahaha back then their claims seemed way more realistic and "what if?" sort of thing, now they just feel outdated

With the world's cheapest website to match...

Many websites have not held up to HN's Hug of Death, to their credit, this one has.

The Raspberry Pi looks cheaper in my country, but does it come with a monitor and keyboard?

That is from 2002 right?

Isn't a raspberry pi 400 like $80?

(2005)

This feels so 2003!

What year was this published?

What strange wording in the page:

> Please make active Javascript on your navigator

And in the footer:

> For some people the content of this site can create doubts or debate for their authenticity, we invite them to check that our scientific and technological research don't rest in words.

And then there's an expired SSL cert that I had to whitelist to continue viewing the page. How old is this webpage?

You aren't using the right browser.

>This site looks better with Biyubi Navigator

Let me give you ten advantages of Fenix Windows compared to Win98 and Linux.

http://www.biyubi.com/eng_ventajas.html

I love this website.

Selling points for Fenix Windows:

-Phone connection to Internet is easy to prepare.

-Operating system totally graphic, it includes television

Easy to make fun of old design, but we use Word and Excel that is almost the same as in 95. And the best business programs is the ones without any need for GUI.

I almost get a Temple OS mental illness vibe from it. It’s endlessly fascinating though.

I'm sold, now that I know it has absolutely no defects. Time to throw away my amateur OS.

webpage also $99

It's from Mexico. Spanish is the native language.

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