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Comment by binarymax | Hacker News Reader

The original vision IIRC was to provide a cheap computer for students in low-income families. You could plug into your TV at home and start learning.

Then the hobby community got wind of it and proceeded to buy out all the stock on every release (myself included, I still have one of every first 3 versions sitting in my cabinet)

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At this stage I think the way to realize this "cheap computer" vision is in unlocking smartphones. Either with an OS that behaves like a real computer that you can put on an old/cheap commodity phone, or with an app that creates a programmable environment layered over and isolated from the suffocating mobile OS.

The 80s kid in me still thinks dropping someone into a linux shell with a bunch of tools and no internet access is the best learning environment. Kids these days with their fancy tiktoks and such need to summon the old ways.

The 80s kid me lived in a small town with no access to technical manuals or people who could help. The developer manuals for $80 each or a compuserve account to get access to the source code examples of the manufacturer were completely out of reach. What could I have built with the information that is now available for free...

> What could I have built with the information that is now available for free...

Probably nothing. That free info also comes with YouTube and TikTok and every TV show and movie and game on demand. You have to be very disciplined to focus on difficult topics in a sea of easier and more gratifying entertainment.

I have been trying out the FX1s. It is a good replacement with some rough edges still. Better battery life than previous Pixel 6a and Fairphone 4.

Dock can not handle an Ultrawide 1440x3440 display.

Right now it is a backup phone and my music player.

https://furilabs.com/

"an OS that behaves like a real computer that you can put on an old/cheap commodity phone": https://postmarketos.org/

"an app that creates a programmable environment layered over and isolated from the suffocating mobile OS": Android Virtualization Framework (AVF) on newer Android versions provides a hypervisor and a hardware-accelerated graphics (VirGL) for AVF virtual machines, allowing users to run an isolated Linux GUI desktop with low overhead.

There is an unbelievable amount of e waste created because OEMs locked the software down and stopped updating it. I have an android tablet which is functionally working but effectively useless.

The concept of a cheap new computer like an RPi for poor families is a 1st world solution that doesn't understand markets. Used computers are way more popular in countries where the price of new computers are out of reach.

It's a supply chain problem, n

This was over 10 years ago, and the original price was something like £35.

It was tiny, and the assumption was correct - most families had an HDMI capable TV and could afford the device and a usb keyboard.

A used PC still needs a desk and a monitor. This was far more accessible.

In 2014 I bought a used RM desktop PC for my parents for £50 from eBay, which came with the tower, keyboard, mouse and all cables. I had an old monitor laying around, but again, easy to pick up if needed. They still use it today.

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