The First Working Prototype of the $100 Laptop

The non-profit organization OLPC (One Laptop per Child), in charge of the development of the $100 laptop aimed at the developing countries, recently unveiled the first functional prototype of the concept, whose "father" is Nicholas Negroponte.


The systems should be produced in a record quantity of 1 million units, and the direct customers will be the governments of these countries which will also be in charge of the correct and efficient distribution of the laptops.

The model unveiled by OLPC is vivid orange and fitted with an 800x480 pixel display; the laptops going into production will have 1,200x900 pixel displays.

The laptop will incorporate a 500 MHz AMD processor, 128 MB of RAM, a 500MB Flash card which will act as a hard-disk, a 7 inch display, WiFi networking and the famous crank.

But, the journey of the MIT laptop was not without piquancy.

Speaking in March at the Microsoft Government Leaders Forum, Bill Gates laughed at the Linux powered computer and said: � If you are going to go have people share the computer, get a broadband connection, and have somebody there who can help support the user, geez, get a decent computer where you can actually read the text and you're not sitting there cranking the thing while you're trying to type."

Intel was not too pleased with the MIT device either, Craig Barrett, president of the CPu company, calling it a gadget.

The OLPC group plans to launch the $100 laptop in early 2007.

Photo Credits: Pete Barr-Watson