alt Hacker NewsI bought one of these a couple decades ago. The story I got was they were mass produced in Shenzhen and sold (cheaply) to poorer sections of China, India and SouthEast Asia. As for the "educational" aspect... The one I got did come with an English vocabulary program, and a few other games in what looked like simplified Chinese (couldn't tell for sure, I don't read or speak any of the Chinese dialects.)
But it looked very similar... I'm guessing some of the old fab equipment was completely depreciated and picked up for a song and stuffed in the corner of someone's warehouse and was cranking out 6502 clones by the thousand.
I remember some of the limitations: zero networking (not even RS232), no mass storage (not even a cassette port), 8-bit sound (no voice samples for language lessons) and something like a 252x240 screen resolution.
I've often wondered how (in)expensive you could make something with a better built-in screen, the ability to play VP9/AV1 video and opus samples and Bluetooth to connect to mouse / keyboard and PC as a net and storage device.
Replies
> I've often wondered how (in)expensive you could make something with a better built-in screen, the ability to play VP9/AV1 video and opus samples and Bluetooth to connect to mouse / keyboard and PC as a net and storage device.
Hardware wise that sounds a lot like basic tablet, which sell around $100 price point. On the other hand, Raspberry Pi 400 costs $80.
> I've often wondered how (in)expensive you could make something with a better built-in screen, the ability to play VP9/AV1 video and opus samples and Bluetooth to connect to mouse / keyboard and PC as a net and storage device.
I’ve been doing this, and the answer if you have a 3d printer is $10 US(pi zero 2 w) + the cost of whatever display you want to use. This won’t do AV1 but it’s good enough for my use cases. I’m slightly cheating on the cost as I have plethora of LiPo batteries in reserve.