[game_edu] UK/EU Playpower People (part 1: why?)

[Mike Reddy]

Are you in the UK or the EU and wanting to get your hands on a Subor  
TV computer? This is the $12 famiclone/NES compatible that lies at the  
heart of the http://playpower.org/ affordable computer for 3rd World  
initiative.

The scheme is to develop decent education, utility and games software  
to be made freely available in India, China, etc, where even the $100  
laptop per child project is too much. If you go to the project  
website, the current status on the software side is programming with  
NES emulators, while the hardware people come up with reprogrammable  
cartridges and other hardware mods to allow development/redistribution  
on the actual end user machines; small timing differences, the  
inclusion of a keyboard and mouse (!) and the current inability to  
"download" new software to the machines means access to the actual  
hardware is vital for continued development. Ultimately, any software/ 
hardware will be fed back to the Chinese manufacturer to improve on  
what are currently incredibly basic and not well implemented programs,  
in order to get "fit for purpose" IT tools to those that need them.

The only current UK source for the TV Computer is £60+ from a retro  
games dealer, with none of the profits going to aid playpower; in the  
US there is a distributor that sells the hardware for about $60, of  
which a share goes to playpower. However, if we can raise enough  
interest/sponsorship to hit about £2000 we might be able to order 100  
straight from the manufacturers to redistribute at cost to potential  
playpower volunteers in Europe. NOTE: Although it's a $12 machine in  
Asia, customs and shipping make it considerably more here, but we can  
afford it. The normal minimum order is 2000 units from Subor, the  
Chinese manufacturers, but we are attempting to get a small initial  
order of 100 to seed people interested in volunteering for playpower  
in Europe; this is being negotiated by Derek Lomas, the lead man  
behind playpower in the US, but we need enough donations or potential  
purchasers to get the minimum order number of 100; if we go over then  
great!

>>

>