I 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.
tylerflick · 4h ago
> 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.
fiddlerwoaroof · 1h ago
I’ve been wanting to do something like this to make a modern iPod / audiobook reader.
tylerflick · 27m ago
For an iPod style device you could even go lower down the line and use Pico W along with the addition of some i2s/amp combo.
zokier · 3h ago
> 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.
bitwize · 5h ago
I remember some sort of OLPC/Raspberry Pi-like initiative in India to build a "teach the kids how to program" type computer based on a Famiclone. The idea was that "famicoms on a chip" were readily available in a way that would make it cheap enough even for the dirt-poorest of Indian families to afford, and the software could theoretically be ported to the more bootleggy famiclones already out there on the market.
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.
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.
Hardware wise that sounds a lot like basic tablet, which sell around $100 price point. On the other hand, Raspberry Pi 400 costs $80.