Quite some years ago (2006-08), we brought the #OLPC AKA the 100$ laptop to Ethiopia as pilot.

Jan Wildeboer 😷:krulorange:

@haraldgeyer It's mainly a cost problem My little instance only has limited resources available so I can't keep everything I ever did here since 2018 around. I also like to think of my posts as being ephemeral and not a record of history. Threads that I find important will end up as a blog entry on my blog. Most other posts can safely be deleted after a while. Sometimes this causes bad moments, but rare enough to still be acceptable to me.

Chris [list of emoji]

@jwildeboer

How does that work?!?!? Does the mesh subsystem have its own processor with access to the keyboard and screen?

(Yes, *this* is the part I'm fixating on.)

Jan Wildeboer 😷:krulorange:

@suetanvil Yes, the Marvell chip has its own SOC to keep the network up and running. And no, it is not connected to screen/keyboard. It "just" operates as a mesh node, receiving and forwarding traffic.

Chris [list of emoji]

@luke @jwildeboer

Chromebook hardware is *very* cheap these days and can be reflashed into a functioning Linux system pretty easily. So it wouldn't be *impossible* to maintain the software stack for something like this as a FOSS project.

(I occasionally see bulk lots of out-of-support Chromebooks on EBay for ~$40 per computer and I keep thinking that there's potential there.)

socketwench

@jwildeboer Was the keyboard light like the old thinkpads? A single LED that shown down on the keyboard?

Jan Wildeboer 😷:krulorange:

@socketwench Two, actually

socketwench

@jwildeboer Oh, neat. I didn't know that.

Jan Wildeboer 😷:krulorange:

@socketwench I have one of the B2 prototypes that has the LEDs. And a later version without. I asked at the time why they were removed and got this long story about what happened in Ethiopia as a reply

jay 🌺:disabled_heart:

@suetanvil @luke @jwildeboer at least on the chromebook I have, the wifi chip isn't capable of p2p modes, iirc.

Jan Wildeboer 😷:krulorange:

@j12i Yep, that was an OLPC exclusive. @suetanvil @luke

Reiner

@jwildeboer
Hey Jan, great to read your story about #OLPC here
Back then, I have been excited about this project and other meshwork thingies like https://freifunk.net/en/ #freifunk
Nowadays a new round of meshwork thingies is on the horizon with mobile phone Quintus? by volla.com and #Holochain
https://www.holochain.org
https://blog.holochain.org/mobile-holochain-applications-shipped/

But this is nö more in the lane of 'One Laptop Per Child' as it is 6 times more expensive.
Did you have hands-on experience with this hardware or software back then?

@anlomedad

Jan Wildeboer 😷:krulorange:

@muenchengene I had hands-on experience. I own 2 OLPC that still work. And I have another 10 available that I got as a loan from one the former developers of OLPC that also all work. I use them in workshops sometimes @anlomedad