MrMobster t1_j8d3l9n wrote on February 13, 2023 at 12:34 PM

It will be also slow, bulky and generally useless except to a few tinkerers.

DogmaticLaw t1_j8dvvuu wrote on February 13, 2023 at 4:17 PM

Also probably more expensive than a regular laptop!

Also exists only as a render. A shitty render. I will be shocked if this even makes it to prototype.

MrMobster t1_j8dwqwi wrote on February 13, 2023 at 4:22 PM

Yeah, the render looks a little bit like a parody on "designed by GNU" :D

[deleted] t1_j8dzlkd wrote on February 13, 2023 at 4:41 PM

[deleted]

MrMobster t1_j8e3bn6 wrote on February 13, 2023 at 5:08 PM

I would think that it might be much easier to get a used PC laptop for cheap in a developing nation than an esoteric machine like this. Plus, people there are often more concerned with survival and sustenance, so they more interested in a computer that can be actually used to generate some form of revenue (and software compatibility is a big factor here). Not to mention that previous initiatives like OLPC have failed to achieve any noteworthy success. And Raspberry Pi's are used by hobbyists and tinkerers mostly in the West, hardly in developing countries. So I kind of doubt this particular angle makes much sense.

Looking at the Balthazar project webpage it seems like one of the envisioned usage scenarios is the classroom... but from the rhetorics and promises it kind of sounds to me like it is done by a bunch of people stuck inside a certain ideology bubble. Very few people are interested in that kind of stuff and GNU apostles are unfortunately known for being rather out of touch with reality.

[deleted] t1_j8i5ye8 wrote on February 14, 2023 at 2:21 PM

[removed]

caspy7 t1_j8ezio9 wrote on February 13, 2023 at 8:41 PM

> generally useless

Firefox now has JavaScript JIT acceleration for their RISC-V builds. Most of what I do is in the browser (and all of it could be in the browser) so doesn't seem generally useless to me.