PLAYPOWER!

Playing Double Dragon in North Korea

Lev Manovich sent me this picture: a ‘computer lab’ in North Korea, where groups of children play 8-bit video games on the “MicroGenius” (a famicom clone).  The devices used by these students don’t have keyboards–but the hardware is otherwise identical to the $12 Playpower platform.

I wish I knew more about what was going on here.  This is North Korea, so I can’t exactly praise it.  However…

I love the idea of large numbers of children in a room, playing video games and using 8-bit computers.  There is immense potential for peer learning and problem solving in situations like this.  Considering that a 15 station computer lab costs only $1000 ($200 for the computers and $750 for the TVs), this is a model that could provide early computer experience to millions of children.  Look at how many children can use one computer… or chair, for that matter…!

Link

Yesterday in Delhi, India, Intel revealed a $114 computer, which uses its new line of low-cost Atom processors. It uses a TV as a display, to reduce costs. This computer will connect to the internet via WiMAX.

Meanwhile, Gizmodo features a video demo of a new (mini) laptop, from “HiVision.”   It only costs $120.

The prices fall!  But will they fall enough to compete with the $12 Famicom-Clone?

Playing video games can teach the capacity of logical solve-problem until surgeon skills. This is a affirmative that researchers in American Psychological Association conferency in Boston are showing. Several studies are suggesting that videogames can be power tools to learning.

Moreover, PlayPower also can be a power tool to control devices in international development. In IDDS 2008 for example, there was a low cost incubator project that have the inside temperature controlled for a low cost computer.

One of the key learnings from IDDS 2008 was the importance of early market and product research in the design process for developing countries. The earlier in the process you know about what your users think about the product and how much are they willing to pay for it the more you can benefit from that data throughout the design process. We intend to conduct similar market research using the existing educational TV computers (TVC) in our target markets of rural Ghana and urban Brazil. This early research will also help us understand what type of local educational content is needed in these markets.

One of the first steps in this research process is to find out how can we get some units of TVCs from the manufacturer in China to these target markets as cheaply as possible through an efficient distribution channel. We had been trying to get more information about the TVC manufacturer in China, but haven’t had any significant progress so far.

Anyone in the community has ideas on this or anyone had dealt with Chinese manufacturer in past?

Beautiful. Did you know you could program on a Nintendo?

Did you know that a keyboard was released for the Famicom?

Yep.  The year was 1984–one year before the NES was even released in America.  The primary purpose of the keyboard was to enable simple programming (The programming language was NS-HUBASIC, a variant of BASIC)

This keyboard right here is why a $12 computer exists.  So we need to know as much as possible about it!

It would be excellent to fill up this page with as much information as we can find.  Thanks!  I think it would be a good research project.  Let me know if you find anything crazy.

Amazing. Computers actually looked like this back in 1984

LA Gallery Opening Today, Thursday, August 14.  http://www.iam8bit.net/ for more info

3 authors* in Forbes magazine discuss Computer-Based Learning in the article: How to Change the Way Kids Learn.  This is targeted at improving education in America using personal computers and online classes.  However, parts of it may be relevant to us.

The way to implement an innovation so it will transform an organization is to implement it disruptively. That means not attaching it to the existing paradigm and serving existing customers but targeting those not being served or not buying what’s served, people we call nonconsumers. That way, all the new approach has to do is be better than a nonexistent alternative.

Disruptive innovations tend to be simpler and more affordable than existing products.

Link

From the Book Disrupting Class: How Disruptive Innovation Will Change the Way the World Learns (McGraw-Hill, 2008). www.disruptingclass.com Clayton M. Christensen, a professor of business administration at the Harvard Business School. Michael B. Horn, an executive director of education at Innosight Institute. Curtis W. Johnson, the president of Citistates Group.

Chiptune hero: Nullsleep

Here is an NPR ‘Marketplace’ radio segment about our project at IDDS.

They were quite positive, but they said:

“The team at MIT is building its computer around a Nintendo-style console, like the ones we used 20 years ago. Hopefully they’ll lose the music.”

Nope. Not a chance.

In fact, here’s some perfectly excellent 8-bit music for the NES: “Chippon,” by NullSleep

One Laptop Per Child ‘Applauds’ Effort but Dismisses Comparisons

Thank you to Ashley Phillips for writing a well-researched and balanced article about our project.  Notably, she interviewed Chuck Kane (president and COO of OLPC) as well as Walter Bender (former president of OLPC software and content; current director of Sugar Labs).  I greatly respect the efforts of Laptop.org, and while we share similar goals, it’s quite clear that an updated Nintendo is a far cry from the Children’s Machine.

How do you think PLAYPOWER’s approach differs from OLPC?  What can we learn from the path-breaking work of OLPC?

In 2004, Bob Rost taught a class about programming NES games at Carnegie Melon University.  He built a compiler that enables a person to program NES games in BASIC.   He calls the framework nBASIC, and it is available on this page.  This makes programming so much easier!

Anuj and Jesse have been using nBASIC to start programming Ghanaian content on the $12 computer.  I told Bob about their work, and he replied to me saying:

Games from Bob's class

I’m glad that my course materials have been helpful for you, and I hope the nbasic compiler and other tools prove to be beneficial as well (aside from their occasional bugs). Don’t hesitate to email again if you have any specific questions or design problems that you think I could help to answer.

As a side note, based your previous email, I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised at the efficiency of nbasic’s output in most cases, and the complexity of the games it will allow you to create in any given time frame. You are of course welcome to use, abuse, change, and distribute the source code in any way you like.

Best of luck to you and your team.
-Bob

That is incredible! Do you think this community could help improve the efficacy of nBASIC?  If we could program games using such an accessible language, this would substantially reduce the time, effort, and cash required to write a game in assembly code.  If we want to promote local game production, there needs to be an easier way to program.

Thanks, Bob!