XO-2

[Andres Salomon]

On Thu, 22 May 2008 14:41:21 -0700 (PDT)
david at lang.hm wrote:

> On Thu, 22 May 2008, Andres Salomon wrote:
> 
> > Date: Thu, 22 May 2008 17:33:24 -0400
> > From: Andres Salomon <dilinger at queued.net>
> > To: david at lang.hm
> > Cc: devel at lists.laptop.org
> > Subject: Re: XO-2
> > 
> > On Thu, 22 May 2008 14:07:26 -0700 (PDT)
> > david at lang.hm wrote:
> >
> >> On Thu, 22 May 2008, Andres Salomon wrote:
> >>
> >>> On Thu, 22 May 2008 13:33:10 -0700 (PDT)
> >>> david at lang.hm wrote:
> >>>
> >>>> On Thu, 22 May 2008, C. Scott Ananian wrote:
> >>>>
> >>>>> There will almost certainly be a 'virtual XO-1' mode for
> >>>>> compatibility, where the lower touchscreen will display a
> >>>>> keyboard and touchpad like the XO-1.
> >>>>
> >>>> a touchscreen based keyboard is far inferior to a real keyboard.
> >>>> it's
> >>>
> >>> So plug a USB keyboard in if you're going to be doing some serious
> >>> typing.  If you just need to type in a few lines, the virtual
> >>> keyboard would be fine.  A USB keyboard gives far more flexibility
> >>> than XO-1 currently has in terms of languages, layout, cost, and
> >>> manufacturers. Being tied to a single keyboard/touchpad
> >>> manufacturer makes everyone sad.
> >>>
> >>> http://www.pricewatch.com/keyboards/usb.htm shows ~$4 for a basic
> >>> keyboard, and bulk rates could probably do even better..
> >>
> >> this makes it a $79 laptop, and I don't think it's really a good
> >> idea to say that every kid will carry the XO-2 and a keyboard
> >> everywhere.
> >>
> >
> > Of course not.  Kids can leave the keyboards at school, and share
> > them. You're assuming that kids will even _want_ keyboards.  Maybe
> > they'll want to use something equivalent to Dasher, or they'll find
> > themselves becoming quite proficient w/ the on-screen keyboard, or
> > perhaps the processor will be powerful enough to support
> > speech-to-text software, or a stylus combined with handwriting
> > recognition software, or maybe they'll prefer writing on paper and
> > just use the XO for reading ebooks (despite having access to all
> > this wonderful QWERTY technology, there are certain tasks that I
> > prefer to use paper and whiteboards for), or maybe they'll come up
> > w/ some radically new input system that we haven't enough thought
> > of.
> 
> people have been predicting the death of keybards for decades, it
> hasn't come close to happening yet, and I really don't expect it to
> happen in the next year or two.
> 

You're putting words into my mouth.  I'm saying that it's not a foregone
conclusion that kids will want actual, physical keyboards.  I'm not saying
the keyboards will disappear.

Besides, the cost of the machine is _never_ the only cost.  There's
access points, school servers, internet connections, and so on.  If
a specific school wants 30 physical keyboards at $1 each for a classroom,
so be it.


> there are a lot of things that you want to enter text for that must
> be done on a computer, anything that involves text and collaberation
> for example (e-mail, etc)
> 


I pointed out that one can enter text without using a keyboard.  Those
of us who grew up using qwerty-style keyboards just happen to be
fastest at entering text with such a device.


> also, while you can choose to not use the computer for things like
> term papers, book reports, etc. not being able to do so is drasticly
> limiting the usefulness of the computer.
> 
> David Lang