XO-1: The $100 Laptop (Which Cost $200) - Krazy Ken’s Tech Talk

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One Laptop per Child was an ambitious charity! Can they sell a laptop at only $100? Can they sell 150 million of them?! Let's see how well it worked out.

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00:00 Introduction
00:39 OLPC History
03:40 Build a Team. Launch the Product!
09:57 Hardware (Design)
13:13 Hardware (Specs)
14:43 Software / Sugar
18:15 The Problems
22:22 Restructure / New Products
25:44 What Happened Next?

#KrazyKen #ComputerClan

[ComputerClan]

Thank you, SHARGE, for sponsoring! And I hope y'all enjoy this OLPC story! 🔔Subscribe and I'll see you in the next episode soon ; )

[leonardohorovitz]

Uruguayan here, I remember seeing these everywhere. My wife used to work for the organization that was in charge of the project of getting one laptop to every child. It was a revolution, but also a challenge. Children were playing with the laptops in the rain, some teachers at the beginning didn't want to have anything to do with any computer, and getting replacement parts to thousands of computers, some of them in the middle of nowhere was a logistics nightmware. In some schools it was the reason that internet (and even electrical power) was installed. The government organization in charge of getting the computers and education software (called Ceibal) still exists and operates today, but with "regular" Windows computers.
Even a friend of mine who used to work for this organization was in charge of selling the consulting to other countries to do the same. It was a success and a revolution here in Uruguay.

[neonufo]

I honestly applaud OLPC for going for a cause so bold at a time where mobile devices were still starting to develop.

[jovanhodgson]

This video took me back so many years. I am from Nicaragua, while I was in college during a semester I was part of a group of students who did volunteer work for the Zamora Teran foundation for social credits. We'd go to different schools in my town that were part of a program that provided students with XO laptops. We'd check the state of each laptop and give maintenance if it was necessary. This was probably 10 years ago.

[JosephM]

My dad got me one of these laptops through the donation program when I was about 2 or 3. I showed this video to him, and he informed me that my laptop was one of the first models made. I still have that laptop to this day, and it was what started my interest in all things tech.
Thanks, Dad. What an awesome gift.

[suspeh]

That sound at the beginning made me feel nostalgic, I am Uruguayan, at that time I was a child from a rural school, It was almost my first access to a computer and the Internet, my contact with Doom, I think thanks to this I now like computers, crazy! I remember him a lot, In my country this slow computer is fondly remembered :)

[WKfpv]

Uruguayan here, the XO became kinda part of our culture. And as far as I know, kids are still getting their laptops.

[Russssooo]

I was actually one of the kids who got one of this, i think my favorite thing was literally playing sim city on it all the time, I should have it in Mexico somewhere at my house.

[walterrbender]

Generally a very fair history of our efforts and a nice description of Sugar. Just want to include a tip of the hat to Mark Foster, who was the one responsible for the bulk of the hardware and industrial design innovations of the XO 1. (John Watlington took over for Mark on the subsequent models.)

[jjpaq]

I don't think people who grew up after the early 2000s understand how crazy it was at the time for laptops to even be targeting prices that low. We were barely more than a decade past computers costing thousands, not hundreds, of dollars.

The eee PC blew my mind the first time I saw it. The OLPC team absolutely deserves partial credit for changing society's mindset about how much a laptop should cost and what it needs to be able to do.

[outsidethewaxbox]

10:12 A small note, the OLPC actually belonged to Homestar. Strong Bad was a strong devotee to the Compy/Lappy series. And you can't forget the Cheat with his iMac.

[kanoaikawach]

The rotating screen turning it into a tablet like device was so ahead of its time.

[pavichokche]

Seymour wasn't 88, he was actually 22 since he only got a birthday every 4 years

[Creamypie]

The funniest thing about humanity is that there are some of us who always likes to criticize and complaint about others who wants to do anything for the unfortunate ones but those who complains and criticize are often the ones who don't want to lift a finger and help. Sure the $100 laptop didn't become as successful as everyone hoped it would but the effect it made and the legacy it left is something the original founders can be proud of. I believe it was an eye opener for everyone that technology can be made really cheap and accessible to everyone and even to this day, the competition to deliver the cheapest gadget is still a raging warzone.

[dgpsf]

Ken, what a well-researched, balanced documentary. I’ve been a subscriber for years now and while you’ve always been entertaining, this channel has been on fire lately, with thoughtful, longform content. As difficult as it has been lately for creators on this platform, I’m so grateful that we still have your channel and that it keeps improving and evolving.

[Bandrik]

My college entrepreneurship professor picked up one of the original OLPCs when the Give 1 Get 1 program was live. He was always excited to try the latest gadgets, so it was neat to see one in person. It was underpowered but ambitious, and I always appreciated their mission.

[RyanMartinez]

I remember around this time that there was a lot of derision because people assumed it was going to be a regular PC with gaming capabilities and features on par with the most expensive and feature-rich PC (or at the very least part of the UMPC trend) and when it didn't turn out that way they judged it on those merits alone completely ignoring the use-case and asking why they didn't just raid the local Goodwill and refurbish older laptops. A suspicious amount of people from the Glorious PC Master Race side of things hated this idea and refused to give it any chance. Looking back on it of course we soberly all see it for what it actually was. But back then I couldn't understand or believe the amount of hate it got.

[Longlius]

I imagine being able to edit the source code of the desktop while the desktop was running was inspired by Smalltalk which had similar goals of being a fully-programmable user environment in addition to a programming language. Funnily enough, Alan Kay, the creator of Smalltalk, envisioned a device called a Dynabook which would be very similar to the OLPC.

[mikehayes]

I still have the XO that I got through the give one get one promotion. About 99 percent of my usage has been the speaking function. Designed for a child but perfect for an easily-amused adult.

[Christopher_Gibbons]

Thank you for this. This was the first charity I ever donated to with my own money. I never found out if they actually accomplished anything until now.