August 7th, 2008
UPDATE: MIT team working on $12 NES, not Apple II
Looks like the Boston Herald got it wrong.
The MIT group that was researching how to make a $12 computer for developing nations was actually working on a machine that’s more Super Mario than Steve Jobs.
Computerworld’s Eric Lai discovers the truth:
The Herald and other reports interpreted Lomas’ comments as meaning that the TV Computer, apparently made by a company called Victor, was an unbranded knockoff of some member of the Apple II family.
But according to pictures and a wiki partly maintained by Lomas, the Victor-70 is an 8-bit machine that so closely resembles the original Nintendo Entertainment System, also known as the Famicom, that it accepts its cartridges.
So all those comments about basing a machine on Apple II technology were moot. But the beloved Famicom? That’s a whole ‘nother story. Let ‘er rip in TalkBack.
Andrew J. Nusca is an associate editor for ZDNet and SmartPlanet.
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