The document discusses several low-cost computing projects including One Laptop Per Child (OLPC), Merlin, and Sugar Labs. It compares aspects of the projects such as their history, funding sources, testing timelines, and technical features including their operating systems, processors, and approaches to security and community development. The conclusion calls for Sugar to serve as a standard platform in the short-term but recognizes the need to develop new independently controlled technologies to progress further for the future.

1. The Merlin Project and Important Aspects of Research Issues for Low Cost Computers 1 st Workshop on Low Cost Laptops and Devices in Brazil Digitalworldforum.eu WP2 Jecel Mattos de Assump ção Jr June 6, 2008

3. Can there be only one? One Laptop Per Child http://www.laptop.org

4. communities 1970s AI Standard Platform PDP-10 LISP 1970s/80s Unix VAX / 68K C 1970s/80s PC Microsoft BASIC WINTEL Communication Channel ARPAnet Uunet / Internet magazines

5. A Healthy Community OX OX OX OX OX OX OX OX OX OX OX OX OX OX OX OX OX OX OX OX OX OX OX OX OX OX Users Power Users Application Developers System Developers

6. Innovation Standard or Platform None or Slow Fast

7. Standard Platform Sugar Labs Pixel QI

8. Inventing the future http://www.vpri.org

9. CS “dream team”

10. 1972

11. 1976

13. Plan of Attack

15. Merlin - history http://www.merlintec.com 1983: Pegasus (Logo Machine) 1986: Merlin 2 1993: Merlin 4 2003: proto Merlin 6

16. Merlin - overview Neo Smalltalk Plurion: External memories RISC42 RISC42 RISC42 RISC42

17. comparison base start funding Plurion, Neo Smalltalk COLA PC, Linux, Sugar 1999 (1983) 2001 (1970) 2005 $70K self financed Donors $5M NSF $20M initial Tiny royalty

18. comparison testing Open source content In a few months Since 2005 Since March 2007 yes yes mostly Pay per use ? volunteers

19. comparison Multi cores sharing security groups HydraVM Linux SMP? Viewpoint sync Tea Time Telepathy / Tubes Object extensions Islands Bitfrost

20. Conclusion The children can ’t wait… to have a community we need a standard platform right now pieced together from what exists. Sugar can be that platform. But this approach won ’t take us very far into the future… we need to develop stuff we can control.