Dissection of OLPC XO-1 by bunnie
7 January 2008
Filed under Hardware, Technology
I’ve been a huge fan of Bunnie (Andrew Huang) since he did his work hacking the Xbox so long ago. More recently he’s been behind the Chumby.
Chumby is a consumer product created by Chumby Industries. It is designed as an Open System, with schematics, PCB layouts and packaging/outerware designs available. The primary intended use for a Chumby device is to play a set of user-customizable widgets, small Adobe Flash animations that deliver real-time information. The animations also have the ability to control and interact with the low-level hardware, thereby enabling functionality such as smart alarm clocks that bring the hardware out of sleep, and physical user interface features such gesture recognition through squeezing the soft housing.
He’s recently received his OLPC, a low-cost computer for developing nations, dissected it, and gone into detail about it’s mechanical design, technology, et cetera. One of the most interesting things he wrote about the OLPC is this:
If I were to make one general comment about the OLPC XO-1, it’s that its mechanical design is brilliant. It’s a fairly clean-sheet redesign of traditional notebook PC mechanics around the goal of survivability, serviceability, and robustness (then again, I’ve never taken apart any of the ruggedized notebooks out there). When closed up for “travel”, all the ports are covered, and the cooling system is extremely simple so it should survive in dusty and dirty environments. Significantly, the port coverings aren’t done with rubberized end caps that you can lose or forget to put on-they are done using the wifi antennae, and the basic design causes the user to swivel them back to cover the ports when they are packing up the laptop to go. That’s thoughtful design.
It’s too often that excellent product design comes from only one or two firms (Apple, Sony). I really like all the thoughtful design that has gone into the XO.
