Its called a transreflective LCD. They are popular on some tablets that act as Ereaders in asia, but never really caught on in the west, though you can sometimes find them in ATMs and gas station displays.
@hyper Most of them are the exact same with and without sunlight. On some, the colors change because of two trips through for sun vs just one for the backlight.
Would there be any benefit to having TransLEDs in smartphones? Of course, being able to see the screen better under bright conditions is a given but what about battery life, enabling/disabling it, etc?
(0) The XO-1s we deployed in rural Nepal in 2007 are still being used, perhaps the most remarkable thing about the laptop; When things do break, the kids are able to fix them -- we included extra screws inside in case the kids lost some along the way; (1) The display was invented by Mary Lou Jepsen. wiki.laptop.org/go/Display is a good place to start to learn more about the display -- Pixel Qi was a spin off from OLPC to develop the display commercially (OLPC was a non-profit association); (2) Windows XP never worked well enough on the laptop to be used in field beyond some pilots -- as soon as you turned on anti-virus software, the machine became overburdened; (3) the XO-4 can be powered by a $10 solar panel; (4) the desktop (Sugar) and apps are still maintained (https:www.sugarlabs.org) and since Sugar runs on top of Fedora (or Ubuntu, Debian, etc.) it will run on almost any computer (runs great on a RPi-3, for example).
As a kid I had an insane obsession with these devices for some reason. Before they went on sale to the public, my 8-year-old self wrote a physical letter to the OLPC initiative asking how I could buy one haha. Interestingly enough they responded back explaining the new program for give one get one. Unfortunately never got the chance to own one of these but WOW did this video bring back some good memories!
In my country Uruguay all children have one, that is an old model, they already brought 2 more models of the XO one blue and other white, I think they all work with ubuntu.
Do they still fix these old models? I have both the blue one and the green(1.75), but they doesnt work anymore. i was thinking that maybe they will fix them (even if that costs some money). (For some context, my gf is uruguayan, both OLPC's are from ceibal project and they arent blacklisted)
@@VouEuSou Vamo arriba uruguay nomas!!! En mi liceo los nenes todavia usan las verdes, nunca nos llegaron las azules, y me acuerdo que tipo habia rumores de que cuando llegabas a bachillerato te daban una que era re pro y era roja
as someone who literally had a xo-1 from school at 2009, it was one of my favorite computers when i was young and stupid. 10 years after it's blocked as shit and broke as shit but i love its form factor
@@AnonymousGentooman So, my gf came to Brazil with 2 brothers (so we have two XO 1.75 and one 1.5), they just brought them and it was working before they left them off for some years. She is planning a trip to Uruguay and she thought that maybe they will fix hers, even if its a paid service
@@lucamagnani5243 Tengo la XO azul (1.5) y el verde (1.75), ningúno de ellos esta funcionando, pero eso quería saber se ai en Uruguay irían arreglar mismo cobrando, sabes si ellos tienen algún projecto para arreglar la XO, mismo fuera de la escuela? Fotos de los modelos: imgur.com/a/4rZ329g
I had one of these as a kid. Not like, because I was where these were being deployed, but because my dad did the "one for them, one for you" thing. I remember being frustrated by it, not being able to do all the things a windows computer was able to do, but in retrospect, I was young enough that I'd probably mess up a real laptop. It's wild seeing one again
back in 2008 Microsoft tried to make a Windows XP version that would install on it there were so much hate comments from the usual linux fanboys they couldn't imagine the idea of a 7 years old kid wanting to use Windows and office in 2008 I was 7. I spent my time playing with word and discovering tons of stuff just by playing around. WordArt was my favorite (of course). Fonts got me passionate about Writing systems and calligraphy. besides I was playing mahjong, solitaire and Purble place. Later I would discover Windows movie maker which would spark my love for video making. Those people who argue that kids will never need a full PC Don't know what they are talking about. Under sugar, the XO was pretty much useless (my sister had one in 5th grade)
@@Zulf85 well, I'm in 12th year now, in what we call "law high school" (roughly) so I don't use a computer in class. Also, since I studied 3 years of highschool in a private, Catholic school I didn't get the free upgrade XO, getting stucked with an old model from 2011
Hi, I'm from SugarLabs, the organisation that makes the software that OLPC laptops (and a lot more devices) run on. Happy to answer any questions. Please ask.
Have the laptops been upgraded over the years or have they stayed with the same exact hardware as initially? Eg bigger storage, Ram, a touchscreen, etc?
@@genericjosh96 I have a better resource for you to read up on this display: wiki.laptop.org/go/Display It serves a good intro to the OLPC display. (Thanks to Walter Bender for answering this question on mailing list and providing the link)
@@genericjosh96 Thanks for asking. I posted this on mailing list, and an expert who knew about the details got back with the answer. Thanks for your help, James Cameron! Here's what James from OLPC told me over the mailing list: A kernel configuration file is used to select colour or grayscale mode in the driver, and thus the display controller ASIC. This is in the kernel sources. The keyboard shim detects brightness control keys and manages the backlight power. When the backlight is turned off, the grayscale mode is enabled. When the backlight is turned on, the grayscale mode is disabled. This is in the keyboard shim sources. On the XO-1.75 and XO-4 models, a reverse biased red LED in the same SMT package as the green storage LED is used as an ambient light sensor. The power management daemon (powerd) detects high ambient light and turns off the backlight and turns on the grayscale mode. The backlight is turned off to save power, and increase running time on battery. This is in the powerd sources. However, without any change to backlight brightness or mode switching, full sunlight does appear as greyscale, because the human eye can't discern the small amount of colour emitted by the backlight compared to the large amount of white light reflected from the sun.
@@Alex-dn7jq The hardware has been regularly updated with release of newer models. For example, XO-4 (the latest one) has a touchscreen variant and improved hardware.
Instead of this, mobile device manufacturers try to make the screens as bright as they can so that they are readable outside. The advantage is that they can display colors in the sunlight unlike this one. The disadvantage would probably be battery life
My school (Us, Alabama) they actually ordered theres for every kid. Supposedly we where supposed to give then back but that never happened. Miss the little guy. Thanks for the trip down memory lane.
Amythest We had these computers at my elementary school too for free back in 2008. (Alabama) I forgot about these but remembered it randomly. They were fun to use as kids.
This was my first pc I had varius or this They gifted this laptops to us in Uruguay to us students we had the 1.0, 1.5 and 1.75 We used them to play games and this video gives me so much nostalgia The X-O 4 was free for students Sadly i did not get this one
I picked up one of these in a thrift store a few years ago and used it as a shop computer. Indestructible, easy to fix, and perfect for displaying technical documents. I'd love to have a modern version.
I remember my school had these and we each had personal ones. I was a crafty individual at the time and I got into a weird OS called Gnome and that's what I used. I remember playing around in the console and installing applications that way. 5th Grade was amazing...
This was my first ever laptop. I learned so much about Linux and Fedora. It introduced me to the world of computing, and for that I am ever grateful. I'm in school right now so I can start a career in Linux Administration - I owe this laptop for my interest. I hope the kid on the other end of the program who got the free laptop learned as much as me.
I found one in a goodwill toy section for $5 a few years back; gave it to my kid as his first computer. Theres an option to switch to a gnome os easily if you play around a bit. Think i paid as much for the adapter on ebay as i did the pc itself
As knowing the original creators for a long time, and getting one for my birthday at the age of 4. It makes me happy to see a video about it. Because most people I talk to have no idea what the XO-1 is.
I was thinking about these the other day because I was in elementary school when these were on TV. I always wanted one. Thank you for sharing what these were like cause I always just never got these outta my head
Plenty chinese tablets sell for extremly low price with better preformance for price than r-pie i got a 30$ Prestegio 7" tablet for my grandmother to read on
I remember seeing those in commercials as a kid, that talked of distributing them to kids in developing countries. I never saw anything like them sold in real life and always thought they looked strange, but it's cool that I just got reminded of something that hadn't been in my head for years
O man. I remember these. I studied the work on one laptop per child in college which was right around when these were coming out. I haven't thought about these things in forever.
A friend of mine was involved in the OLPC proyect. Is job was to make the Pame translation, and I had access to this exact machine. It has an outstanding good quality considering the price.
I believe the display was using tech by or related to Pixel Qi. I actually bought a Pixel Qi display to install into my Acer Aspire One netbook in 2009. Super cool display tech.
Yo my first job was at the state run company in Uruguay that distributed this computer to every schoolkid in the country. Never actually had one though.
those things are really, REALLY cool. been wanting one since i was 12 in 2008. just thought it was realluy cool. ive got a laptop as well as a chromebook, but that thing looks FUN.
Wow... Such old project! I forgot the existence of these OLPC. Such cool idea, but unfortunately never got a chance to see one of those working. The display is quite amazing.
i had one of this when i was a child in Mexico, i've always been interested in computers and my uncle who was studying engineering taught me of linux when i was 8, when i saw the terminal i opened the Totem video player and everyone was impressed, but the XO couldn't play videos regardless of opening totem, it crashed. Then, i overclocked it, it was my first aproach to overclock and this laptop definetely gave me a ton of fun.
It's too bad that AMD dropped the Geode line of CPU's. That CPU architecture is actually based off of Cyrix Media GX line ( except from the GEode NX CPU). It's main feature was an incredibly low TDP (The Geode GX had a TDP as low as 0.9 watts!).
I feel like I saw this everywhere for all of my childhood; then one day it just vanished until I came across it another a week ago. Nostalgia is weird.
Thanks for making this video! I remember hearing about these laptops, and I was always fascinated by them. Never thought to look them up on TH-cam, though.
I've never seen one of these, and I'm amazed! Especially that screen! I think something like this could work very well for outdoorsmen and sportsmen types who might wanna bring a laptop outdoors on camping trips or whatever. It would have to be a bit more powerful than this thing obviously, and able to connect to a WIFI or satellite network.
This was gonna be my first laptop. I saved every dollar until I had enough for one. Then my grandparents said they'd match me on what I'd saved so far so I could get a better machine. I still have that laptop on the corner of my desk :^)
I have just saw this video and a nostalgia feeling overwhelming-ly caught me. This's going to be very interesting... When this all-plastic-looking machine was released in 2007, it was my ultimate dream. Haven't seen it in real life. Why this plasticly design is my ultimate dream but not a good-looking laptop? Because it's the cheapest! I started reading PC tweaking magazine in 2005 and apply what I read to broke my PC. Then I started learning FAST-typing, I read ebook and do a lot of typing. And having a laptop is TO TYPING wherever I am is a dream that seem almost impossible (my family could afford it but there were many other important things). Here what option we had at the time: - My dad want to buy a Sony point-and-shoot camera, back when a point and shoot was deadly expensive. - My mom want to save as much money as she could for me to go to university, which also deadly expensive, some families couldn't even afford to have their kids to high school, many couldn't get to college without selling their real estate. (consider the continuous explosion in real estate price, selling real estate/land for college is bullshit now) Also, she use her own money for her investment. How my dad used his money is a myth. - Buying a laptop for me (while we had two desktop-computers at home) is obviously unnecessary. But when your kid love something so much, it's became a de-facto that you need to consider buying it. 1. Thinkpad, the black, matte-finish, is the dream that I didn't even dare to dream. It's business-grade machine that only professionals, companies and rich families could afford. Back at the time, the Thinkpad T400 was the prize for many contest. 2. Asus eeePC is the cosliest among cheap laptop/notebook, it beautiful and like modern laptop. Half the price of a Thinkpad T400. 3. When I read about the OLPC XO-1 Netbook I thought, wow, my fam could afford this. In fact my dad kept boasting that he made a lot for a low rank supervisor, back at the time he made double my mom money, and he could easily buy me a Netbook every two month. I don't know where all that money gone (?): he didn't buy me a gaming desktop (my dream before laptop) in high school (my friend's parents did), he didn't buy me a latop in highschool (my friend's parents did), he didn't buy me an 135cc Exciter when I turned 18 (well, my friend's parents did NOT, too). 4. Also, at the time, I read on news paper (in 2005 highspeed Internet was not widely wildly available like in 2022) and they advertised the Chinese's copy of the HP 12 inch notebook, double the price of the Netbook but . But: it's a Chinese copy-cat. How things turned out was magnificent in real timely order: - My dad bought himself a Sony point-and-shoot, I also got to learn some photography. Turned out it's a good hobby for me, and comes in handy when I travel on my own. - My parents didn't buy me any new PC or laptop during highschool. What's the dream laptop of people in 2011: Sony Vaio and Macbook pro, most "consumer" users only know those two, Dell was very hot (in term of hardware) but not that hot with ther user (not very popular), Asus was quite cheap, Acer was (and is still) cheaper, but Thinkpad is for the real-deals (performance user who also need reliability) - Finally he bought me my first laptop when I enter National University (my 2nd option, I didn't make it to the first option), you bet: it's the T400! - Later I lost my father beloved point and shoot camera! - He bought himself another DSLR camera, cost the same as the point and shoot (aka quite a lot of money) - You wonder how my mom options turned out: she bought a very large piece of land (again, on her own made money), the profit from it 1/ by planting and selling tree on it alone covered the amount to buy it 2/ help paying my first year of university. The luckiest thing ever happened in my life is my decision to earn-it myself. And later on, I realy own my life. It's great how life turn out. To stick to the topic, let not talk about the broad topic of working and life balance, on the hardware story, I own at least 18 laptops, half of them are business laptops and workstation, I also own hyper-workstation and home server. Back when I was a kid, I had all kind of dream, but I couldn't really belive or imagine one day I could actually build my life wrong working with both one leg in tech and one leg on business-facing, say 10% of my work is connect with R&D, I'm a team leader, not a developer. So, at point, this netbook was a big thing in my life, although I didn't own it. What a long amazing journey. Thank you this Netbook for being in my life.
I got one for Christmas when I was 8 and I still have it also if you want a more traditional operating environment ui there is an option to switch from the sugar linux shell to a gnome linux shell in the settings
I actually had this laptop as a child. even though its really cool, as someone who was young and didnt understand how to really take advantage of the customizability of the OS, it was not really a useful computer since it wasn't really compatible with any printer i had access to. So even though my parents got it for me to use to write notes in class on, i ended up using it to mess around with linux and not get any real work done. The OS was just way too simplistic for me at the time to actually take advantage of. It was really cool to see this little machine again. It also has some hidden features that not many people talk about like if you hold down the game keys on the display while booting it, it will boot into other applications like Pong, a self test mode, a Conway game of life simulation, and other things that i cant really remember well
My dad was involved with education iniatives here, so he actually managed to get me both an OLPC XO1 and a classmate pc to try them out and give some feedback
When I first saw the thumbnail, I was wondering if it was the laptop from those giveaways in the early 2000s. I remember really wanting to do that giveaway as a kid! Good thing I never did though, looks like shit for the dawn of the internet age.
I have to say, this was my childhood dream laptop. I really hoped this will be mine in some days, until I got my first tablet PC in 2013 and I almost forgot about it.
I still have one of these that I bought back around launch. Haven't used it in forever, but constrained development is an occasional passion of mine. I remember having so much fun with it as a wee lad (as wee as you can be with a full beard you still think looks good, I suppose). If you have a kid interested in computers give him or her a "piece of junk" (or all the parts for said piece of junk) and the means to work around and within the limitations of the hardware, maybe not this bare, but not some expensive perfect machine. Before this, I had an old Compaq Armada with a Pentium MMX and an IBM Eduquest with a 486SX (it still lives to play Rogue when there's nothing better to do). It's like giving a mechanically-inclined kid a box of parts when they want an RC car.
I bought one of those at a garage sale last year, it was my first laptop and it came with a cut down version of windows 7 and only had one gb of ram, but I quickly upgraded it to 2 gb of ram and lubuntu Edit: I still use it
I have a eeetab which asus later renamed to a transformer, it needs a new charger but Ive had it running anything it could like android, linux, and even a very old version of ubuntu touch
The first EeePC came with Xandros, a custom Debian-based distro - the only way to fit a whole software ecosystem on the puny 4GB SSD using a compressed bootable image. Later models came with either the resurrected for the occasion Windows XP (and a 8Gb SSD), then Windows 7 Starter Edition (on a 16Gb SSD). Several other manufacturers soon followed with other "netbooks", and Intel actually got the Atom series of chips out to power these little things with something a bit more responsive than a Celeron 900. I still have one of these early single core, dual threaded Atom 1600 netbooks as an emergency field computer (upgraded RAM to 2Gb). It's too slow for anything other than the simplest browsing and listening to music now, but 32-bit Ubuntu 18.04 with LXDE runs fine and it's more than enough to open a terminal window, download an ISO and create a boot disk, or type a quick note on the go. I'll retire it soon though, as there is no upgrade planned for 32-bit Ubuntu and I don't feel like formatting it anew.
It's interesting to see so many comments here from people who have fond memories of these because they were one of the kids in the developing countries who received them.
i was an owner of an xo 1 and then an xo 1.5 throughout primary school in uruguay and man were they awesome, it was the best computer 6 yo me could have wished for and it was free. those were good times
Here in Uruguay In 2009 the president at the time had a company for these computers. The company is still known as the ceibal plan. And they had a song for OLPC I really speak Spanish but I hope you understand the lyrics of the song. (🎶 a river made of light 🎶 river made of light and birds in flight a square of sky I want to be navigator through the astral sky I want to be navigator through the astral sky without leaving my back in the shadow of the ceibal 🎶) 🥺💖
People who find these, here's what to do, keep the internal storage intact if it has the original Give one/Get one OS and apps (even if you can redownload that build), upgrade the firmware as it corrects that RTC battery issue and install a newer version of the OS (latest released in december 2018) on an SD Card. These things are gems
I remember this thing being advertised on the back of cereal boxes. You could win one of these, and you'd also get the pleasure of knowing that some other kid somewhere would get one too.
I have a couple of these! The battery in the one I opened is really done for, even following their steps to recalibrate it. If you install a newer software version, you can switch over to a Fedora desktop. The touchpad was always extremely flaky for me and would start getting hyperactive or even reacting before I got to it. In those cases, I would need to do the " four finger salute" where you momentarily press the keys at all four corners of the keyboard to recalibrate it. It was always kind of slow and frustrating to use this thing, but I think we can really thank it for kicking off netbooks as we know them. Also, that screen really is super cool, especially in an era where e-ink readers were both rare and expensive, only existing in Japan for a few years at launch time if I remember right. Too bad transflective displays seemed a fad... I had them on this, the Game Boy Color, Game Boy Advance, and Nokia 3220, and never again... However the OLPC screen's designer founded a company called "Pixel Qi" if you want to dig further on what became of it.
I have an xo4 developer preview in the US. the later 1.5, 1.75, and 4 can also have a more traditional keyboard. they also switched to ARM, which killed XP compatibility.
This was an amazing idea. It was only leased to schools. The one hick up I came across was that once the BIOS battery died, it would require a custom UART serial connection loader. Since that loader was made, patches have been developed, however the loader runs $100.00. I love my little laptop, however this loader has prevented me from following up with it. I hope an Arduino patch is developed. Until then, or until I work out UART, mine sits happily.
I have 2 of them laying around, currently trying to get one to boot just to play around with it. The OS looks very interesting and i was told that people ported some games for these systems
These laptops were distributed to every school here in Argentina for free (very very very low cost) as part of some sort of public project. It was cool to have games such as Vascolet and Xa in it.
@@quirble It doesn't need a desktop operating system. They can use it like a Chromebook with Office365 or Google Docs. And you can always pair a Bluetooth keyboard, which gives options for size, style, ergonomics/accessibility, etc. Just slap a rugged case on it to protect against falls.
i saw the ted talk back in the day, it was a great idea back then and would still be a great idea today, hope the organization behind it is still working on getting more funding to keep it going, might know where my next donation is going to go.
I had one of these as a kid, and it was really neat. The issue was because of its proprietary software and OS, my 1st world Windows XP using child self had trouble using the more interesting features. But it was still really neat, and felt like it was built like a tank.
Yup, it's a case of a bad auto-focus implementation. I just got a new phone so I have been shooting 4K video with it. The built in camera is pretty good, however the auto-focus tends to change every couple seconds in some video environments.
@@AAComputersandTechnology Is there no way to use a manual focus? Seems like a pretty major oversight on part of the manufacturer if manual focus can't be used.
Its called a transreflective LCD. They are popular on some tablets that act as Ereaders in asia, but never really caught on in the west, though you can sometimes find them in ATMs and gas station displays.
@hyper
Most of them are the exact same with and without sunlight. On some, the colors change because of two trips through for sun vs just one for the backlight.
There’s Smartwatches that include TransLCDs, for example the Xiaomi Amazfit Bip
Would there be any benefit to having TransLEDs in smartphones? Of course, being able to see the screen better under bright conditions is a given but what about battery life, enabling/disabling it, etc?
This is a Pixel Qi display, transflective indoors, reflective outdoors: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pixel_Qi
@@beatricemeyers4640
I actually remember seeing advertisements for this.
same, tbh i wanted one but now i know the specs i wouldnt be able to run anything i was planning lol
i remember there was a whole thing around these.
wow i do too, i didn't know it was that long ago holy shit
My sister was a teacher at the time and she brought one home for me to borrow
I remember seeing ads for this on pbs kids and I was so jealous of the kids in the ads
(0) The XO-1s we deployed in rural Nepal in 2007 are still being used, perhaps the most remarkable thing about the laptop; When things do break, the kids are able to fix them -- we included extra screws inside in case the kids lost some along the way; (1) The display was invented by Mary Lou Jepsen. wiki.laptop.org/go/Display is a good place to start to learn more about the display -- Pixel Qi was a spin off from OLPC to develop the display commercially (OLPC was a non-profit association); (2) Windows XP never worked well enough on the laptop to be used in field beyond some pilots -- as soon as you turned on anti-virus software, the machine became overburdened; (3) the XO-4 can be powered by a $10 solar panel; (4) the desktop (Sugar) and apps are still maintained (https:www.sugarlabs.org) and since Sugar runs on top of Fedora (or Ubuntu, Debian, etc.) it will run on almost any computer (runs great on a RPi-3, for example).
Walter Bender I wanna know how you even got Windows XP running on the X0-1 to begin with
wow creator himself, wish I I had gotten one as kid. Thanks for your contributions,
Awesome
Did you and asus eeepc go to court? They basically stole your idea
That looks like something you'd see in icarly.
or serial experement lain
As a kid I had an insane obsession with these devices for some reason. Before they went on sale to the public, my 8-year-old self wrote a physical letter to the OLPC initiative asking how I could buy one haha. Interestingly enough they responded back explaining the new program for give one get one. Unfortunately never got the chance to own one of these but WOW did this video bring back some good memories!
In my country Uruguay all children have one, that is an old model, they already brought 2 more models of the XO one blue and other white, I think they all work with ubuntu.
Do they still fix these old models? I have both the blue one and the green(1.75), but they doesnt work anymore. i was thinking that maybe they will fix them (even if that costs some money).
(For some context, my gf is uruguayan, both OLPC's are from ceibal project and they arent blacklisted)
@@VouEuSou Vamo arriba uruguay nomas!!!
En mi liceo los nenes todavia usan las verdes, nunca nos llegaron las azules, y me acuerdo que tipo habia rumores de que cuando llegabas a bachillerato te daban una que era re pro y era roja
as someone who literally had a xo-1 from school at 2009, it was one of my favorite computers when i was young and stupid.
10 years after it's blocked as shit and broke as shit but i love its form factor
@@AnonymousGentooman So, my gf came to Brazil with 2 brothers (so we have two XO 1.75 and one 1.5), they just brought them and it was working before they left them off for some years. She is planning a trip to Uruguay and she thought that maybe they will fix hers, even if its a paid service
@@lucamagnani5243 Tengo la XO azul (1.5) y el verde (1.75), ningúno de ellos esta funcionando, pero eso quería saber se ai en Uruguay irían arreglar mismo cobrando, sabes si ellos tienen algún projecto para arreglar la XO, mismo fuera de la escuela?
Fotos de los modelos: imgur.com/a/4rZ329g
I was curious what these laptops have actually been like.
Thanks for sharing this bit.
Why do I see you everywhere
@@mi-nk Probably coincidence, I usually do not comment that much.
I want one to mod. Like, MOD. A lot . Such as the internals of like two Chromebooks and a touchscreen with a Windows 10 os, and more
hint: they were awesome
I had one of these as a kid.
Not like, because I was where these were being deployed, but because my dad did the "one for them, one for you" thing.
I remember being frustrated by it, not being able to do all the things a windows computer was able to do, but in retrospect, I was young enough that I'd probably mess up a real laptop.
It's wild seeing one again
back in 2008 Microsoft tried to make a Windows XP version that would install on it
there were so much hate comments from the usual linux fanboys
they couldn't imagine the idea of a 7 years old kid wanting to use Windows and office
in 2008 I was 7. I spent my time playing with word and discovering tons of stuff just by playing around. WordArt was my favorite (of course). Fonts got me passionate about Writing systems and calligraphy. besides I was playing mahjong, solitaire and Purble place. Later I would discover Windows movie maker which would spark my love for video making.
Those people who argue that kids will never need a full PC Don't know what they are talking about. Under sugar, the XO was pretty much useless (my sister had one in 5th grade)
Yes, those features are draw jopping. :)
I REALLY hoped someone else picked up on that XD
2:20
@@quinnhenry6719 As soon as I heard it. I rewound three times just to make sure that's what I heard LOL !
Quinn Henry I just heard it, had to rewind it to make sure I heard it right. 😂
I remember seeing this on commercials back in the day, was starting to think this was something only in my memory
I always wanted one of these as soon as I had seen the commercial on nick toons. I begged my parents but that said no.
@@manamaster_ i never asked because i already knew the answer lmao
We got this for free in uruguayan schools. Jeez, this brings back memories
What do you use yourself nowadays?
@@Zulf85 well, I'm in 12th year now, in what we call "law high school" (roughly) so I don't use a computer in class. Also, since I studied 3 years of highschool in a private, Catholic school I didn't get the free upgrade XO, getting stucked with an old model from 2011
Aguante el juego de Vascolet papa.
@@thecountofmontezero sabeee
Hi, I'm from SugarLabs, the organisation that makes the software that OLPC laptops (and a lot more devices) run on.
Happy to answer any questions. Please ask.
Do you know if the display is switching modes with the greyscale thing? Very curious how the screen works
Have the laptops been upgraded over the years or have they stayed with the same exact hardware as initially? Eg bigger storage, Ram, a touchscreen, etc?
@@genericjosh96 I have a better resource for you to read up on this display:
wiki.laptop.org/go/Display
It serves a good intro to the OLPC display.
(Thanks to Walter Bender for answering this question on mailing list and providing the link)
@@genericjosh96 Thanks for asking. I posted this on mailing list, and an expert who knew about the details got back with the answer. Thanks for your help, James Cameron! Here's what James from OLPC told me over the mailing list:
A kernel configuration file is used to select colour or grayscale
mode in the driver, and thus the display controller ASIC. This is in
the kernel sources.
The keyboard shim detects brightness control keys and manages the
backlight power. When the backlight is turned off, the grayscale mode
is enabled. When the backlight is turned on, the grayscale mode is
disabled. This is in the keyboard shim sources.
On the XO-1.75 and XO-4 models, a reverse biased red LED in the same
SMT package as the green storage LED is used as an ambient light
sensor. The power management daemon (powerd) detects high ambient
light and turns off the backlight and turns on the grayscale mode.
The backlight is turned off to save power, and increase running time
on battery. This is in the powerd sources.
However, without any change to backlight brightness or mode switching,
full sunlight does appear as greyscale, because the human eye can't
discern the small amount of colour emitted by the backlight compared
to the large amount of white light reflected from the sun.
@@Alex-dn7jq The hardware has been regularly updated with release of newer models.
For example, XO-4 (the latest one) has a touchscreen variant and improved hardware.
That screen technology is ridiculously cool. I can't believe we haven't seen it on more devices.
Instead of this, mobile device manufacturers try to make the screens as bright as they can so that they are readable outside. The advantage is that they can display colors in the sunlight unlike this one. The disadvantage would probably be battery life
My school (Us, Alabama) they actually ordered theres for every kid. Supposedly we where supposed to give then back but that never happened.
Miss the little guy. Thanks for the trip down memory lane.
In fairness Alabama is basically a developing nation.
Amythest We had these computers at my elementary school too for free back in 2008. (Alabama) I forgot about these but remembered it randomly. They were fun to use as kids.
I remember being hyped for this thing. Yes it was gonna suck but the idea behind it was a solid one that I wanted to support.
Absolutely brilliant... They need to make this again, of course updated, and improved as necessary.
Brilliant for kids.
That is so cool someone like you still like old tech like me keep up the good videos
I love the thought of this guy walking around his neibourhood throwing a 2007 laptop on the floor and spraying it with water. 😂
The display is a Pixel Qi. They also made 10 inch display replacements for netbooks.
Thanks for pasta-ing that in the comments.
@@MorganHunter92 just say pasting you redditor
Man this brings back memories. Had one of these when I was in the 4th/5th grade and we would use it all the time in class as part of assignments
I remember as a kid, I tried to win one of these from a Gushers sweepstakes (or some other candy brand). It's really cool to revisit this laptop!
I think I vaguely remember seeing ads for this as a child
kitten!
This was my first pc
I had varius or this
They gifted this laptops to us in Uruguay to us students we had the 1.0, 1.5 and 1.75
We used them to play games and this video gives me so much nostalgia
The X-O 4 was free for students
Sadly i did not get this one
Bought one of these off ShopGoodwill and it was a totally different experience. Have the distro ISO for it in a folder
The swivel screen reminds me of the thinkpad x230 tablet
That's probably the only thing that those two machines have in common.
And Fujitsu Lifebook T series
Remember this. The idea was cool especially the whole mesh network idea.
I picked up one of these in a thrift store a few years ago and used it as a shop computer. Indestructible, easy to fix, and perfect for displaying technical documents. I'd love to have a modern version.
I remember my school had these and we each had personal ones. I was a crafty individual at the time and I got into a weird OS called Gnome and that's what I used. I remember playing around in the console and installing applications that way. 5th Grade was amazing...
I remember seeing this thing on Nickelodeon all the time in commercials, always wanted one, and forgot they existed
Steveg101 same
I vaguely remember the advertisements for these in school. 2007 was a long time ago
This was my first ever laptop. I learned so much about Linux and Fedora. It introduced me to the world of computing, and for that I am ever grateful. I'm in school right now so I can start a career in Linux Administration - I owe this laptop for my interest. I hope the kid on the other end of the program who got the free laptop learned as much as me.
Whoa, this is bringing me places I didn't even think I would ever be brought back to.
I found one in a goodwill toy section for $5 a few years back; gave it to my kid as his first computer. Theres an option to switch to a gnome os easily if you play around a bit.
Think i paid as much for the adapter on ebay as i did the pc itself
As knowing the original creators for a long time, and getting one for my birthday at the age of 4. It makes me happy to see a video about it. Because most people I talk to have no idea what the XO-1 is.
I was thinking about these the other day because I was in elementary school when these were on TV. I always wanted one. Thank you for sharing what these were like cause I always just never got these outta my head
They should make a rugerized raspberry pi zero w with a touch screen and keyboard for students in developing countries
Guess what, there's exactly that! Check out Sugar on a Stick.
Plenty chinese tablets sell for extremly low price with better preformance for price than r-pie
i got a 30$ Prestegio 7" tablet for my grandmother to read on
I remember these, they used to run commercials about giving these to kids in Africa and South America.
I remember seeing those in commercials as a kid, that talked of distributing them to kids in developing countries. I never saw anything like them sold in real life and always thought they looked strange, but it's cool that I just got reminded of something that hadn't been in my head for years
O man. I remember these. I studied the work on one laptop per child in college which was right around when these were coming out. I haven't thought about these things in forever.
"Really draw-Jopping" 2:18 Lol the perfect description of this thing.
A friend of mine was involved in the OLPC proyect. Is job was to make the Pame translation, and I had access to this exact machine. It has an outstanding good quality considering the price.
I believe the display was using tech by or related to Pixel Qi. I actually bought a Pixel Qi display to install into my Acer Aspire One netbook in 2009. Super cool display tech.
OMG I REMBER SEEING THE COMMERCIAL FOR THIS IN 2ND GRADE AND I HAVEN’T SEEN IT SINCE THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR THIS VIDEO
I remember seeing this in a magazine back then and I was blown away. Of course looking back at it now, I probably wouldn’t even touch it.
I remember seeing advertisements for these on cereal boxes.
Yo my first job was at the state run company in Uruguay that distributed this computer to every schoolkid in the country. Never actually had one though.
I remember wanting this as as a child!!! It's so cool looking...
those things are really, REALLY cool. been wanting one since i was 12 in 2008. just thought it was realluy cool. ive got a laptop as well as a chromebook, but that thing looks FUN.
It kinda is, but most of the time it's not powerful enough to do anything with
Wow... Such old project!
I forgot the existence of these OLPC.
Such cool idea, but unfortunately never got a chance to see one of those working. The display is quite amazing.
i had one of this when i was a child in Mexico, i've always been interested in computers and my uncle who was studying engineering taught me of linux when i was 8, when i saw the terminal i opened the Totem video player and everyone was impressed, but the XO couldn't play videos regardless of opening totem, it crashed. Then, i overclocked it, it was my first aproach to overclock and this laptop definetely gave me a ton of fun.
I have one of these in storage! Love playing with it once in a while
It's too bad that AMD dropped the Geode line of CPU's. That CPU architecture is actually based off of Cyrix Media GX line ( except from the GEode NX CPU). It's main feature was an incredibly low TDP (The Geode GX had a TDP as low as 0.9 watts!).
@@owowowdhxbxgakwlcybwxsimcwx Nice, did they ever update to the Puma architecture?
I feel like I saw this everywhere for all of my childhood; then one day it just vanished until I came across it another a week ago. Nostalgia is weird.
Thanks for making this video! I remember hearing about these laptops, and I was always fascinated by them. Never thought to look them up on TH-cam, though.
I've never seen one of these, and I'm amazed! Especially that screen! I think something like this could work very well for outdoorsmen and sportsmen types who might wanna bring a laptop outdoors on camping trips or whatever. It would have to be a bit more powerful than this thing obviously, and able to connect to a WIFI or satellite network.
This was gonna be my first laptop. I saved every dollar until I had enough for one. Then my grandparents said they'd match me on what I'd saved so far so I could get a better machine. I still have that laptop on the corner of my desk :^)
Oh my god that laptop was on Homestar Runner
The amazifit bip has the same screen technology but with colour, it's amazing
I have just saw this video and a nostalgia feeling overwhelming-ly caught me.
This's going to be very interesting...
When this all-plastic-looking machine was released in 2007, it was my ultimate dream. Haven't seen it in real life. Why this plasticly design is my ultimate dream but not a good-looking laptop? Because it's the cheapest!
I started reading PC tweaking magazine in 2005 and apply what I read to broke my PC.
Then I started learning FAST-typing, I read ebook and do a lot of typing. And having a laptop is TO TYPING wherever I am is a dream that seem almost impossible (my family could afford it but there were many other important things).
Here what option we had at the time:
- My dad want to buy a Sony point-and-shoot camera, back when a point and shoot was deadly expensive.
- My mom want to save as much money as she could for me to go to university, which also deadly expensive, some families couldn't even afford to have their kids to high school, many couldn't get to college without selling their real estate. (consider the continuous explosion in real estate price, selling real estate/land for college is bullshit now) Also, she use her own money for her investment. How my dad used his money is a myth.
- Buying a laptop for me (while we had two desktop-computers at home) is obviously
unnecessary. But when your kid love something so much, it's became a de-facto that you need to consider buying it.
1. Thinkpad, the black, matte-finish, is the dream that I didn't even dare to dream. It's business-grade machine that only professionals, companies and rich families could afford. Back at the time, the Thinkpad T400 was the prize for many contest.
2. Asus eeePC is the cosliest among cheap laptop/notebook, it beautiful and like modern laptop. Half the price of a Thinkpad T400.
3. When I read about the OLPC XO-1 Netbook I thought, wow, my fam could afford this. In fact my dad kept boasting that he made a lot for a low rank supervisor, back at the time he made double my mom money, and he could easily buy me a Netbook every two month. I don't know where all that money gone (?): he didn't buy me a gaming desktop (my dream before laptop) in high school (my friend's parents did), he didn't buy me a latop in highschool (my friend's parents did), he didn't buy me an 135cc Exciter when I turned 18 (well, my friend's parents did NOT, too).
4. Also, at the time, I read on news paper (in 2005 highspeed Internet was not widely wildly available like in 2022) and they advertised the Chinese's copy of the HP 12 inch notebook, double the price of the Netbook but . But: it's a Chinese copy-cat.
How things turned out was magnificent in real timely order:
- My dad bought himself a Sony point-and-shoot, I also got to learn some photography. Turned out it's a good hobby for me, and comes in handy when I travel on my own.
- My parents didn't buy me any new PC or laptop during highschool.
What's the dream laptop of people in 2011: Sony Vaio and Macbook pro, most "consumer" users only know those two, Dell was very hot (in term of hardware) but not that hot with ther user (not very popular), Asus was quite cheap, Acer was (and is still) cheaper, but Thinkpad is for the real-deals (performance user who also need reliability)
- Finally he bought me my first laptop when I enter National University (my 2nd option, I didn't make it to the first option), you bet: it's the T400!
- Later I lost my father beloved point and shoot camera!
- He bought himself another DSLR camera, cost the same as the point and shoot (aka quite a lot of money)
- You wonder how my mom options turned out: she bought a very large piece of land (again, on her own made money), the profit from it 1/ by planting and selling tree on it alone covered the amount to buy it 2/ help paying my first year of university.
The luckiest thing ever happened in my life is my decision to earn-it myself. And later on, I realy own my life. It's great how life turn out.
To stick to the topic, let not talk about the broad topic of working and life balance, on the hardware story, I own at least 18 laptops, half of them are business laptops and workstation, I also own hyper-workstation and home server.
Back when I was a kid, I had all kind of dream, but I couldn't really belive or imagine one day I could actually build my life wrong working with both one leg in tech and one leg on business-facing, say 10% of my work is connect with R&D, I'm a team leader, not a developer.
So, at point, this netbook was a big thing in my life, although I didn't own it.
What a long amazing journey. Thank you this Netbook for being in my life.
Woah, they took the transflective lcd to a whole new level
It's Homestar Runner's laptop.
Nuclear Hedgehog Get the Mountain Dew.
Very interesting. I remember then these first came out. Very intriguing design.
I got one for Christmas when I was 8 and I still have it
also if you want a more traditional operating environment ui there is an option to switch from the sugar linux shell to a gnome linux shell in the settings
Really wanted one of these during the original run but never had the money back then.
I actually had this laptop as a child. even though its really cool, as someone who was young and didnt understand how to really take advantage of the customizability of the OS, it was not really a useful computer since it wasn't really compatible with any printer i had access to. So even though my parents got it for me to use to write notes in class on, i ended up using it to mess around with linux and not get any real work done. The OS was just way too simplistic for me at the time to actually take advantage of. It was really cool to see this little machine again. It also has some hidden features that not many people talk about like if you hold down the game keys on the display while booting it, it will boot into other applications like Pong, a self test mode, a Conway game of life simulation, and other things that i cant really remember well
My dad was involved with education iniatives here, so he actually managed to get me both an OLPC XO1 and a classmate pc to try them out and give some feedback
I remember reading about this thing _ages_ ago!
Holy crap I feel old now.
😭 right?!
I remember seeing these as giveaways on Cereal boxes
When I first saw the thumbnail, I was wondering if it was the laptop from those giveaways in the early 2000s. I remember really wanting to do that giveaway as a kid! Good thing I never did though, looks like shit for the dawn of the internet age.
Brenden Michelus yeah I remember really wanting one too. I agree with it was probably good thing that none of us ended up with one.
I always wondered what it would actually be like to use one ever since they released! Thanks for sharing this
this takes me back, I had this as my first computer
I have to say, this was my childhood dream laptop. I really hoped this will be mine in some days, until I got my first tablet PC in 2013 and I almost forgot about it.
i remember seeing these when i was younger on a commercial. i really wanted one!
I Had one of these! Great lil machine... Never used it for anything worthwhile, though...
I still have one of these that I bought back around launch. Haven't used it in forever, but constrained development is an occasional passion of mine. I remember having so much fun with it as a wee lad (as wee as you can be with a full beard you still think looks good, I suppose). If you have a kid interested in computers give him or her a "piece of junk" (or all the parts for said piece of junk) and the means to work around and within the limitations of the hardware, maybe not this bare, but not some expensive perfect machine. Before this, I had an old Compaq Armada with a Pentium MMX and an IBM Eduquest with a 486SX (it still lives to play Rogue when there's nothing better to do). It's like giving a mechanically-inclined kid a box of parts when they want an RC car.
I believe I still have my Asus eeepc. Can't remember the distro it was running. Something likely now defunct.
I bought one of those at a garage sale last year, it was my first laptop and it came with a cut down version of windows 7 and only had one gb of ram, but I quickly upgraded it to 2 gb of ram and lubuntu
Edit: I still use it
I have a eeetab which asus later renamed to a transformer, it needs a new charger but Ive had it running anything it could like android, linux, and even a very old version of ubuntu touch
The first EeePC came with Xandros, a custom Debian-based distro - the only way to fit a whole software ecosystem on the puny 4GB SSD using a compressed bootable image. Later models came with either the resurrected for the occasion Windows XP (and a 8Gb SSD), then Windows 7 Starter Edition (on a 16Gb SSD). Several other manufacturers soon followed with other "netbooks", and Intel actually got the Atom series of chips out to power these little things with something a bit more responsive than a Celeron 900. I still have one of these early single core, dual threaded Atom 1600 netbooks as an emergency field computer (upgraded RAM to 2Gb). It's too slow for anything other than the simplest browsing and listening to music now, but 32-bit Ubuntu 18.04 with LXDE runs fine and it's more than enough to open a terminal window, download an ISO and create a boot disk, or type a quick note on the go. I'll retire it soon though, as there is no upgrade planned for 32-bit Ubuntu and I don't feel like formatting it anew.
I remember that back in the day as well. that was a fascinating concept didn't see it as practical for myself but I thought I was cool.
still more ports than the latest macbook
@dood ayev better than yours
@dood ayev He's correct in stating that stars are not visible through a crescent Moon. ;)
B Bishop pc world did an old video on that same laptop
It's interesting to see so many comments here from people who have fond memories of these because they were one of the kids in the developing countries who received them.
i was an owner of an xo 1 and then an xo 1.5 throughout primary school in uruguay and man were they awesome, it was the best computer 6 yo me could have wished for and it was free. those were good times
Here in Uruguay In 2009 the president at the time had a company for these computers. The company is still known as the ceibal plan. And they had a song for OLPC I really speak Spanish but I hope you understand the lyrics of the song. (🎶 a river made of light 🎶 river made of light and birds in flight a square of sky I want to be navigator through the astral sky I want to be navigator through the astral sky without leaving my back in the shadow of the ceibal 🎶) 🥺💖
Handles on mobile devices are underappreciated. Got a foam case for my iPad that puts a foldable handle on it, and it's so dang good.
People who find these, here's what to do, keep the internal storage intact if it has the original Give one/Get one OS and apps (even if you can redownload that build), upgrade the firmware as it corrects that RTC battery issue and install a newer version of the OS (latest released in december 2018) on an SD Card.
These things are gems
I remember this thing being advertised on the back of cereal boxes. You could win one of these, and you'd also get the pleasure of knowing that some other kid somewhere would get one too.
I remember their A-Z letters
XO is for hope
Nostalgic af!
And didnt SunMicrosystems also make Solaris OS?
You know, I want to say I actually remember seeing about this things years ago.
I have a couple of these! The battery in the one I opened is really done for, even following their steps to recalibrate it. If you install a newer software version, you can switch over to a Fedora desktop. The touchpad was always extremely flaky for me and would start getting hyperactive or even reacting before I got to it. In those cases, I would need to do the " four finger salute" where you momentarily press the keys at all four corners of the keyboard to recalibrate it.
It was always kind of slow and frustrating to use this thing, but I think we can really thank it for kicking off netbooks as we know them. Also, that screen really is super cool, especially in an era where e-ink readers were both rare and expensive, only existing in Japan for a few years at launch time if I remember right. Too bad transflective displays seemed a fad... I had them on this, the Game Boy Color, Game Boy Advance, and Nokia 3220, and never again... However the OLPC screen's designer founded a company called "Pixel Qi" if you want to dig further on what became of it.
I have an xo4 developer preview in the US. the later 1.5, 1.75, and 4 can also have a more traditional keyboard. they also switched to ARM, which killed XP compatibility.
I also had a 1, and a 1.5, but not anymore.
I had an XO Tablet and remembered wanting to get this.
This was an amazing idea. It was only leased to schools. The one hick up I came across was that once the BIOS battery died, it would require a custom UART serial connection loader. Since that loader was made, patches have been developed, however the loader runs $100.00. I love my little laptop, however this loader has prevented me from following up with it. I hope an Arduino patch is developed. Until then, or until I work out UART, mine sits happily.
My dad found one of these ina house he was cleaning and I was curious wtf it was ;-;
I remember seeing a commercial for these where you could buy two of these and give another to someone in a developing country.
My mom works for Nick! He's a super chill guy
I have 2 of them laying around, currently trying to get one to boot just to play around with it. The OS looks very interesting and i was told that people ported some games for these systems
These laptops were distributed to every school here in Argentina for free (very very very low cost) as part of some sort of public project. It was cool to have games such as Vascolet and Xa in it.
Today we can just send them $65 Walmart tablets like the 8" ONN
It can't run desktop operating system, and it can't survive anything more than a basic fall. How about we don't do that?
@@quirble It doesn't need a desktop operating system. They can use it like a Chromebook with Office365 or Google Docs. And you can always pair a Bluetooth keyboard, which gives options for size, style, ergonomics/accessibility, etc. Just slap a rugged case on it to protect against falls.
@@PongoXBongo You have to think these computers go to poor people who might not be able to afford an internet connection or any hardware accesories.
Lol so accurate. It can even game some.
This is cool for a linux enthusiast like me. I NEED IT.
You can install the Sugar DE on any linux distrubution if you want
i saw the ted talk back in the day, it was a great idea back then and would still be a great idea today, hope the organization behind it is still working on getting more funding to keep it going, might know where my next donation is going to go.
I had one of these as a kid, and it was really neat. The issue was because of its proprietary software and OS, my 1st world Windows XP using child self had trouble using the more interesting features. But it was still really neat, and felt like it was built like a tank.
Not sure if it's the autofocus pulling shenanigans, but the B-Roll early in the video had some (for lack of a better word) jumping.
Yup, it's a case of a bad auto-focus implementation. I just got a new phone so I have been shooting 4K video with it. The built in camera is pretty good, however the auto-focus tends to change every couple seconds in some video environments.
@@AAComputersandTechnology
Is there no way to use a manual focus? Seems like a pretty major oversight on part of the manufacturer if manual focus can't be used.