Ever hear of a project called the Apple II that a "barefoot nerd" named Steve Wozniak cooked up in his apartment on down time from his HP day job? The customers and shareholders of Apple Computer are all grateful that he didn't share your belief that "no matter how good the EE, you can't do that stuff at a messy kitchen table - you need serious resources."
Yeah, I have actually. That was 32 years ago, when you could etch boards at home and mount thru-hole DIP components in your shed. No idea if Woz etched the boards himself, but ferric chloride was always cheaper than LSD.
Sorry, but computers in 2008 are significantly more challenging to produce from scratch.
My assumptions when I made my assertion that this isn't something that can be done at a kitchen table:
- A design for a $200 touch screen web tablet is pretty much going to require a custom PCB.
- The design of that board would more than likely be a repackaged and licensed board from the cpu/chipset manufacturer, and it's not something you do in a hobbyist's workspace - you need CAD.
- You would likely not even design it yourself, you'd spec the physical, heat and electrical goals to the manufacturer and have them do it.
- Even if they were working from engineering samples and rigged up bits of gear hooked together with wire-wrap wire, proper low power and low cost components require exotic connectors and/or exotic soldering, and they just aren't available without commercial agreements.
- I assume they're going to need a processor architecture other than x86 to meet the price point (i think an Intel Atom or a Via + chipset would be approaching $50 in commercial quantities) - and I doubt anything off the shelf is going to do what they want it to.
Having said all that, some kind of mini-itx board with an atom or via processor, or a gumstix or something - and a discrete (say usb?) touch screen and lcd on an LVDS would approximate hardware-wise what they'd be likely to be building.
I have a feeling Intel would give TechCrunch the Atom processor for a ridiculous discount, just for the publicity and the proof that embedded processors can have a market.
Possibly - but I think you're overestimating the reach that techcrunch has (even within the technical sphere), and the need for publicity that Intel has.
Moreover, even if TC sold one of these to every reader and two of their friends, that's still a tiny volume in the PC market. They just couldn't possibly have the supply chain sorted out to be able to move the sort of volume that Intel would need for a good discount. Sure, they might get it stocked at Newegg, but even organic demand for a product like this doesn't generate sales. Ask Nicholas Negroponte - another greek guy!
Anyway, I think the Atom's brand recognition is probably quite good, with a sticker on every eeepc or MSI wind that's out there.
