the Onda

I remember the first computer I was given as a child as though it were yesterday. When I was 6, my dad bought me a Timex Sinclair ZX81 which was this funky little computer that had a built-in BASIC and BASIC statement macros that you could access through a modifier key. At the time we had both an Apple ][ and an IBM PC at home but that Sinclair was special to me because it was all mine. I would plug it into an old black and white television set in my room and go nuts programming simple text input programs that made me feel as though I was denting the universe.

Today One Laptop Per Child went live with its "Give One, Get One" program— a great hack of the idea of getting an OLPC for yourself. By paying $400, you actually get two— one that gets shipped to you and the other that ends up somewhere in the third world, making a difference for someone who would otherwise never get a computer.

I'm fairly sure that this is too advanced for my 5-year old, but I just can not resist getting this as his Christmas present. For starters, it's a great cause. The machine is also likely to be a collector's item sometime down the road. And maybe, it won't be too much for him; after all, we've got the benefit of better software, richer interfaces, and a machine that sounds like it might just live up to all of the hype.