debian versions (was: package installation problem)

[John Heim]

At 03:17 PM 4/19/2006, Steve Holmes wrote:

>About this little computer, is that still currently available? if so
>about how much do these things cost?  If the price is right, this may be
>an excellent solution to the delema of the high cost of accessible
>portable computing devices for the blind.


I was thinking about that too. The math Department bought one of these 
things intending to use it as a wireless router. That's what it is designed 
for. But my predecessor never got around to setting it up and they ended up 
just buying preconfigured routers.   So for me, the device itself was free.

Anyway, the current price on soekris.com is $240 for the device I have. I 
spent $20 on a 512 Mb CF drive. Figure another $25 for a sound card (just 
any sound card won't work -- you need a low voltage, half height card).  A 
USB keyboard is another $20. So to do it yourself it would be around $300. 
If you have an external speech synth, as i do, you wouldn't need the sound card

I was talking to a guy last week who had bought a brand new 1.5 Ghz laptop 
for $500. A soekris computer would have some advantages and some 
disadvantages over just buying a cheap laptop:

1. The soekris has just a 266 Mhz processor so software speech may be a 
problem. Once I get it working with my doubletalk external, I intend to buy 
a sound card and try software speech. I can report back then.
2. The soekris doesn't have a battery so that is a major drawback compared 
to just getting a cheap laptop.
3. The AC adapter is amazingly small. It's only about the size of my thumb. 
So it would be easy to carry around if you're going to be where you can 
plug it in.
4. You can configure the BIOS yourself. I mentioned this earlier but the 
BIOS is controlled through the first serial port. That's not true for any 
laptop I know of.
5. The soekirs has no keyboard. You'd have to lug around a USB keyboard.

I did a search on ebay and saw that there is a used soekirs 4801 currently 
at $100.  That's the one with the 266 processor. There is a couple of 4501s 
going for the $30 range. They have a 133 Mhz processor.  But with an 
external speech synth, they'd probably be okay.  So if somebody wants to 
goof with it, it might be worthwhile.

One thing that would be cool would be if you're sitting there at your 
keyboard typing away (no monitor, of course) and somebody comes into your 
office and says, "Hey, where is your computer?" You tap the little soekris 
machine and say, "Right here."