The XO laptop I ordered was waiting for me when we returned from vacation, and I've been playing with it on and off since. It's a very clever little gadget, and while it's not the kind of thing I'm likely to use for everyday computing, I'm glad I bought it. I'd like to sit down with the twins and try to introduce some basic computer programming to them on the XO, but I don't know that either one is particularly interested in learning how things work. Maybe I'm selling them short, though.
There are lots of XO reviews online, so I'm not inclined to provide any in-depth coverage of the system. I really wish that someone in my neighborhood had one of these laptops, so that I could experiment with the mesh networking and activity sharing -- what I consider to be the real benefit of the device. Last night I installed Doom for the XO and enjoyed playing that for a few minutes -- deathmatch on the XO might be a fun diversion.
The acquisition of the XO laptop brings the total number of laptops in the house to six: the twins each have their own laptop, Carina has her's, and I have mine. In addition, I have an Apple PowerBook I purchased moons ago. And now the XO.
I've been struggling to find a way to justify having all this technology. I am currently planning on hooking the PowerBook to the television in our bedroom, so that we can watch movies stored on the NSLU2 storage device. I think that the PowerBook running VideoLAN plus a wireless mouse will provide almost all of the functionality I would have hoped for from a MythTV installation (since we don't watch broadcast or cable television).
I guess the XO laptop will finally be a good motivator to learn Python so that I can figure out some fun uses for that device around the house.
I feel like I should donate an old iBook to you just for fun. I once thought I would venture into all of the nerdy tech re-use (or alternative use), and bought all sorts of gadgets to that end. It sounded good, as I heard my friends all talk about what they made with theirs.
Instead I spent a lot of money on things I never had time for.
(Actually now, I'm considering trying to figure out how to hack TiVo and the old iBook to be able to watch programs upstairs now... somebody has to have figured that one out...)
Also, I haven't played Doom in ages. Our team at my first IT job beta tested Doom, and several other first-person shooters on P-66 machines (oh, the speed!) We actually used our swear jar to pay for the site-license for Rise of the Triad (ROTT), which was another game we beta'd. We had a lab with 6 machines we used (after hours) to blow off steam. Even our girlfriends got involved. I still remember passing folks in the hallway, who would ask "shoot, kill, die at 5:00?"
Fond memories. I wonder how well Doom would run on a G3 Powerbook.