Talk:Open Hardware

A sterling idea as the recent changes in the Linksys v5.0 hardware demonstrates the long-term dangers inherent in a reliance on hacked hardware.

In dollar terms it will probably be all but impossible to beat the Linksys on price but seeing as we'd be hardpressed to find a WRT54G in South Africa for under R 650.00 it may well be that a cost-effective solution is possible.

In the medium term I am currently looking at the Gumstix platform (http://www.gumstix.com) as a possible platform.

Their 'gumstix connex 200' platform retails for US$99 with the optional netCF expansion board adding a single RJ-45 connector and a Compact Flash slot for US$65. CFlash wifi cards retail for aroud US$60 which gives us a total price of US$224 or around R1456.00 for a bare bones node.

A longer term solution would almost certainly require a custom design if we wanted to get under R 1000.00.

Am currently researching pricing on the Intel XScale PXA255 chip as well as looking for alternatives. More info to follow!

ps. I hope no one minds me just jumping in and making myself comfortable. Please shout if my presence causes any discomfort!

antoine

Thanks Antoine, sounds interesting!, please make urself at home! Yusuf