ok, just an update for people: adam's now in china and is staying
there until saturday: communication will be sporadic skype from
internet cafes and last resort phone calls. he's got enough money to
put down the 50% deposit, which he shouuuld have done by now: this
helps the factory to go out and pay cash for the LCD panels :)
in talking to adam last night, we had 15 already and he was just going
to go "heck i'll get 20 and sell the remaining ones in nepal" so that
miiight leave enough room for the 3 or more people already and anyone
else who contact us late to get one too.
we've had 6 requests for 512mb RAM so we'll pass that on to the
factory, see if they can either do that or if there's an SODIMM
socket. let's hope it's an SODIMM, cos then people can buy their own
memory upgrades. as this is a completely new system for the factory,
it's a bit of a learning curve for everyone: i don't think they were
expecting geeks to be interested, which is the whole damn point! i'm
a bit annoyed by the general thinking that "ARM != PC quality" so this
is kinda an important message to get across to factories: _yes_ people
want standard laptops and netbooks, with loads of RAM etc. just with
an ARM CPU, damnit! :)
i have to say that i've been a bit caught by surprise at the interest,
so thank you to everyone who's still with us, even if it's a bit
chaotic.
i'll keep people posted as i hear from adam, who is probably wandering
around the markets now, looking for $2 webcams, dirt-cheap USB GPS
dongles and other dreadful junk :)
l.