[ Thanks to George
Mitchell for this link. ]
“MyTurn.com will begin selling in four cities a personal
computer called GlobalPC. If it’s a hit, it could change thinking
about ways people use PCs — and about Microsoft’s Windows
hegemony. … He’s betting that his $300 alternative will be a hit
with the 50 percent of the country that doesn’t own a PC, as well
as with families who don’t want to spend $1,000 on a second
computer for the kids.”
“Users can hook the machine to their TVs or pay $180 for a
monitor. GlobalPCs are run by the GEOS operating system, which
has been around since the 1980s, through a 486 chip, 20 megabytes
of RAM, a 4.3-gigabyte hard drive and a 56 kilobits-per-second
modem.”
“…while no Windows alternative has more than 1 percent of the
PC market, outsiders say Fuchs’ venture has a decent shot.
“Everybody who’s willing to grapple with a (Windows-based) PC has
already bought one,” said Richard Doherty, director of The
Envisioneering Group. “And there are hundreds of millions of people
in Eastern Europe and Asia for whom a 486 is a supercomputer.”