$12 PC based on NES, not Apple II -- even cooler

The $12 PC project just got a little more interesting -- contrary to what the Boston Herald reported yesterday, the project is actually based around an off-license NES clone from China called the Victor, not the Apple II. The machine is entirely contained within a keyboard and accepts NES cartridges as well as Famicom software, so there's already a BASIC -- which might be what project members were referencing when they said that their generation had grown up programming Apple IIs. The Victor isn't quite the machine the Apple II was, obviously, but we're still totally intrigued by entire nations of budding console hackers -- you ready for the competition, Ben Heck?

Read - Computerworld clarification
Read - Project wiki

[Christian Walters @ Aug 6th 2008 8:42PM]

That cant be the actual box can it? I mean come on, this is nothing more than one of those 15 dollar japanese Famiclone devices that you can get at flea markets....nothing cool or different about it.

[VeganTnT @ Aug 6th 2008 8:54PM]

The Victor is a Chinese NES Clone... What were you expecting?

I don't know many clone or knockoff products that come out of china and make me go "wow, now THAT'S box art!"

[Wormbolt @ Aug 6th 2008 9:15PM]

Yeah but this one is tied up with string!

[maff @ Aug 7th 2008 7:13AM]

Wormblot, my first lol of the day!

[phanbouy @ Aug 6th 2008 8:42PM]

what's your vector, Victor?

[gabe @ Aug 6th 2008 8:50PM]

roflcopter :nerd:

[Carl Vitullo @ Aug 6th 2008 8:55PM]

What's our clearance, Clarence?

[UnixSystemsEngineer @ Aug 6th 2008 9:40PM]

But it *IS* based on an NES. And stop calling me Shirley!

[simon @ Aug 6th 2008 11:54PM]

Captain Oveur, you're needed in the Engadget comments section. Please park in the red zone.

[ShogunMaster @ Aug 7th 2008 1:14AM]

Excuse me Miss, I speak Jive.

[ShogunMaster @ Aug 7th 2008 1:23AM]

Looks like I picked the wrong day to quit methamphetamines.

[Carl Vitullo @ Aug 6th 2008 8:54PM]

THAT IS SO COOL
i have feeling this'll be a cool little gadget even in the us

[Crooked Style @ Aug 6th 2008 9:09PM]

Copyright infringement?
Lawsuits?

[Justin @ Aug 6th 2008 9:48PM]

Pretty sure the copyright ran out on the original NES sometime last year... right? So these things are completely legal now.

[Billy @ Aug 6th 2008 9:55PM]

The copyright is old on that one and no longer enforceable, at least according to the same story on Slashdot from today.

[Matthew @ Aug 6th 2008 9:10PM]

And the point of this is......?

[Wormbolt @ Aug 6th 2008 9:14PM]

For $13 dollars can I get it with a touchscreen?

[raul @ Aug 6th 2008 10:07PM]

For $13 you can't get a screen at all...
But if it doesn't end up costing $29.99, I'll save some money to buy one. I spent all the $100 I was saving for the Eee on icecream. Only that brought joy to my life again.

[Mickel @ Aug 6th 2008 9:22PM]

When is someone going to make the Commodore 64 retro/basic remake, i'd buy one of those for $12.

[JF2020 @ Aug 7th 2008 2:56AM]

The Commodore 20 in one Joystick thingy was incredibly hackable. It allowed anyone with a soldering iron to add a Keyboard, floppy and Joystick ports to it. When ya held the K key (I think it was K) on the keyboard it booted in BASIC mode. I made one inside the god awful Atari 7800/2600 retro case, spray painted it traditional Commodore beige and added stickers. Fun project. I don't use it much tho.

[Jayeff2020 @ Aug 7th 2008 2:57AM]

The Commodore 20 in one Joystick thingy was incredibly hackable. It
allowed anyone with a soldering iron to add a Keyboard, floppy and
Joystick ports to it. When ya held the K key (I think it was K) on
the keyboard it booted in BASIC mode. I made one inside the god awful
Atari 7800/2600 retro case, spray painted it traditional Commodore
beige and added stickers. Fun project. I don't use it much tho.

[ShadowKain @ Aug 7th 2008 10:38AM]

@jeff

You created a different user name to post TWICE? never seen that before

[Game_playa @ Aug 6th 2008 9:31PM]

But can it play Crysis on Very High with 2xAA?

[phanbouy @ Aug 6th 2008 9:36PM]

Crysis is a piece of shit and so is your face

[Karl Hackswell @ Aug 7th 2008 12:17PM]

Lawls @Phanbouy

[jamesdr1968 @ Aug 6th 2008 9:35PM]

um, why?

[Ignatius @ Aug 6th 2008 9:34PM]

Must be that Nintendo computer that Chinese guy kidnapped himself for.

[Miike @ Aug 6th 2008 9:47PM]

I'll buy my kid one if I can upgrade to a white Desert Eagle.

[Abuzar Baloach @ Aug 7th 2008 1:06AM]

lol

Something tells me you haven't seen a Desert Eagle before.

[Yoshi Likes Boys @ Aug 6th 2008 10:13PM]

psst....the NES and the apple II have the same processor

good job tech blog guy

[You Get Paid To Blog? Bahaha @ Aug 6th 2008 10:21PM]

psst....the NES and apple II share the same processor, the 6502

good job tech blog guy

[THJ @ Aug 6th 2008 10:39PM]

psst...you only need to press 'add your comments' once.

good job blog hater guy.

[Mickel @ Aug 6th 2008 11:35PM]

And also used in the Commodore 64, and Atari 2600, feel better now?

[Shadyman @ Aug 6th 2008 11:53PM]

Psst, you posted this under your real username, AND your fake one. Oops?

[Ridgecity @ Aug 6th 2008 10:23PM]

Psytar might had fun cloning Apple, but cloning Nintendo?

[Randavance @ Aug 6th 2008 10:25PM]

Holy crap that's the coolest thing ever!

[DarkLight @ Aug 6th 2008 11:01PM]

Uh, those things already sell at $20 in Mexico. They're called "PC Kid" (yeah, very creative), and come with a keyboard/mouse and some working clones (Word, Excel, Minesweeper, they look and work and, surprisingly, feel pretty much like they real counterparts)...

I FAIL, to see the point of this... Those $20 things are already $12, the other $8 are just the seller's profit

The only thing they are doing is, well, improving the software clones. Wich isn't a bad thing either, but not good enough to make it any cooler...

[John @ Aug 7th 2008 12:18AM]

It would have to be a clone of a damn old copy of word... notepad, maybe?

[Dave Skaggs @ Aug 6th 2008 11:13PM]

testing

[Cal @ Aug 6th 2008 11:18PM]

That's Christmas sorted for me

[Yu Gi Joe @ Aug 6th 2008 11:37PM]

Apparently it doesn't have a spell-checker:

http://picasaweb.google.co.in/dereklomas/TVComputer/photo#5176471145071873378

[ryan @ Aug 6th 2008 11:50PM]

hey,

I have this at home. There are a lot of knock-offs here in the Philippines. The actual cost is around 500 Pesos (around $12). The keyboard is really crappy that you'll have a hard time keying in the letters.

The clay shooting game is fun though...retro stuff and all.

[Xopher.tm @ Aug 7th 2008 12:17AM]

VIC-20, Biatches!

[zerocalories @ Aug 7th 2008 1:19AM]

wow... $12? really?

[Xepol @ Aug 7th 2008 1:50AM]

Wow, my interest level just dropped to zero.

[Johan S @ Aug 7th 2008 5:45AM]

Can someone open up one of these things so we can see how many parts there are?

[chefgon_ign @ Aug 7th 2008 7:49AM]

So when they said they were designing a cheap computer based on old hardware, what they actually meant is that they had imported a widely available system from China and paraded it around as something they created themselves? Bad form.

[JohnnyBoy @ Aug 7th 2008 10:28AM]

Exactly. Why does it take four MIT grads to buy Chinese computer knock-offs?

[Panhandler @ Aug 7th 2008 10:46AM]

The Beagle Bros. mope off stage.

[SimpleSurvival @ Aug 7th 2008 11:38AM]

Well now...
Whether it be based on an Apple, a Nintendo, a C64, or an Atari 2600 it doesn't matter... its all fundamentally the EXACT SAME PROCESSOR!
The NES processor is a lil bit different than the rest, but fundamentally its the same thing.

It'd be curious to see if it has the NES PPU and the 2k of system memory, or if its closer to the Apple ][ with 32-128k... maybe even more...

I also ponder... is the NES GFX chip capable of actually rendering the things these kids hope to do? Or does the system have something else...

---

@chefgon_ign and JohnnyBoy
Read the previous article Engadget did
The project, [...], is centered around cheap Apple II-based machines currently on sale in India and other developing nations that plug into televisions, and the goal is to update the systems with more memory, web access through cellphone tethering and actual storage.
(This article is the correction for that one, informing that its a NES clone, not an Apple ][ knockoff, but as I said earlier... there isn't really a difference)