Gizmodo reports that a group of MIT students are working on developing a $12 computer for developing nations.

Now before you start asking how many gigahertz the processor runs at, or how much memory it includes, you may want to look at the price again.

Obviously with such an insanely low target price, the hardware is going to be quite limited. How limited?

It's basically the same as an 8 bit NES (Nintendo Entertainment System)!

Yes, that means ROM cartridges, and 2k-16k of ram, TV display, with no user writable storage - which will have to change. Obviously this means that there can be no "real" web browsers, but if they build a machine with more ram - say 64kb - and USB sticks for storage, a text-only web browser would be possible.

Personally, I think they would be better off basing the system on a Commodore 64 - there have been single chip implementations of that old classic.

Here is one such clone...