Just learned about this (The Chip) in today's AM: the world's first $9 Computer. One of the Co's founders said they've been able to do this by buying up all the world's ('cept China, when they go there, they'll really be making money!) obsolete processors. The link below outlines some of the applications it's been put to and it is quite a list of achievement. The cables will cost you more than the CPU.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1598272670/chip-the-worlds-first-9-computer

I found this link by googling one of their finished product names: Pocket Chip

Heck, the battery might cost more than the Chip if there's a rechargeable for it.

A little more than $9 but there's already the Raspberry Pi and in the UK (working with Raspberry) the BBC is giving a million programmable devices to 11-year-olds entering secondary school this year - but I expect they've got new processors so maybe won't be quite as cheap.

I think the beauty of it lies in what they probably haven't revealed. They probably wrote a simple broad applicability Operating System and found it could be stored onto the old CPs. This may kill Windows 10 before it even comes out. Now the rush begins to write anti-viral, anti-worm, firewalls and mal-ware cleaners (each of which are targeted to different aspects of computing and damaging software) programs for it. The literature says it is completely without cleanliness software. If they keep the OS secret, the reverse engineering of it might be a formidable task.

The mini-computer could find its niche but I don't think it will kill Windows 10 (or other versions of Windows). Windows does draw criticism and has its problems once in a while (like all operating systems do) but people generally tend to stick with it.

The basic C.H.I.P is $9 but to get a practical working model it looks like you'd have to pay a bit more than that. Maybe the C.H.I.P + HDMI adapter and a battery or power supply would be the minimal bundle needed for running peripherals such as a keyboard, mouse and monitor. Even so, quite a few combinations are offered for various purposes and none are that expensive.

The OS isn't a secret. It is Linux (open source) and like most Linux operating systems, it comes bundled with quite a few programs pre-installed. The pre-installed browser is Chromium (Google Chrome and other browsers are based on Chromium).

There are some clever people around and it's nice to see entrepreneurs at work. I hope their device does well.