How much would you pay?

[Geezer]

For a number of years (pre-windows) I was messing around with DOS...pouring over data sheets and books that explained Intel X86 processors...and auxillary chips...trying to figure out how it all works. I wrote some TSR's and interrupt handlers. I bought a couple of dumb terminals (Wyse and Link) and some multiserial port cards and played around some more. I was anxiously waiting for multitasking DOS when Windows and OS/2 hit...and things got much bigger, graphical, and "Proprietary"...(with a capital "P")!!!
A few years later the book "Developing Your Own 32-Bit Opeating System" hit the stores and I bought a copy. It was about the development of a home grown OS named "Murtle". I tried it, but soon came to the conclusion that the current Intel PC motherboard architecture was not friendly to hobbiest. Too many varieties of, BIOS's, aux. chipsets, video chips. In addition the Intel CPU Architecture from an instruction set and memory management perspective can only be compared to...Chinese Water Torture.
I've toyed with the idea of purchasing a Single Board Computer but it has only been recently that the CPU chips have gotten powerful enough(32 bit) that they would satisfy me. Specifically, I've been following the IBM Power PC Embedded chip family.
In relation to Intel CICS...the IBM RISC Instruction Set and memory management are comparatively straight forward. Plus, the chip has following functionality "on board the CPU-Chip itself"...2-serial ports, 2-I2C ports, RAM Controller, SRAM controller, Ethernet10/100, PCI Bus, DMA, etc.
This greatly standardizes these functions with extensive well written documentation on all aspects freely available for download from www.ibm.com.
The question is, assuming an SBC with a Power PC chip was available including a VGA/LCD capable graphics ports and mouse and keyboard ports on the board...how much would you be willing to pay?
This also assumes that the board would come with a freeware monitor with full source code in flash memory to load any home grown OS over either a serial port or ethernet from a Windows/Linux PC. GCC tools and embedded Linux would also be available.
I know from posts that there is great interest in cracking into the X-Box and GameCube...so I think there is interest in non-PC hardware (ok X-Box is essentially a PC)
The problem again is the "P-Word"..."Proprietary".
Just curious. The embedded SBC's are notoriously high priced. I'm wondering what the price point would have to get to for OS hobbiests to make the plunge.

[Pype.Clicker]

so basically we'd have an amiga/C64-behaved computer (things like "everything in a single box, no hardware update except maybe for the graphic chip if you really bother me with..."),
but starring an RISC cpu ...

What about the storage space ? would you include a HDD ?

I'd say 350-500? would be a nice price ...

[beyond infinity lazy]

vive le c64!!!

[smurf975]

How about doing this board as a PCI addon?

This way you will run your OS from Linux, Windows like you would VPC and VMWare however with no speed penalties.

I was thinking of doing such a thing for toying with electronics. Design a device with software and control the pci addon card for simulating the device as if it was a real world device. I have students, kids and hobbiest in mind as target.