• Moved to Sugar Labs
• Dedication
• Introduction
• I discovered this discovery
• Discovery: Preparation
• Discovery: Open your XO
• Discovery: Buttons and bits
• Discovery: Turn XO on, and observe
• Discovery: Turn XO on and start trying things
• Discovery: Button functions
• Discovery: Other bits of the XO
• Discovery: Icon Ring
• Discovery: List view
• Discovery: Help
• Discovery: Frame
• Discovery: Wireless networking
• Discovery: Browse
• Discovery: Good questions
• Discovery: Journal
• Discovery: Record
• Discovery: Paint
• Discovery: Write
• Discovery: Collaboration
• Discovery: Frame Again
• The Undiscoverable: Terminal
• Discovery: Utility Menu
• Pause
• Discovery: More Activities
• Discovery: Puzzles
• Discovery: Games
• Discovery: Turtle Art
• Discovery: Calculate
• Discovery: Measure
• Discovery: Etoys
• Discovery: Music
• What do I want to discover?
• Discovering childhood education
• Discovery: Hints
• Resources
• Discovery: Glossary

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Discovery: Other bits of the XO

Earlier, you looked at your XO with the power off, and observed much. You found lots of questions, and not so many answers. Now turn your XO on, and explore further.

• power button. We did that.
  
• mouse pad and buttons. We will assume that you have some idea about that, but will point out the less well-known functions as needed, and give hints when any of the functions are appropriate but not obviously so.
  
• keyboard with normal alphanumeric keys, arrow keys, tab, return, shift, ctrl, alt, alt gr; and other keys with unusual icons. Can you tell from the icons or labels what they do? Did you make notes and write down questions as I suggested?
• screen hinge and swivel
• various apertures: right side, two rectangular slots; left side, one rectangular slot and two circular sockets, pink and green rimmed, with icons; power plug; three small holes and one larger one to the left and right of the screen; two circular patterns of holes. Make notes of which ones you know or can guess the purpose of, and which ones you have questions about. Guess freely. There are no wrong answers here, and there will not be a quiz.

• Did you notice that there is a slot underneath the XO screen? Is there anything in it? Can you see how to get to it? Do you have any idea what it is for?
• button with two arrows going around
  
• game controls: rocker switch at left, four buttons at right labeled circle, square, check, X.
• lights in four icon shapes below the screen. Did you notice that you can also see them on the back of the screen? Have you seen each one go on and off? Do you know what makes that happen for each one? More notes, more questions.
  
• two green swivel bits at the corners of the XO.
  

Let's try the screen hinge and swivel. How far does the screen move, up and down or side to side? Rotate the screen left or right as far is it will go, and make notes. Do you notice anything when you have turned it as far as it will go? Hint: I just gave you a hint. Can you see where I did that? Did it help?

You should have tried the button with the two arrows pointing around each other. What happened? Did you try it again? Do you understand it? Does this give you any ideas about the screen swivel function?

The undiscoverable: There is no way I know of to lead you to the nature of the three USB ports without coming out and saying it or physically showing you by plugging in an external mouse or keyboard, or some other device. In a classroom, it might be that having XOs and things that plug into them would inspire some child to try it. I don't know. Perhaps we should try the experiment. Of course, if you knew about USB ports already, you didn't need me to tell you. Do you know how USB works? Do you know how to look it up? What can you plug in? What do you think you might want to plug in? Notes and questions.

Similarly, the slot underneath the screen section takes flash cards to expand the XO's storage, or to store an alternate operating system. Possibly Windows, or a full Linux distribution like Ubuntu. You can also use flash cards for data transfer from other devices. To use a card, turn the screen sideways to get access, then slide the card in until it clicks.This latches it in place so that it will not fall out, and you can't just pull it out.

This is a tough one that caused much trouble in the earliest days, when XOs didn't have manuals or a guide like this one. To remove a card, do not just pull. Push gently inward until you hear a click, as the latch releases, then pull the card out.

Have you ever heard of Sneakernet? Before local networking and the Internet became common, people would walk floppy disks or other antique removable media from one computer to another in order to transfer files. We expect that there will be XOs in places without Internet, where it will be important to take CDs or DVDs, or USB flash drives or flash cards, from one computer to another, or one village to another.

XOs can't read or write CDs and DVDs without an external USB drive, but the XS school servers will have optical drives, and will share files with the XOs in the school.

The green swivel bits are Wi-Fi antennas. They work best in the upright position. They are also the latches for the XO. Did you find the latching mechanism?

Any  questions? If you have been doing as I suggest, the correct answer is, "Yes, lots." Contrary to the common experience of schooling, when we are done with my suggestions you will have many answers, but even more questions. That's life. Rocks don't have questions. People without questions are actually or effectively dead.