[BLUG] How cheap can you build a box?

[David Ernst]

General question, only tangentially linux related:

I was talking with a colleague about the possibility of building a
dedicated appliance for a certain application.  They'd need to deploy
a number of them, so they'd like them to be inexpensive.  It would use
a touch screen monitor, not necessarily have any networking, and not
need impressive computing power.  I thought "my netbook could do it",
but then I thought, my netbook has all kind of things that we don't
need, like fold-up portability, a webcam, etc.  And we definitely
wouldn't need the latest-greatest processor speed either.  Although we
wouldn't want used equipment either...

So, the question basically comes down to: what's the cheapest system
you could buy/build that would 

* run linux
* attach to a monitor 
* have usb ports

We really wouldn't need a Hard Drive, a 16G SD card would be fine.

The simple, easy solution would be to get something like this:

http://www.amazon.com/ASUS-ETP1602C-BK-X0163-Touch-Screen-Desktop/dp/B002VY8OS8

so, if we can't significantly beat $380, there's no use.  And that's
including the touchscreen monitor, which will be at least $100, so
with no monitor it's gotta be down well below $300, preferably below
$200.  But, couldn't you get a motherboard, a not-super-fast CPU, some
kind of a case, and a USB Interface for less than that?  Thoughts?

Another option is an iPad, or preferably a iPad-like Android device,
which seem to be "soon but not quite yet".  Thoughts on those?

David