Ray, until we have Hoster finished and tested on several technologies, what I say here is still preliminary; i.e. I wouldn't go out and buy yet.
The CD Burner is just not going to be useable on off-the-shelf systems. For this and other reasons, we may sell a Lap Top designed for hosting shows.
CD Burner: Yep! This can be the killer. If it can't read the CDG format, you have to use an external USB drive that will be slower than Alaskan Molasses in January! We have a drive in-house that can install in Lap Tops when they are built, but it is not feasible to retro-fit into an off-the-shelf system.
Video: The computer
must have a dual-display video system: one for you... one for the singers. This will most likely be the deciding factor in running Hoster. There "could be" several different dual-display technologies lurking in the marketplace. If so, we will implement on one first (we are using ATI cards now) and then in 2.0 widen support for others. This is a complex area that we may not be able to make universal in the 1.0 release.
Processor: I would suggest a processor with 1GHz speed or faster. We don't know all the ins-and-outs of demands yet, again that can be determined once Hoster testing is underway.
Hard drive: 7,200rpm ATA100 drives are ideal. We are concerned about the slower drive speeds found in most Lap Tops. Bryan, (aka MTUSUPPORT) replaced his with an IBM and improved drive speeds many-fold.
RAM: We have found in our "conservative" testing that Windows 98SE/ME don't run well with less than 64MB, and 2000/XP with less than 128MB. More with 2000/XP can be of value.
As I think of more, I'll try to keep this updated.