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DIY Laptop

Posted by Hemos on from the from-the-ground-up dept.

Brietech writes "Ever felt like building your own laptop from (almost literally) scratch? This is a microcontroller-based "laptop" built from the ground up from a handful of chips and other hardware found lying around. It runs a self-hosted development environment, allowing the user to write and edit programs in "Chris++" on the machine, and then compile and run them. The carpentry looks like it could use some work, but it's a neat project!"

7 of 178 comments (clear)

  1. Re:I thought it was rather good. by Calinous · · Score: 3, Interesting

    an OS in 96 bytes of RAM? Bring it on!

  2. More DIY Laptops by wehe · · Score: 4, Interesting

    There is an interesting overview of guides to make a do-it-yourself laptop at Repair4Laptop. If you don't want to build it completely from scratch you can consider to make it as a so-called barebone or white box laptop. Barebones are also featured in a separate section of the overview.

  3. Re:right.... by mikael · · Score: 1, Interesting

    That's something I would like to do as well - having repaired laptops several times (broken LCD fluorescent tube/hard disk drive/inverter circuit/sleep switch), a system that is completely modular would be extremely welcome. Have the LCD display detachable and could be used as a seperate LCD screen (having a video-in socket like monitors have).

    The problem with modern laptops is that the chassis components (brackets/heatpipes/insulators/conductors/shields/ gaskets) are munged together with the electronic components. For a desktop, you just buy a chassis, power supply/motherboard and audio/video/network/memory cards.

    --
    Vintage computer adverts: http://www.vintageadbrowser.com/computers-and-software-ads
  4. Re:Cut him some slack already... by RattFink · · Score: 2, Interesting

    If just I want to add a couple of numbers together or edit a document, do I need, or should I have to pay for, the ability to simultaneously have an MPEG movie playing in the background?


    I don't know about you but if I want to add numbers together I use a $9 calculator. Granted you cannot edit a document on a calculator but it's quite unlikely you can in 96 bytes of ram.
    --
    "I don't necessarily agree with everything I say." - Marshall McLuhan
  5. Didn't expect to see a PICAXE processor by plcurechax · · Score: 2, Interesting

    The PICAXE is in essence a Microchip PIC microcontroller with a custom bootloader to load programs into memory and execute them on reboot/reset.

    I was sort of expecting a general CPU, even if a vintage chip like the ZiLOG Z80, MOS Technologies' 6502, Motorola's 6800 / 6802, or intel's 8088 / 8086 microprocessors.

    It seems more suited to O'Reilly's MAKE magazine and their blog, then on Slashdot.

  6. Re:right.... by fireboy1919 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    A $50 FPGA can be made to work as a 256 color VGA driver (or any size lcd controller you like), and you can easily get it to accept PS/2 input from a keyboard.

    Then you pick your poison for processors, coprocessors, etc - as long as it fits on the FPGA.

    You have lots of options.

    --
    Mod me down and I will become more powerful than you can possibly imagine!
  7. Re:right.... by rhyder128k · · Score: 2, Interesting

    When I were a lad we used to have to build our own laptops.

    (RiscPC one)
    http://www.drobe.co.uk/riscos/artifact1255.html

    (Amiga A600 one)
    http://www.amigahistory.co.uk/suzanne.html

    --
    Michael Reed, freelance tech writer.