Slashdot Mirror
Homebrew Microcontroller Laptop, Made of Wood
Brietech writes "This is a homebrew laptop project based on a Picaxe microcontroller. It has 16kb of RAM, 256kb of storage, sound and a self-hosted development environment! It has a simple CLI, file-system, 'EMAXE' text editor and a programming language called 'Chris#.' Oh, and yes, it runs Linaxe."
Does it run Lin-...You know what? It's time to start a new meme. How about "Does it run Vista?"
"The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has it's limits" - Albert Einstein
I thought it was a beer thing.
So...it weighs less than a duck?
At least, if this laptop catches fire, it won't burn black, toxic, smoke like most laptops do.
It looks like he tried to host the link from his laptop :(
---- I'll take you in a Hunt deathmatch any day.
I should switch to Chris# solely for the TG instruction: play "Eye of the Tiger".
So, it weighs the same as a duck?
...if you were in the woods with nothing but a hatchet, how long before you could send an email?
Depends, how many people do I have to kill to get to the PC?
Apparently you never watch Gilligan's Island. The Prof. would have had email within a week.
Unfortunately, it would have only been able to send messages to Princes in Nigeria, thus not being able to render them help in getting of the island.
Spelling and Grammar errors have been added to this post for your enjoyment
"Unfortunately, it would have only been able to send messages to Princes in Nigeria, thus not being able to render them help in getting of the island."
Give the guy a break! He was already to the point of sending to SOMEONE. In a few days he probably could've sent an email to anyone. Too bad that idiot Gilligan knocked over and broke the Professor's coconut e-mailer. Funny how the idea was workable expect for one flaw not associated with the actual plan and instead of trying again they just abandoned it entirely.
I tried to install Vista on it and what do you know it wooden go.
I'll just be going then <shame>
In the not too distant future, next Sunday A.D.
Oh, that would be doable fairly quickly.
First, you need to find some pigeons or some other suitable birds. You will also figure out how to make something resembling paper (shouldn't be too difficult with all the wood in the woods), and some means to write (something suitable should be available as well)
Once you managed to train some of them to deliver messages, you send one asking for RFC791 and RFC793, unless you're a networking expert and know them from memory. RFC 792 would be also recommended. You will also need RFC 1149, but that one is short and is best memorized before you get lost in the woods. Optionally, RFC 2549 could provide better service.
The next thing to do is to implement RFC 1149, and use that to talk to a mail server. Anybody with some mail experience should know how to use mail over a telnet session. Just make sure to memorize the IP addresses of a SMTP and a POP3 server (no problem if you run your own server and remember the address). Then just connect and send something like:
Then to read email:
Latency could be a bit annoying with having to send all those pigeons back and forth, and a good spam filter would be needed server-side if you don't want to spend weeks getting rid of it before you get anything useful, but in a couple of weeks it could be done.
Once this is going, the next step would be starting an open source project to implement IP over smoke signals, or optical telegraph, in case something happens to the pigeons, and to reduce latency. Also implementing DNS would help with talking to the rest of the net.
Once all this is working you can start really improving your tech, by requesting pages from wikipedia on anything you don't know enough about.
Step by step.
The hatchet would make constructing the iron smelting furnace easier. I could use heel of the hatchet as a hammer at first.
Then I could build a waterwheel powered sawmill and lathe.
With the sawmill and lathe I could fashion a crude, steam engine powered, carriage.
With the carriage I could drive to Fry's and buy a laptop.
"The Adobe Updater must update itself before it can check for updates. Would you like to update the Adobe Updater now?"
From a woodworking point of view, it's not all that impressive. It's not well finished, and if you look at the picture of it closed you can plainly see the marks from running through a planer.