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Homebrew Microcontroller Laptop, Made of Wood

Posted by timothy on from the logically-if-she's-made-of-wood dept.

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."

6 of 159 comments (clear)

  1. Seems kinda low-spec as a starting point by Mr+Z · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I don't know much about the PICaxe, but for $8 (single unit qtys) you can buy an 80MHz MIPS microcontroller with a lot going for it. This one has 32KB of onboard RAM and 512K of flash.

    --
    Program Intellivision!
  2. Re:Already down. by EnergySmithe · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I guess even Chris# was not able to handle the /. effect?

  3. what's all this then by Eil · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Is Slashdot turning into Hack a Day today, or what?

  4. Re:Pretty fast! by Curtman · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I don't know why these mini2440 boards aren't more popular with hobbyists.. You can get one with a 7" touch screen for about $150. They're even cheaper on ebay.

    There seems to be a very helpful community willing to help, and it seems to be a fantastic product to learn with.

  5. Re:Pretty fast! by kkwst2 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    OK. So you're criticizing someone for not being as lazy as you? Way to go. This is a new level to revelling in laziness.

    I remember fondly one of my udergrad design classes in which we built an 8088 system from scratch by wire-wrapping the crystal, interrupt controller, memory controller, etc. and then programmed it to make some kind of control system. I made an infusion pump controller.

    The professor was a surly drunk, but I learned a lot in the class.

    It may be a "waste of time" but I'm sure he'll benefit.

  6. Re:People use microcontrollers in homebrewing? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    There are some college/university students (equivalent, depending of the country) who have build computer controlled distillers. These projects work well as self teaching tools for process engineering ;).