Tiny quibble, but it's mentioned more than once in the article that the NXP i.MX6 is an "ARM9" processor. It is not.<p>i.MX6 uses ARM Cortex-A9 which is very different from ARM9.<p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARM9" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARM9</a><p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARM_Cortex-A9" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARM_Cortex-A9</a>
I prefer desktops because they are more modular, which gives me the ability to precisely choose components and upgrade incrementally. This also helps foster a competitive marketplace without thirty layers of vendor lock-in.<p>However, I'm not against laptops intrinsically, and if someone could make a modular one I'm all for it. When paired with a docking station connected to multiple monitors, keyboard, mouse, speakers, etc then laptops lose most of their downsides in terms of productivity and ergonomics.<p>My love of mechanical keyboards is a limiting factor, of course, but this keyboard looks half way decent.
This is just fantastic, because it gives us laptop owners a way to prevent "planned obsolescence". I'm very sure many of us HN readers would like not only to repair our computer ourselves {which can already be done with regular laptops, to a certain extent}, but also to <i>upgrade</i> them fully.
This is very much like the Novena[1] laptop from 2014.<p>[1] <a href="https://www.crowdsupply.com/sutajio-kosagi/novena" rel="nofollow">https://www.crowdsupply.com/sutajio-kosagi/novena</a>
Exciting project! That thing looks like a lot of fun.<p>I agree on the trackball.<p>I'm interested in having something like a XD75RE ortholinear keyboard on it. Using all 1x1 keys should simplify the build.
I'd go with a ThinkPad X60 or T60 keyboard + trackpoint plugged in via the ribbon cable. Hundreds of them on eBay + many loyal fans looking for a modern housing.
This is really cool. I've wanted to do something similar for a while now. I've lately just taken to buying stupid cheap laptops from chinese manufacturers. That way if they go belly-up I'm not out more than a few hundred dollars.<p>I may have to try building one of these sometime though.
An e-ink option is mentioned but I wonder where they can even find a supplier for the screen. I looked but could never find one.<p>And I love this. I would buy one in a heartbeat
This has a PCIe x1 if I gather correctly. Not sure how would you attach a USB C chip to that.<p>Speaking of, I really would love if someone assembled a tiny computer with an USB C socket on one end and an M.2 key M (just PCIe 2.0 x2 is enough) with a simple copying firmware thus creating an external enclosure for M.2 key M disks. As Intel does not allow selling Thunderbolt enclosures empty there really is no other way. But, this could work and while 10 gbps is not the fastest, it's still quite a bit faster than 6 gbps SATA... Right now, the cheapest you can get is the BOXNUC7I3BNK and then probably run networking over Thunderbolt which is stupidly limited to 10gbps as well...
Notably this is the same person behind InterimOS[0], which is a from-scratch OS targeted at the raspberry PI.<p>0: <a href="http://interim-os.com/" rel="nofollow">http://interim-os.com/</a>
Interesting. It's a bit of reinventing the wheel (Novena, Pandora/Pyra), but I can definitely see the appeal. This is a way to truly "own" your own system, because you have complete control over every aspect of its existence.
A side note, and probably I am completely wrong, but wouldn't it be possible to use/find a suitable pre-made "normal" mini keyboard?<p>It seems to me a lot of work to assemble even the keyboard, switch by switch and cap by cap...<p>For a small project I made (using an old decommissioned "thin client") I used and el-cheapo (paid it some 5 Euro) mini USB keyboard, and while surely it is not a model M, it feels much better than a number of "recent" laptop keyboards (with 0 or almost 0 key travel) I happened to try.
This is really cool! One of my dreams is to own a modern Tandy 100/200 - a hackable, portable ARM machine that preferably lasts forever (hopefully the battery thing is straightened out..)
It was very mature of them to admit defeat on the trackpad and put a trackball on it instead.<p>A lot of big PC manufacturers really shouldn't bother putting trackpads on their computers until they manage to manufacture or source a decent quality one.
why reinvent the wheel on keycaps?<p>I want to turn my 60% keyboard into a C64 clone and the full keyboard would have fit in there. also would have just used an ipad for a screen.