I'm silly. So many 'convertible' laptops cannot be used as tablet substitutes because they don't have volume or mute buttons at the edge of the enclosure when in tablet mode. I'd use one of these for volume up/down, mute, blanking the screen, locking the device, and authenticating. A bunch of "press this 3 times", etc. functions
The Tomu family also has;<p>- The Fomu (FPGA Tomu) - <a href="https://fomu.im/" rel="nofollow">https://fomu.im/</a> and <a href="https://workshop.fomu.im/" rel="nofollow">https://workshop.fomu.im/</a><p>- The Qomu (ARM+eFPGA Tomu) - <a href="https://tomu.im/qomu.html" rel="nofollow">https://tomu.im/qomu.html</a><p>- The Somu (Secure Tomu) - <a href="https://www.crowdsupply.com/solokeys/somu" rel="nofollow">https://www.crowdsupply.com/solokeys/somu</a><p>The Fomu is also a great RISC-V MCU prototyping platform.
I looked pretty thoroughly through the site and the product pages, but I still cannot find any discussion of use cases for the Fomu. Is it just education, ie. learning how to program an FPGA? I'm having trouble telling if it even has any dedicated I/O or if you can exclusively interact with it through USB.
I hope to see such devices available for USB-C one day. It doesn't need to sit flush with the outside casing, a PCB with a vertically mounted USB-C connector would already be awesome.
Can we PLEASE have one with an IMU (accelerometer, gyroscope, magnetometer) in it? Even better if it can include a ambient temperature and barometer sensor as well.<p>Just have it constantly output data at max rate over a /dev/ttyACMx device in some specified format, no fancy drivers needed.
There is the Adafruit Trinkey, Raspberry Pi Pico based; but not quite as small: <a href="https://www.adafruit.com/product/5056" rel="nofollow">https://www.adafruit.com/product/5056</a> $7.95 (I bought one at MicroCenter); edit to add: "much more powerful CPU than the Tomu"
I think is time to get a different class of this kind of devices. In the software world we have packages/libraries for pretty much everything. In the hardware world, in the hobby prototyping part, we have these "monstrosities" that can do everything, but not that great. I want a barebone arduino: a connector for power (let me deal with providing clean 5v), a connector for programming the mcu, a connector for external clock and a built in resonator/quartz. Make this in a easily breadbord-able package and off I go.<p>Obviously I could "build" the barebone arduino on a breadboard, but that means I have to redo the same thing every time I need to add a new mcu to my prototype. Or I could design and build the thing myself. I did this in the past, I've spent quite a few evening designing the thing, then ordered parts from China, then spent even more time soldering the things together. Just to piss off my cat that took a very long wee in the box I was storing the boards.
Relatedly, I would really like to have the opposite: a tiny x86 board that fits in a USB port (for my M1 Mac). It turns out that despite Rosetta 2, full-system emulation of x86 on M1 is still quite crappy, and it'd be great to have a full-blown Linux machine at hand.<p>I experimented with an x86-based ZenPhone...works OK, but that particular CPU was missing some SSE features that I need for my testing.<p>Anyone know of a something in this vein for x86?
What is the usecase of this? I get it.. they're tiny, but why? They're too small to handle properly (how do you pull it out if you have fat fingers?), they're too small to properly solder on wires to connect whatever else, and when there are 4 wires soldered on, they're not tiny anymore,... The only way I'd use them is for some kind of "hacking" situation, when an emulated keyboard is needed, and one of these can be installed and stay hidden in someone elses computer.<p>Otherwise, i'd use something like this (not afiliated):<p><a href="https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005003668483454.html" rel="nofollow">https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005003668483454.html</a><p>Enough pins are accessible, led is visible, headers can be soldered on and development can be done with dupont wires, the led is visible, and they're not that large still.<p>If you need more (and wifi), you even have stuff like this: <a href="https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005004860003638.html" rel="nofollow">https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005004860003638.html</a> (again, not afiliated)
I’m liking the chip tune music in their kickstarter video<p><a href="https://www.crowdsupply.com/sutajio-kosagi/tomu/" rel="nofollow">https://www.crowdsupply.com/sutajio-kosagi/tomu/</a>
This seems like an interesting way for hacking whatever has a USB port. It is affordable, easy to use.
I think this might interest any kid that wants to be remembered forever by hacking his school or university.
The wireless/bluetooth ones could be interesting as static appliances sitting inside a USB charger. I’m thinking room beacons for instance, or canary plugs to track which plugs are powered at any time, etc.
Related:<p><i>Tomu – An ARM microprocessor which fits in your USB port</i> - <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28395169" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28395169</a> - Sept 2021 (53 comments)<p><i>Tomu, a tiny ARM microprocessor which fits in your USB port</i> - <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17719848" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17719848</a> - Aug 2018 (86 comments)<p><i>Tomu: An ARM board which fits inside your USB connector</i> - <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16114778" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16114778</a> - Jan 2018 (4 comments)