This is a project I've personally contributed to (design work, not dollars). I'd like to see it actually happen in a big way -- I'm not the only one -- so I thought I'd do a little advertising.
https://www.crowdsupply.com/eoma68/micro-desktop
The hardware is functioning right now. This is not "oh, maybe we can develop this if enough people chip in..." -- this is tested, working equipment. The crowdfunding is to get it to mass production... Luke, the guy at the center of this is a strong believer in open-source everything and has been working on this (or so I understand) for something like a decade now.
My contribution, as mentioned above, is part of the hardware for the "micro desktop" (a segment of the display circuitry, to be exact), and I'm also drumming up some advertising stuff, at the moment.
I'd rather not describe it in detail on the first post -- if you want to know what it is, go look at the CrowdSupply link, and donate if you feel moved/interested/etc. That said, I'm glad to answer questions as best I can, and I'll also let Luke know about this post in case he wants to drop in.
EOMA-68: eco-friendly, simplified (in a good way!) computing
Re: EOMA-68: eco-friendly, simplified (in a good way!) computing
thanks! i'm maintaining links to various forums so have added this onestarhawk wrote:This is a project I've personally contributed to (design work, not dollars).
and I'll also let Luke know about this post in case he wants to drop in.
here http://rhombus-tech.net/crowdsupply/#articles_online
can i ask people: does Puppy work on the Allwinner A20, because if so i can add it to the list of OSes, that gives you some increased reach for the Puppy OS.
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bark_bark_bark
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learnhow2code
Re: EOMA-68: eco-friendly, simplified (in a good way!) computing
id much rather this than a pi, cheers. i dont think theyre going to have anywhere near the marketing/pure shilling/recognition that the pi has, though i wish it (very) well and would like to own one (or more) eventually. also ive run parabola before, id like to see if devuan runs on it (likely. https://files.devuan.org/devuan_jessie_beta/ -- i will tell the devuan team about it if you dont contact them first, they will be pleased about this new platform.)starhawk wrote:This is a project I've personally contributed to (design work, not dollars). I'd like to see it actually happen in a big way -- I'm not the only one -- so I thought I'd do a little advertising.
The kernel source code would have to be openly published like mele and@lkcl -- IIRC, there's one. FatDogARM is our current ARM port, and I think I remember that it supports the A20. jamesbond or don570, can you confirm this...?
allwinner did.
Code: Select all
http://rhombus-tech.net/allwinner_a10/hacking_the_mele_a1000/Building_Debian_From_Source_Code_for_Mele/that's my web site man!don570 wrote:The kernel source code would have to be openly published like mele and@lkcl -- IIRC, there's one. FatDogARM is our current ARM port, and I think I remember that it supports the A20. jamesbond or don570, can you confirm this...?
allwinner did.___________________________________Code: Select all
http://rhombus-tech.net/allwinner_a10/hacking_the_mele_a1000/Building_Debian_From_Source_Code_for_Mele/
you're quoting the research that i helped do to get GPL compliance, then asking me if the hardware that i've developed that's GPL compliant is... GPL-compliant??
very very funny.
YES the EOMA68-A20 is frickin GPL compliant, i wouldn't be applying for RYF Certification if it wasn't, would i?
I looked at the website for half an hour. I still don't know what that slatted wooden drive is, but I think it's ugly. I don't know if it's all the multiple options, or what, but this is too complicated to appeal to common users. It's too complicated as presented, I should say. Some labeling of photos would help. The ports on the device are not labeled plainly. Are the developers being secretive. What is on that card? Would you get a load of the price, a mere $1600+ for a laptop that will probably be a piece of junk in 5 years because technology simply moved elsewhere. Go ahead, convince me I want to spend a wad on this innovation. (And you should try to convince me, if the objective of the project is widespread usage. Am I being premature?) I haven't spent over $100 for a computer in the last 10 years. This project may be interesting to hobbyists. I don't think many suits would buy it, people who could afford it, I mean.
nubc, I think what you're mostly missing is the point of this.
You know what a CardBus card is, like for WiFi, right? Imagine putting a computer in that, that can drive separate keyboard, storage, display, etc. When the CardBus card gets old, you get rid of it (either by recycling or giving to Aunt Gert or whatever) and you get a new one. Pull out the old, put in the new, BOOM! done. You have just upgraded your entire computer by ejecting and inserting a card.
The laptop portion of this -- I hesitate to use the word 'dock' because it's not official IIRC, but that's kind of what it is -- is 3D printed, because you can't just reuse a regular laptop shell. A regular laptop shell --if there truly is such a thing-- is purpose-designed and purpose-built for that specific laptop and its hardware configuration -- which is by necessity extraordinarily proprietary. It's not meant to be reused elsewhere, and so you kind of can't unless you're only doing one-offs and you don't mind things being a bit nasty the way they're put together.
The 'slatted wooden drive', as you call it, is another 'dock' -- this time a desktop one -- and is the part that I contributed to. I did the circuitry that converts the video output signals from the card to something that VGA can use. It's far less complicated, actually, than that sounds.
Both laptop and desktop are infinitely upgradable, within the spec. That's the POINT of the spec. Once these cards hit what you might call 'critical mass' -- the point at which they become widely popular -- you will see a tremendous variety of cards and 'docks' for people to combine.
Of course, if one does not contribute, one is really contributing to the project's potential failure, rather than to its potential success. You're in essence voting it down.
I hope you won't do that.
You know what a CardBus card is, like for WiFi, right? Imagine putting a computer in that, that can drive separate keyboard, storage, display, etc. When the CardBus card gets old, you get rid of it (either by recycling or giving to Aunt Gert or whatever) and you get a new one. Pull out the old, put in the new, BOOM! done. You have just upgraded your entire computer by ejecting and inserting a card.
The laptop portion of this -- I hesitate to use the word 'dock' because it's not official IIRC, but that's kind of what it is -- is 3D printed, because you can't just reuse a regular laptop shell. A regular laptop shell --if there truly is such a thing-- is purpose-designed and purpose-built for that specific laptop and its hardware configuration -- which is by necessity extraordinarily proprietary. It's not meant to be reused elsewhere, and so you kind of can't unless you're only doing one-offs and you don't mind things being a bit nasty the way they're put together.
The 'slatted wooden drive', as you call it, is another 'dock' -- this time a desktop one -- and is the part that I contributed to. I did the circuitry that converts the video output signals from the card to something that VGA can use. It's far less complicated, actually, than that sounds.
Both laptop and desktop are infinitely upgradable, within the spec. That's the POINT of the spec. Once these cards hit what you might call 'critical mass' -- the point at which they become widely popular -- you will see a tremendous variety of cards and 'docks' for people to combine.
Of course, if one does not contribute, one is really contributing to the project's potential failure, rather than to its potential success. You're in essence voting it down.
I hope you won't do that.
@ally -- http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic. ... 559#916559 bottom of the post where the quote is. Note the reply.
first thing: watch the 3 minute video from the hope2016 conference:nubc wrote:I looked at the website for half an hour. I still don't know what that slatted wooden drive is, but I think it's ugly. I don't know if it's all the multiple options, or what, but this is too complicated to appeal to common users. It's too complicated as presented, I should say. Some labeling of photos would help. The ports on the device are not labeled plainly. Are the developers being secretive. What is on that card? Would you get a load of the price, a mere $1600+ for a laptop that will probably be a piece of junk in 5 years because technology simply moved elsewhere. Go ahead, convince me I want to spend a wad on this innovation. (And you should try to convince me, if the objective of the project is widespread usage. Am I being premature?) I haven't spent over $100 for a computer in the last 10 years. This project may be interesting to hobbyists. I don't think many suits would buy it, people who could afford it, I mean.
https://www.crowdsupply.com/eoma68/micr ... /hope-2016
second thing: ahh.... it's not up on the FAQ yet, so i'll summarise: you can't possibly compare a *new* mass-produced ($1600+) or even an *old* mass-produced laptop or desktop ($100) to a first crowd-funded production run of a world-changing paradigm-shifting project. well... you can, but it's not logical to do so, and entirely misses the point.
you'll get there
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learnhow2code
the only reason im not getting one of these right now (and i would still like to) is the timing of payment vs. shipment. this is a major innovation in terms of open/libre hw as far as i can tell, and there are too few of those. i dont have the money to be a an early funder, even at the modest price.
as nubc says, i dont usually spend 100 on a laptop these days-- but thats not the point. this is exactly the kind of thing id like to spend money on. starhawk is a contributor to the project, and lkcl spends time not only with puppy but with the devuan community-- the last time someone from a place that made good hw for puppy spent time here was about 10 years ago, i believe. people should give this product more consideration, imo.
as nubc says, i dont usually spend 100 on a laptop these days-- but thats not the point. this is exactly the kind of thing id like to spend money on. starhawk is a contributor to the project, and lkcl spends time not only with puppy but with the devuan community-- the last time someone from a place that made good hw for puppy spent time here was about 10 years ago, i believe. people should give this product more consideration, imo.
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Mike Walsh
- Posts: 6351
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- Location: King's Lynn, UK.
Hiya, starhawk..!
Who cares if technology 'moves on'? Like you, I feel nubc is completely missing the point.....but then, for some people, only the 'latest & greatest' (from major manufacturers) will ever do. Anyway, if I read this correctly, the idea is that by 'swapping' cards, you upgrade everything, all at once.....
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This, my son, is an absolutely fantastic idea..! Full credit to this guy Luke, for coming up with it in the first place. Re-using, re-cycling, fully open-source.....oh yes, I could go for this in a big way. Does it use LibreBoot?
It's a further development of the Puppy way of carrying an OS around in your pocket. I've got a copy of Tahrpup 64 on a 4 GB SDHC card I was playing around with last night (left largely untouched, with the sole addition of my own current 64-bit Chrome SFS package).....only here, you're carrying the entire modular computer around in your pocket..! Any reason why the NAND flash is limited to 8 GB? Why not 16, or 32; it would make it a lot more 'self-contained', surely? The price of NAND chips at that end of the scale is broadly similar, from what I can see of it.
I've had a look at your link from post #1. I can't see anything 'ugly' in the desktop drive housing at all; what's wrong with wood? (Or even 'wood effect', come to that.....) Wood, of course, is easily available, and is a lot simpler to work with than moulded plastic; you can't shape that into something else without melting and re-moulding it, can you?
Gives it a certain 'Je na sais quoi', I feel...
I have a query. I get the impression this is a completely self-contained unit; do I take it that it wouldn't actually work, if you were to slot this into the PCMCIA slot of an elderly 'puter.....like my old Inspiron? I didn't think CardBus cards would boot.....will they?
Just curious...
Mike.
I wouldn't waste your breath, starhawk. Some people don't want to be 'convinced'; they have no interest in a given project, except to afford them a vehicle to compulsively 'pick holes' in, and promote their own 'point of view'. Since that's what they're largely interested in.....nubc wrote:I looked at the website for half an hour. I still don't know what that slatted wooden drive is, but I think it's ugly. I don't know if it's all the multiple options, or what, but this is too complicated to appeal to common users. It's too complicated as presented, I should say. Some labeling of photos would help. The ports on the device are not labeled plainly. Are the developers being secretive. What is on that card? Would you get a load of the price, a mere $1600+ for a laptop that will probably be a piece of junk in 5 years because technology simply moved elsewhere. Go ahead, convince me I want to spend a wad on this innovation. (And you should try to convince me, if the objective of the project is widespread usage. Am I being premature?) I haven't spent over $100 for a computer in the last 10 years. This project may be interesting to hobbyists. I don't think many suits would buy it, people who could afford it, I mean.
Who cares if technology 'moves on'? Like you, I feel nubc is completely missing the point.....but then, for some people, only the 'latest & greatest' (from major manufacturers) will ever do. Anyway, if I read this correctly, the idea is that by 'swapping' cards, you upgrade everything, all at once.....
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This, my son, is an absolutely fantastic idea..! Full credit to this guy Luke, for coming up with it in the first place. Re-using, re-cycling, fully open-source.....oh yes, I could go for this in a big way. Does it use LibreBoot?
It's a further development of the Puppy way of carrying an OS around in your pocket. I've got a copy of Tahrpup 64 on a 4 GB SDHC card I was playing around with last night (left largely untouched, with the sole addition of my own current 64-bit Chrome SFS package).....only here, you're carrying the entire modular computer around in your pocket..! Any reason why the NAND flash is limited to 8 GB? Why not 16, or 32; it would make it a lot more 'self-contained', surely? The price of NAND chips at that end of the scale is broadly similar, from what I can see of it.
I've had a look at your link from post #1. I can't see anything 'ugly' in the desktop drive housing at all; what's wrong with wood? (Or even 'wood effect', come to that.....) Wood, of course, is easily available, and is a lot simpler to work with than moulded plastic; you can't shape that into something else without melting and re-moulding it, can you?
Gives it a certain 'Je na sais quoi', I feel...
I have a query. I get the impression this is a completely self-contained unit; do I take it that it wouldn't actually work, if you were to slot this into the PCMCIA slot of an elderly 'puter.....like my old Inspiron? I didn't think CardBus cards would boot.....will they?
Just curious...
Mike.
'ya'man.Mike Walsh wrote:Hiya, starhawk..!
Anyway, if I read this correctly, the idea is that by 'swapping' cards, you upgrade everything, all at once.....
thxman. no, we use u-boot in the arm-embedded world. GPL-compliant u-boot, i should emphasise.This, my son, is an absolutely fantastic idea..! Full credit to this guy Luke, for coming up with it in the first place. Re-using, re-cycling, fully open-source.....oh yes, I could go for this in a big way. Does it use LibreBoot?
yyepIt's a further development of the Puppy way of carrying an OS around in your pocket. I've got a copy of Tahrpup 64 on a 4 GB SDHC card I was playing around with last night (left largely untouched, with the sole addition of my own current 64-bit Chrome SFS package).....only here, you're carrying the entire modular computer around in your pocket..!
no they're not - they go up quite fast and they're a disproportionately large part of the BOM. 8gb is actually likely to be more expensive than the processor (over $7) and 16gb will be almost double. this is TSSOP-48 not BGA eMMC.Any reason why the NAND flash is limited to 8 GB? Why not 16, or 32; it would make it a lot more 'self-contained', surely? The price of NAND chips at that end of the scale is broadly similar, from what I can see of it.
you can always use two micro-sd cards (which are currently up to around 256gbytes).
DON'T try pluggin this into a PCMCIA slot. i've done my best to make sure that the power signals DELIBERATELY misalign so that it stands very little chance of powering up, but i'm not about to blow up a $400 prototype (or a laptop) as a way to find out.I have a query. I get the impression this is a completely self-contained unit; do I take it that it wouldn't actually work, if you were to slot this into the PCMCIA slot of an elderly 'puter.....like my old Inspiron? I didn't think CardBus cards would boot.....will they?
instead, get the "cable kit" that's on the campaign page, or get the $1.63 OTG-Powered-Host triple-way cable from amazon... make sure you do your research... or just get the cable kit. https://www.crowdsupply.com/eoma68/micr ... /cable-set
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Mike Walsh
- Posts: 6351
- Joined: Sat 28 Jun 2014, 12:42
- Location: King's Lynn, UK.
Hi, Luke.
Thanks for the info.....and thanks, also, for correcting one or two of my 'misunderstandings'..!
From the look of it, the NAND flash is taking the place of your RAM, yes? If you can use micro-SD cards, that would take care of storage nicely.
My old Inspiron has had the elderly 20GB HDD uprated to a 64 GB SSD.....and I use a further pair of 64GB USB 'nano' drives in the rear two USB ports as 'external storage'. Works nicely. Everything else I want, I just 'pull across' over the network.
(And this is on a P4-based system.....)
Mike.
Thanks for the info.....and thanks, also, for correcting one or two of my 'misunderstandings'..!
From the look of it, the NAND flash is taking the place of your RAM, yes? If you can use micro-SD cards, that would take care of storage nicely.
My old Inspiron has had the elderly 20GB HDD uprated to a 64 GB SSD.....and I use a further pair of 64GB USB 'nano' drives in the rear two USB ports as 'external storage'. Works nicely. Everything else I want, I just 'pull across' over the network.
(And this is on a P4-based system.....)
Mike.
Last edited by Mike Walsh on Mon 08 Aug 2016, 23:52, edited 1 time in total.
no problem, mike - we learn by making comparisons, and adjustingMike Walsh wrote:Hi, Luke.
Thanks for the info.....and thanks, also, for correcting one or two of my 'misunderstandings'..!
ahno - NAND is there so if you do have a tiny OS you can fit it in there, but also the bootloader as well. or, you could just fit the bootloader (u-boot) on it, and tell it to look for the OS off of micro-sd.From the look of it, the NAND flash is taking the place of your RAM, yes?
and in the laptop housing there's two internal USB ports so you could drop in a SMALL usb-to-sata converter with a SMALL form-factor SSD, or put in a USB flash drive.If you can use micro-SD cards, that would take care of storage nicely.
so unfair that people can still get away with using P4 machines these days...My old Inspiron has had the elderly 20GB HDD uprated to a 64 GB SSD.....and I use a further pair of 64GB USB 'nano' drives in the rear two USB ports as 'external storage'. Works nicely.
(And this is on a P4-based system.....)
9 years ago i had an acer c112 which, when the hard drive died, i got an IDE-to-CF converter from hwtools.net and dropped in a top-of-the-line 8gb CF card. it worked really well.
To add to this discussion a little.
My mother used to have a laptop that just about made me foam at the mouth whenever I had to upgrade it. HP Compaq tc4200. She now has its successor, the tc4400, and it is an equally infuriating chunk of horrible.
The problem is inherent in the chassis design. See, the "t" in "tc4x00" stands for tablet. These are "convertible" systems -- they can go from laptop to tablet with a flip of the single (and necessarily convoluted) lid hinge. The non-convertible laptops of that era have "nc" in their model numbers instead of "tc".
To get to the WiFi card and half of the RAM, you have to pull the keyboard. This entails pulling the plastic bezel between the hinge and the keyboard -- which wouldn't be a big deal if it weren't for that awful hinge. The plastic is so thin around that hinge that the dang bezel breaks when you pull it up, purely as a function of removing it.
Let me say that again, a different way.
This is a laptop that requires you to physically damage the casework in order to get inside of it.
On the one hand, it's not a "fetch my Xacto knife" iMac that requires you to cut an adhesive foam seal to get inside. On the other hand, this is a PC system and, as such, it's supposed to be better than that. Sure, a little electrical tape puts the bezel back together -- but that misses the point, specifically, that you should not have to damage your computer in order to complete the process of opening it for a routine upgrade/maintenance/repair procedure.
On top of that, the laptop is incredibly nasty to use. The power button is a slider thingy on the left side. There are buttons on the edge of the lid that I have no idea what they do. The stylus likes to break. It's remarkably heavy and cumbersome despite being fairly small (12" screen). There's no optical drive and only two USB ports, both in inconvenient places (one on either side, strategically located where you're going to repeatedly bang into whatever's connected if you're using a wireless mouse). The power brick is huge and the battery life is tiny. It's slower than a one-legged mule with a sturdy temper. Oh, and if that's not bad enough, that swivel hinge means that it conveniently turns into a tablet with all the handy compactness and grace of a C-130 Hercules...
Just for contrast -- the EOMA-68 laptop is easily upgradable without opening the casework -- that's kind of the point of EOMA-68, after all -- but, if you need to open it, it's not a challenge and everything is quite nicely documented for you to go probing around with multimeter and oscilloscope figuring out potential additions (or --I hope not-- why it sparks when you plug it in). Mind you it's not a "hack me up" Novena -- but that's far more a blessing than it is a curse... the Novena has a very weird CPU and is nowhere near as upgradable.
My mother used to have a laptop that just about made me foam at the mouth whenever I had to upgrade it. HP Compaq tc4200. She now has its successor, the tc4400, and it is an equally infuriating chunk of horrible.
The problem is inherent in the chassis design. See, the "t" in "tc4x00" stands for tablet. These are "convertible" systems -- they can go from laptop to tablet with a flip of the single (and necessarily convoluted) lid hinge. The non-convertible laptops of that era have "nc" in their model numbers instead of "tc".
To get to the WiFi card and half of the RAM, you have to pull the keyboard. This entails pulling the plastic bezel between the hinge and the keyboard -- which wouldn't be a big deal if it weren't for that awful hinge. The plastic is so thin around that hinge that the dang bezel breaks when you pull it up, purely as a function of removing it.
Let me say that again, a different way.
This is a laptop that requires you to physically damage the casework in order to get inside of it.
On the one hand, it's not a "fetch my Xacto knife" iMac that requires you to cut an adhesive foam seal to get inside. On the other hand, this is a PC system and, as such, it's supposed to be better than that. Sure, a little electrical tape puts the bezel back together -- but that misses the point, specifically, that you should not have to damage your computer in order to complete the process of opening it for a routine upgrade/maintenance/repair procedure.
On top of that, the laptop is incredibly nasty to use. The power button is a slider thingy on the left side. There are buttons on the edge of the lid that I have no idea what they do. The stylus likes to break. It's remarkably heavy and cumbersome despite being fairly small (12" screen). There's no optical drive and only two USB ports, both in inconvenient places (one on either side, strategically located where you're going to repeatedly bang into whatever's connected if you're using a wireless mouse). The power brick is huge and the battery life is tiny. It's slower than a one-legged mule with a sturdy temper. Oh, and if that's not bad enough, that swivel hinge means that it conveniently turns into a tablet with all the handy compactness and grace of a C-130 Hercules...
Just for contrast -- the EOMA-68 laptop is easily upgradable without opening the casework -- that's kind of the point of EOMA-68, after all -- but, if you need to open it, it's not a challenge and everything is quite nicely documented for you to go probing around with multimeter and oscilloscope figuring out potential additions (or --I hope not-- why it sparks when you plug it in). Mind you it's not a "hack me up" Novena -- but that's far more a blessing than it is a curse... the Novena has a very weird CPU and is nowhere near as upgradable.