Open Source DIY Laptop

https://www.crowdsupply.com/mnt/reform/ > new laptop > looks like old thinkpad > schematics are already online > batteries can be exchanged easily > nothing needlessly glued to the mainboard > bottom is transparent so you can LOOK INSIDE > ”no camera, no microphone, no cloud, no spyware” AFAIK no similar device is currently available. What does /Ω/ think?

>>27455 The idea seems good, the specs are decent and it doesn't need proprietary blob drivers. Personally though, I am skeptical of most crowdfunded projects and the price is quite high considering the specs.

I know the developer of the project and have an early prototype from 1.5 years ago. Ask me anything!

>>27458 Why ARM and not RISC-V?

>>27459 Why? It's harder to get compared to old intel or AMD parts. Doesn't make sense also in the way that it has a different architecture with different instruction set afaik. >>27458 The magazine is cool. Do you know german by any chance?

>>27457 Feeling the same about most crowdfunded projects, but MNT has a great track record of delivering various Amiga related products, Modern Vintage Gamer even made a video about MNT’s Amiga graphics card: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Cu-LuSB8Ns

>>27460 > Doesn't make sense also in the way that it has a different architecture with different instruction set afaik. This only seems to be a problem with proprietary software though? > The magazine is cool. Do you know german by any chance? Ja, ich spreche deutsch, habe das Bild erstellt. Der Reform-Laptop ist übrigens „made in Berlin“.

>>27459 > Why ARM and not RISC-V? mntmn (hardware developer, did the mainboard, keyboard, trackball, charging etc.) told me that no RISC-V chip for this purpose is ready.

>>27460 > Why? It's harder to get compared to old intel or AMD parts. Because freedom. All sources (KiCAD schematics, µC firmware, 3D case files) are up and freely available under various FLOSS licenses. You don’t have to buy anything from MNT to support the project or study the sources, learn, adapt & build your own laptop if you so desire. (You could, for example, put another motherboard inside the case.) https://source.mntmn.com/MNT/reform/

>>27464 Free hardware and software are good but they are far from good. You have to make a compromise. >>27462 Das ist ja cool. Nie habe ich sowas gehört. Ich muss mir schauen wenn ic nach Berlin gehe. Bin Auslander aber ich bin sehr interessiert für solche projekts in DE weil ich so naehe von DE lebe.

>>27465 > Free hardware and software are good but they are far from good. You have to make a compromise. What compromise is possible nowadays, with current models all having some soykafty glued-in-battery-design that Reform avoids entirely? 3D printed Thinkpad with a scavenged board? I am posting on Lainchan from an old Thinkpad that almost fulfils my needs … only that I can not even buy a battery for it anymore as nowadays Thinkpads come with everything glued in and spare parts are hard to find. I just want a useful laptop with a 4:3 screen and no management engine.

>>27461 Oh I have seen that before, didn't know it was the same group. One thing that I have always questioned is why did they use an FPGA, which is quite expensive to buy, when they could've used some sort of specialized ARM or RISC design for the GPU?

>>27467 >One thing that I have always questioned is why did they use an FPGA, which is quite expensive to buy, when they could've used some sort of specialized ARM or RISC design for the GPU? As I understand, a minor new revision of the “hardware” can simply be downloaded so that existing customers do not need to buy entirely new hardware. You can see the result here: https://mntre.com/va2000/

>>27461 >MNT has a great track record of delivering various Amiga related products Enough of a reason to steer clear from them. The Amiga community is quite possibly the most elitist, least welcoming in the computing world. Which I find interesting, considering a great deal of them are furries. This would explain the ludicrously high price, too. Amiga users love hiking up the prices of their machines just to have another entry barrier to their community. There's people who buy every single cheap Amiga they find because of this.

>>27469 I agree, Amigas are extremely overrated. An Amiga 500 has the same specs as an Atari ST yet costs around 2 times more. Even 68k Macs are cheaper if you take some time to look around. And the ST has better sound than the Amiga. There are people who believe that you can still use an Amiga as your only daily computer (not without spending $300 on an accelerator board, of course), which is frankly just delusional.

At a glance it looks really neat but the price is currently out of my range, if it were 1/2 of the original price I'd buy it in a heartbeat.

Does acpi/battery work properly? Are there replacement parts? (unlike the common laptops having 'genuine checks' for power brick and battery).

>>27474 > Does acpi/battery work properly? There is no ACPI. Runtime is 4 to 5 hours under load. > Are there replacement parts? (unlike the common laptops having 'genuine checks' for power brick and battery). No lock-in, any 18560 LiFePO4 cell will work, e.g. any of these: https://eu.nkon.nl/rechargeable/li-ion/18650-size/battery-chemistry-/lifepo4.html

>>27474 Here is the source code for the battery charging: https://source.mntmn.com/MNT/reform/src/branch/master/reform2-lpc-fw/src/boards/reform2/board_reform2.c#L581 It needs some work, but it definitely is open enough to be improved.

>>27458 How's the keyboard?

Not fond of the rollerball. What makes this any different from other open hardware computers? If you go through the site even just there you can see there is other open hardware or open source laptops such as here https://www.crowdsupply.com/sutajio-kosagi/novena >>27458 What are the keys made out of? If it's a type of plastic has Arboform been considered for the plastic parts? I found out about Arboform recently and I like the appearance of it and the claims of how biodegradable it is. Since you speak German you shouldn't have trouble getting info being that much is in German.

>>27458 Ah yeas, Natalie Mars as a poster girl

>>27466 what model do you have? when I've been looking around for a new one for my t400 I could find some for most models, otherwise you always have the option to cut your old one up and exchange the cells with some new 18650s

Why didn't they release a motherboard that fits inside old Thinkpad chassis? Chinese did, and they did latest Intels that go into chassis from 2008, there's even a coreboot support. Why do I need to make everything from scratch or buy overpriced 3D printed crap instead of just swapping the motherboard and making my already existing hardware work for another 10 years? This is ridiculous. It's thicker than thickest Thinkpads and it looks ugly, the designer of this thing has less taste than Jonny Ive.

>>27491 I will be disappointed if they don't call it ChinkPad.

>>27455 How will this be better than the eoma68 (or even a rasberry pi or something similar)? That one was supposed to be like the go to diy open source computer. I'm not knocking this device, I try to support stuff like this I am just curious.

>>27478 Seems kinda dangerous if one doesn't know how to put up a smart battery, does it handle wear levels well when using multiple cells? otherwise it'd probably be fire hazard (though that's the worst case). I'd probably stick with some old netbook or just use a unibody lithium brick for that. I hope someone out there also makes an open source battery system possibly a solid state battery that can be used with projects like these, diy/home sbc or UPS in the cheap.

>>27466 Ah don't ask me, I'm on a T40. It's lovely! I wish I had a T60 though...

>>27491 The answer is probably price. For x86 there are a lot more components involved in making a motherboard and x86 chipsets are much more difficult to find at a decent price compared to ARM SoCs. And with ARM you just need an SoC, which are extremely cheap by this point, a very simple board design that probably already exists, a USB or WiFi controller, a battery and that's about it.

>>27506 Not the poster you're replying to, but why would it have to be x86? An ARM X60 or X200 would be a dream come true. Why do all these SBCs and ARM laptops have soldered RAM? Why doesn't anyone make a SBC or an ARM laptop with SO-DIMM slots? Most of the time the amount of soldered ram is 4GiB, too, which is just too small in 2020. Most SoCs can take SO-DIMMs no problem, why limit the user like this?

https://www.crowdsupply.com/sutajio-kosagi/novena

>>27509 this one seems better imho >>27507 This, 4GB is barely enough

>>27507 I personally wouldn't mind it being ARM, but I assume most people would since it wouldn't be a drop-in upgrade and you'd have to reinstall whatever OS you're using. Also a current ARM chip wouldn't be a considerable upgrade over even an Ivy Bridge i5 for most workloads.

>>27507 >Why do all these SBCs and ARM laptops have soldered RAM Not the poster you're replying too, either. I just glad to see someone bringing this up. There is something to be said about it being a size issue, as sbcs are very small and it's a selling point for some people. But I think having the option, at least, would be nice, right? >Most of the time the amount of soldered ram is 4GiB, too, which is just too small in 2020 This is the only thing I disagree with you on. 4 gigs of RAM is completely fine. I think we should resist against this mentality of building mega-machines to perform trivial tasks ("play minecraft", for the average person to check social media websites, keep in touch with others, etc.) - That is one of the major attractions of an sbc for me, to prove that point. Even a "power user" can succeed at what they want to accomplish with just 4 gigs of ram. I write programs, play music, keep in touch on irc, send emails, deal with academia-bs, etc. all on Gentoo, on a raspberry pi 4 (4gb). And it works. I compiled qutebrowser in a few hours on it. That's comparable to my t420. I will conceed one point, though. I have a Ryzen 1700 with 32GiB of RAM that I run virtual machines and things on. It would be nice to run a dozen VMs on an sbc. I think having the option is important. I just disagree with the "need" implication.

>>27507 You certainly do not understand what Single Board Computer means. Let me explain. It literally means that the computer is one whole printed circuit board, all it's peripherals all belong to one board, even the DRAM chips which usually come as seprate DIMM boards on desktop PCs. The real problem is that either this SOC does not support more than 4GiB, or they took retarded modularity parth, and will release CPU+RAM card with 8 GiB memory later. >>27488 Having biodegradable plastic in constant contact with biological matter (human body) is peak greentardism. You don't want your own keyboard to fall apart in 6 months, don't you? There's nothing better than the good ol' fire-retardant polycarbonate-ABS blend. All machines made of it still stand strong after 40 years.

>>27514 There is a Rasberry Pi based copy of the Novena called Pivena. >>27517 No reason to assume that specific bioplastic would degrade meaningfully in span of use with only sweat and skin oil with no evidence. Though yes durability and ignition point is something to consider but one can't forget appearance and tactile qualities. If you want to be typing on the same keys for 40 years then might as well make it antibacterial plastic while at it.

>>27472 you could buy the non built version and build it yourself its much much cheaper. >>27488 you can choose the trackpad instead of the rollerball