DIY Laptop

Brietech writes "Ever felt like building your own laptop from (almost literally) scratch? This is a microcontroller-based "laptop" built from the ground up from a handful of chips and other hardware found lying around. It runs a self-hosted development environment, allowing the user to write and edit programs in "Chris++" on the machine, and then compile and run them. The carpentry looks like it could use some work, but it's a neat project!"

Cheater!

[qwijibo]

He used premade components like chips and LCD displays. That's hardly building a laptop from scratch.

With a $50 budget, he could have picked up a 486 laptop that would be much more useful. I have a stack of old thinkpads that I paid nothing for and could part with for $50/ea.

Obligatory

[CrazyJim1]

Hope he doesn't use Sony Batteries. That sucker looks like it could catch on fire.

With apologies to GEICO

[Sporkinum]

So easy, even a cave man could do it!

OLPC

[JohnnyDoh]

OLPC baby! Give them to the masses.

That's some bookshop!

[chrism238]

Your university bookstore sells wood? !

Re:Nice

[geoffspear]

I'm sure Chris# will be a much more full-featured language. You should have seen the original Chris language; that was a monster to work with.

Ugly baby

[HangingChad]

It's sort of like when a friend or relative introduces you to their new baby and you wonder how they managed to get that giant head on that thing, only you can't really say that without hurting their feelings because everyone thinks their baby is the most beautiful one ever. In reality it's just a baby and some of them are not all that attractive, especially to people who don't have or want kids. Which the preface to my comment about that laptop: I'm sorry, but that's just one butt ugly computer.

Re:What!?

[RattFink]

The Mother-F*cker killed a tree for that?

Don't worry the rest of the tree was use for credit card applications, AOL CD mailers and other fine publications.

Re:right....

[mastershake_phd]

When we all talk about "building" desktops from parts off newegg I'm a little bit reminded of "writing" games by hacking a few lines into some TAs code in an indroductory CS class. While a great many slashdotters understand what their computer is doing, this sort of thing indicates a much deeper understanding than "I need a motherboard, a processor, some RAM, and a videocard."What are you talking about? Ive got a clean room, photolithography, etching, cleaning, doping and dicing machines in basement. You insensitive clod!

Re:right....

[Cpt_Kirks]

This reminds me, I need to get back on my "tricorder" project. Since I recently found a complete, pen sized geiger counter for $20 that I can build into it, the tricorder looks more likely.

Let's see: microcontroller with built-in DSP, EMF sensor, geiger counter, dangerous gas sensors, enviromental sensors, RF sensor. Am I missing anything?

 

Re:I had a dream

[Anonymous Coward]

You think it's bad now? Just imagine what slashdot will be like fifty years from now, when we will truly have a full demographic distribution of all ages in equal proportions, and up to 0.00002 per cent women. The grumpy old man posts will be the majority!

Re:aww

[Stanistani]

I once developed my own language called SQUAT - just some higher level functions, basic I/O and a STDIN/STDOUT thang.

Mainly I wanted to be able to tell people that I know SQUAT.

Re:96 Bytes

[corychristison]

96 bytes should be enough for anybody!

Bytes!? Are you crazy! Real men use bits.
96 bits should be enough for anybody!

Re:right....

[SomeoneGotMyNick]

Does the "dangerous gas" sensor cover Carbon Monoxide?

No, Methane......

This tricorder can locate chili cookoff contests within 300 miles.

Re:Cheater!

[Slashcrap]

He used premade components like chips and LCD displays. That's hardly building a laptop from scratch.

Building a laptop from scratch :

Step 1: You're going to need some Silicon. A lot of people would say "Just melt some rock" at this point. But that pre-supposes the existence of ready made rock, which would be cheating. So first we're going to induce a supernova in a suitable star.

...

Step 51,985: You need some plastic. Plastic is made from oil. Scour one of the planets you created in Steps 9 - 23,492 for aquatic micro-organisms. Once you've found a sufficient quantity of the little bastards, you're going to need to crush them hard. No, really hard. Now leave to stand for around 250 million years.

Etc....

Re:Cheater!

[teslar]

So first we're going to induce a supernova in a suitable star.

So you're just using an off-the-shelf star then? ;)

Re:right....

[Anonymous Coward]

What are you talking about? Ive got a clean room, photolithography, etching, cleaning, doping and dicing machines in basement. You insensitive clod!

You call that "building"? Ha! I bet you don't even grow your own silicon crystals.