This is kinda an unorganized post, so sorry for that.
Recently, I’ve been thinking about creating a computer in the form factor of the “Handheld PCs” that were around during the 1990s. It’s mainly just for me but I wouldn’t mind selling a few to the small community of nerds who like those things. I’m trying to avoid making another PC or ARM device like someone would normally do just because I’m not really a fan of either of those architectures or the monopoly they represent.
I’ve been considering the MIPS-compatible X2000 from the Chinese semiconductor firm Ingenic but unfortunately that chip doesn’t have an external memory controller so you’re limited to just the 128M/256M of DRAM in the package which is less than ideal.
So, has anyone heard of any weird chips lately? Idk where else to ask. I don’t know where people who make computers discuss things like this.
(Btw if you’re interested in this topic you may enjoy www.greenarraychips.com. It’s Charles H. Moore’s outfit, the guy who invented Forth. They make cute little chips with many independent stack machines on them. Not useful for this project but still pretty cool. This is not an ad, I just like weird computers.)
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Why not something RISC-V? There are some pretty robust SBCs now that could be bolted into a screen and keyboard.
I’m looking to design my own board. I’d use a RISC-V chip but they seem to be impossible to find through the usual electronics distributors. I might email SiFive or one of the other vendors but I suspect I won’t be able to acquire just a few chips cheaply…
I wonder if some of that is because a lot of the RISC-V SBC products I’ve seen are Chinese designs-- maybe they’re not as widely available in the Western supply chains.
The Usual Sources (Mouser or Digikey) don’t stock my favourite RISC-V MCU (WCH CH32V30x), but you can buy them all day long on AliExpress.
I wonder if SexyCyborg would have any ideas. She’s the most cyberpunk human being on the planet, if anyone would know where to get unusual chips in China she would.
Is she a Hexbear user?
Oh I had never heard of that vendor! I’ll have to check them out. I’ve been looking at AliExpress on and off but it’s really hard to find stuff unless you know exactly what you want.
There’s some nice designs in China that seem impossible to get in the West. Would love to check out some of Loongson’s offerings or something like that. There’s also a line of Russian microprocessors called “Elbrus” that have a very interesting VLIW architecture. But that’s definitely impossible to get now with the sanctions.
I guess neither of those would be suitable for a portable device anyway lol. Maybe I’ll just deal with it and get some cheap widely available ARM stuff.
this probably isnt what you want but the pinephone pro+keyboard accessory is a pretty neat little linux handheld (if very janky in some ways)
or the original pinephone is probably fine if you’re mostly going to stay in a terminal
I have one of those! I like it but it just doesn’t have the same feel as a Jornada or something lol
The battery life is atrocious too. The RK3399 and ARM are also pretty janky on their own tbh. Especially boot-up…
Isn’t this beautiful?
the part where it’s running windows not so much but it’s a better kb layout for sure
The ppp is growing on me, especially since suspend and camera and shit work now but it is still janky (mine tried to melt a pogo pin
) and the battery life is atrocious yeah (though not bad with the keyboard’s 6000mAh!!). It may end up being a bridge for me that leads to not having a smartphone at all though lol.Honestly I don’t mind the boot-up, tow-boot with built in jump drive is nice, and once its in linux I don’t have to care.
There’s an aftermarket battery claiming 3500mAh that does anecdotally feel like it’s actually a bit better than stock (and a lot better than the shitty offbrands I’ve bought before)
For me it’s just a matter of something that actually works tho, I don’t have nearly the time to build my own shit with custom chips on an architecture with even less support than aarch64. I’m already putting a lot into getting shit to work on mobile linux ARM
the part where it’s running windows not so much but it’s a better kb layout for sure
Yeahh lol they shipped with Windows CE. The cool thing is most of these have Linux or NetBSD ports!
The ppp is growing on me, especially since suspend and camera and shit work now but it is still janky (mine tried to melt a pogo pin ) and the battery life is atrocious yeah (though not bad with the keyboard’s 6000mAh!!). It may end up being a bridge for me that leads to not having a smartphone at all though lol.
Yeah I’m so glad they fixed the suspend. That really made the difference with it being usable or not. Sorry to hear about your pogo pin. One of my sim card holder pins broke off but I managed to shim it with a piece of tin foil lol. One of my other problems with hardware like this is that it’s so easy to break ;w;
Honestly I don’t mind the boot-up, tow-boot with built in jump drive is nice, and once its in linux I don’t have to care.
I just meant that the de facto standard for bringing up ARM machines is U-boot… which I hate dealing with. I just wish we had Open Firmware (IEEE 1275) everywhere rather than UEFI or U-boot tbh. Tow-boot is at least simple for the end user.
For me it’s just a matter of something that actually works tho, I don’t have nearly the time to build my own shit with custom chips on an architecture with even less support than aarch64. I’m already putting a lot into getting shit to work on mobile linux ARM
Oh of course, I just like hacking on hardware lol. I really dislike how PINE64 has taken such a hands-off approach with their hardware. It took years for the PPP to even get to this mildly-usable point. If I ever complete my hardware I’m gonna port the software it needs personally. Probably Plan 9 and NetBSD. (Linux is a mess all of its own…)
dressed all over and zesty mordant
What about 68k? They’re in everything still…
