lkcl

hno has extracted and part-reverse-engineered the eGON boot ROM, it's clearly visible and available as the allwinner engineers didn't have time (or funding) to rush out anything other than what you see. imagine the shit-storm that would occur if they tried. you really think that in today's cut-throat market they'd even remotely risk "being found out"?

no, the chances of them making a glaring and incompetent accidental mistake that compromises on security are far, far higher than them getting involved in deliberately adding malicious spying code into the device.

you have to remember that the A20 was designed along "unbrickable" lines, so that they could help out incompetent OEMs and ODMs who took it on themselves to "experiment" by making random changes to the design. any kind of DRM would be a serious impediment to that... so they didn't add any.

> While neat in theory, this have zero practical > possibility.

how so? at the time of writing almost 1,000 backers would disagree with you.

> It could be improved a bit if they used a smartphone > instead of a card, but that still leaves the problem of > there being no "base stations" around.

smartphones are typically DRM-locked, have unethical OSes that make it impossible for people to say that they truly own their own devices, are so full of spying at the HARDWARE level it's just flat-out nuts, and the components are so cartelled it's just.... gahh :) google "qualcomm 900 million security vulnerability" and you'll start to understand why i didn't start with a smartphone!

> Perhaps a better idea would be something like an HDMI > computer - a stick that carries everything and is > pluggable into a regular TV, but that's invented already.

it is... but look at what you have: a morass of cables. by total contrast, you can simply plug the Computer Card snugly into the Laptop Housing (or any other Housing) and it won't get destroyed accidentally.

the DRM on HDMI is so broken - even the master key has been reverse-engineered - that it's completely open, now.

lots of people also answered this but what you're referring to is called a "Lapdock". the first ones that brought this to the mainstream were the "Motorola Atrix Lapdock". google "Atrix Lapdock Hack" for some fascinating reading - if you're going to replicate it make damn sure you track down a Version 1 because version 2 has DRM in it.

or you could look up the "NexDock" or the "Superbook". ooor..... you could get one of the EOMA68 15.6in Laptop Housings plus a "Passthrough" Card and use that... :) https://www.crowdsupply.com/eoma68/micro-desktop/updates/pas...

where did you see that misquoted? there was an article on zdnet which was so badly written that i refused to put it on the campaign front page - the editor totally garbled pretty much everything about the project.

the CORRECT phrase to use is:

"You can literally plug in a new COMPUTER CARD -- or swap your COMPUTER CARD into a variety of devices".

does that start to make much more sense now?

> USB-C would be great though

when the USB3 world stabilises - even intel can't get it right. also it'll be a while before GPL-compliant SoCs come out that have stable USB3 hardware. it's quite costly at the moment and the low-to-medium end tablet/smartphone fabless semi companies can't justify the cost.

there really are very few form-factors that could be considered. here's where i've exhaustively evaluated all the ones that i could find: http://elinux.org/Embedded_Open_Modular_Architecture

the A20 computer card has Micro-HDMI and Micro-USB-OTG and Micro-SD. it's effectively the same as one of those USB dongle computers in that regard, so we're providing the option for people to pledge for a "cable kit". take care if you're going to source your own! make damn sure it's the right type, you want one that's "OTG Host Power" - many of the ones that you can find online DO NOT do the bidirectional power provision that you need.

it's not PCMCIA compatible. the connectors and housings are still available - the problem is getting hold of the chipsets. yes there are a few processors around that can do PCMCIA, but they're rapidly going out of production nowadays. you might be able to bodge something together because PCMCIA is effectively just the ISA bus... anyway... digression... :)

> I kind of wish that this was simply transferring the > userland (maybe state) from one device to another > instead of carrying as much computing power you can > cram into a credit card sized device.

yehhh that's a software thing... look how that's worked out in a completely oversaturated market that's controlled by a few massive incumbents with profit-maximisation as their sole objective.

... not working out so well, is it?

> I want my laptop to last 10h

that's just about doable with this design, and you can always get one of those portable 10000mAh external battery packs - just make sure it can do 12V and has a 5.5mm DC pin positive jack.

> while being very portable,

... how does 1.1kg grab ya? :) or, how about 40 grams for the computer card?

> If I could simply unplug this from my desktop > and plug into my laptop to resume my work > that would be interesting to me,

you can simply unplug this from the desktop housing and plug it into the laptop housing - that was the whole idea man! :)

i'm taking that into consideration with this design - the hinge parts are separate (10mm high and about 25mm long) so that if those really do get broken you're not looking at a total replacement of all the casework parts.

i'll most likely be 3D printing just these parts alone in Polycarbonate or Nylon just to make absolutely sure they don't break.

the cable i've had to think about quite a lot, and there's now a spacer which keeps it away from sharp edges as the hinge rotates in its socket. last thing you want is a 90 degree turn and the socket to rub continuously against the cable, breaking it within a matter of weeks.

but, man those LVDS cables are thin. a 3.5mm bundle (wrapped in special cloth tape) of 28 wires! just incredible.

anyway, repair and maintenance will be fully documented so that people can sort their machines out. i really don't want these things ending up in landfill.

totally cool, alexander. btw look up "Flex3Drive" esp. my reports on it - best of both the direct and bowden worlds and more. the guy behind it is a quiet genius who worked in the automotive industry.

regarding the laptop monitor failure: were there instructions online on how to repair the screen? because what i'm doing is about empowering people with not only the concept "right to repair" but one that seems to be quite novel these days called "right to own" - anyone with an apple product knows exactly what i'm talking about - as well as "right to not be spied on" and "right to not be afraid of your computer any more".

frickin love the RC car :)

> My phone's battery would last 2 seconds if it used the > processor my laptop would use.

lucky we ain't gonna be using processors that are in the laptops that you're currently buying, then, eh? :)

> And my laptop would be slow as shit if it used a > processor compatible with a mobile phone.

again, luckily, it's possible to upgrade this design (for a fraction of the cost) so that that's not such a problem, then, eh? :)

if you look at the videos i made you'll find that the performance is "good enough", and if you truly consider it not to be "good enough" (for you) but you'd still like to back the project so we can get to the point where it's "good enough (for you)", you can always get the pass-through card.

https://www.crowdsupply.com/eoma68/micro-desktop/updates/spe... https://www.crowdsupply.com/eoma68/micro-desktop/updates/web... https://www.crowdsupply.com/eoma68/micro-desktop/updates/ced... https://www.crowdsupply.com/eoma68/micro-desktop/updates/pas...

basically i've come up with a strategy where i can reach the goal that you're looking for.... in financially responsible steps that allow me to retain 100% control of the project. no VC funding. sponsorship only. that we've got this far, if i'm allowed to assess it impartially: that's pretty fg awesome all on its own.

> 3D printers have terrible quality.

china-produced 3D printers are even worse than terrible: they're illegal (copyright-violating) and* the only thing that's good about them is that you end up with a stack of parts that's cheap. people who've bought them instantly regret it.

no, you have to be REALLY careful about where you get your 3D printer from. the one that DJDemon made - an all-aluminium design - is pretty damn good. https://www.crowdsupply.com/eoma68/micro-desktop/updates/pri...

> You'd be printing out replacement parts every month.

correct... if you pick the worst-quality PLA available on the market, today. if however you use high-quality PLA such as that from Faberdashery, or if you use Polycarbonate or Nylon.... no.

also it's down to internal design: the base back part that i designed uses an internal structure similar to that used in Gothic Cathedrals. the result was a part so strong that on attempting to snap it with my hands i actually became concerned for my safety due to the amount of pressure i was applying to be able to bend it.

> They are for prototyping.

that's right. so what we will be doing when this gets to MOQ 2500 and above is: going to injection-molding... BUT - and this is really REALLY important - the parts will be EXACTLY THE SAME so that people can, on buying a mass-produced variant of this laptop housing, go down to a local library or go to UPS's web site and order a replacement.

if they really want high quality they can go to shapeways and get it powder-printed. it'll cost them a fortune but they'll get a "decent-looking" replacement part.

> I've never had a monitor fail on me, is this an > actual problem?

this was a way to illustrate flexibility. lots of people were saying "what happens if the LCD on the laptop breaks and i can't replace it" etc. etc.

and yes i have actually managed to break monitors by running them at higher-than-rated refresh rates.... oops :)

> Aside from hobbyists, I'm not sure anyone actually > wants this product.

well, we're almost up to 1,000 backers so i must be doing _something_ right!

hooray! you know what, i am so pleased that someone finally noticed. congratulations :)

the hilarious thing is, i read that book too - i confused it initially with the computer that Hiro opens up at the beginning of Snowcrash.

even more hilariously i had clearly totally forgotten about both books when developing this laptop concept, but just as clearly there must have been something in my subconscious that was still working on it... because i've implemented the damn thing :)

so, thank you from the bottom of my heart for noticing :)

allwinner's a complex situation, i'll be taking the opportunity to go over and help them out. luckily, due to a lot of work by a lot of people in the software libre community, the A20 is pretty much fully reverse-engineered, so that we can boot entirely from GPL-compliant source: even the 1080p60 hardware-accelerated video encode/decode engine is properly compliant (without any help from Allwinner!) G2D 2D-acceleration, sorted, and the sunxi-next (mainline) kernel now provides access to the on-board hardware crypto engine. just please be prepared to accept that despite having Virtualisation (it's a Cortex A7) that it's also a $7 tablet-style processor.

but, like i mention in the hopeconf2016 video, you can always upgrade: https://www.crowdsupply.com/eoma68/micro-desktop/updates/hop...

* page loads are slower: in a web 2.0 app they're also a one-off, and if you want to you can do dynamic loading of modules. it's not that bad, due to HTTP GZ compression.

* pyjamas-web is an experiment to do pure-html, executing the exact same python pyjamas app SERVER-SIDE. disabled folk: wrong. look at GWT accessibility.

* googlebot: not entiiirely correct. look up the (rather stupid "!" referral system that google "invented") - and again, look up "pyjamas-web" experiment.

l.

if you want to run "hosted" mode, where the javascript and java is executed by eclipse, then yes, GWT requires eclipse.

GWT itself does not have a "desktop" mode, it does not have a "desktop" version, and so GWT apps cannot themselves be run as a "desktop" app unless you use the GWT Eclipse-basesd "hosted" mode - or you run the GWT-compiled javascript under Adobe AIR, Mozilla's Gecko / Spidermonkey, etc. etc. etc.

thanks for the link. cappuccino looks interesting - except that it also looks _way_ out of most people's league. by that, i mean that you appear to have to abandon everything you've learned - the server-side languages you're used to - and go the whole hog into both a new language _and_ a new framework. i've included it for reference, on the original article at advogato.

that's precisely the architecture that i use for the two web sites i've done, so far, and i'm currently working on two more.

the only exception to the use of JSON has to be the uploading of files, where you're forced to use HTTP POST. and, for the same reason, when _downloading_ the file (e.g. an Image, a PDF) i don't use JSON, i use an HTTP GET.

the reason for using the HTTP GET instead of JSON is because it's necessary to set a "Content-Type" header, in order to get the browser to load the file (Image etc.) correctly.

other than file upload / download, yes, you can design your Pyjamas / GWT / RubyJS-rwt web site as a totally-compiled-to-javascript site that loads data exclusively using JSONRPC.

well, the point of pyjamas-desktop is that you can, if you choose, run an "online" app that happens to be a stand-alone dedicated app that runs on the user's desktop.

let me rephrase that :)

pyjamas-desktop can be used for "online" apps just as much as it can for "offline" ones. in fact, you _still_ need a web server, even if it's running on localhost, because applications that conform to the pyjamas API will _still_ have to use XMLHttpRequest to interact with the rest of the world.

that interaction is done behind a neat abstraction module, HTTPRequest.py, but it's still necessary.

so - offline / online, there's no difference.

what you _do_ get with pyjamas-desktop is a speed-increase in your application, thanks to no longer being forced to utilise javascript. in cases where your application morphs into something that requires 10,000 on-screen widgets (not inconceivable for complex business apps) the speed-up of direct access to the blindingly-quick WebKit (http://webkit.org) underlying library is absolutely essential.

not even GWT can offer this, because google haven't bothered to port GWT to the desktop: they believe that the "hosting" mode - running from the Eclipse Development Environment - a whopping 150mb download on its own - is perfectly sufficient.

There are several bits of documentation auto-generated from the docstrings - here's one: http://lkcl.net/pyjamas-desktop/docs/output/docui.html

this is one i made by hacking the standard python 2.5 pydoc.py to auto-generated pyjamas code, which you then either run with pyjamas-desktop - http://pyjd.org - or you run through the pyjamas compiler - http://pyjs.org and you get the documentation.

so it can and has been done.

re the docs being linux-orientated: yep, i'm a linux baby :) and i haven't encountered too many windows people who use pyjamas, surprisingly. it's self-contained and OS-independent, so works perfectly.

"You end-up with different set of rules implemented twice in two very different execution environments"

precisely!!! read the article - that's exactly the present situation except....

"The only way it would not be utterly stupid would be if the server somehow generated the JavaScript validators based on the business rules,"

precisely!!! that's EXACTLY what the article advocates, by using XXXX-to-javascript COMPILERS.

in this way, the SAME language that is used server-side is ALSO the same language from which the client-side javascript is generated from.

in this way, the SAME source code which is used to perform the business rules validation can be either executed client-side, OR server-side, OR both, depending on the application requirements and depending on what the developer chooses to do.

this _was_ mentioned in the article - and was the whole _point_ of the article.

it's not as ugly an approach as you might think - it just takes a _lot_ of getting used to, and a significant amount of "old thinking" and "disillusionment with the present situation" has to be overcome.

let me put it this way: if someone wanted me to write in pure javascript, they would have to pay me a _lot_ of money. but, using compiler technology such as pyjamas, GWT or rubyjs / rwt, i don't mind at all - because i'm writing in a high-level language where the output happens to be javascript.