[Arm-netbook] tablet, microdesktop and laptop progress

[Simon Kenyon]

On 01/08/15 23:38, Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton wrote:
> well... some good news, we have sponsors for both the 7in tablet and
> also a 15in laptop, which is amazing!
>
> the laptop we have chosen a 15.6in 1366x768 LCD because anything lower
> than that (either in size or in pixel resolution) is no longer
> properly fashionable, it appears, whereas i am surprised to find that
> 15.6in 1366x768 LCDs are not only extremely popular (over 50,000 for
> sale on panelook.com), but also their power requirements are far more
> modest than one might expect: around 3.5 watts for the backlight which
> is pretty incredible.
1366x768 is rather old hat at this stage.
given the project lead times would it not make sense to go for 1920x1080?
>
> with the popularity of netbooks and tablets taking over, it kinda
> makes sense that even 13.3in LCDs are just not hugely popular.  so...
> 15.6in it is.  i do want to do a 1920x1080 15.6in... but not right
> away.  i don't want to push things too much (EMI wise) and also even
> finding the faster RGB/TTL to eDP or dual-LVDS ICs is... tricky.  so
> we tackle that later.
>
> the only downside of using 1366x768 is that it is above the limit of
> 1280x800 set for EOMA68 in a 5.0in form-factor.  i am not going to get
> massively unhappy about this, but the CPU Card has to remain *inside*
> the unit as a non-user-removable part.  the hilarious thing is that
> the ICubeCorp IC3128 will actually work!  i tested it yesterday and it
> can run 1280x1024 at 60hz (if you set 8bpp - 3Red, 3Green, 2Blue).  i
> find this to be very very funny.  a $USD 2 Quad-Flat Package processor
> running in a 15.6in laptop.
i assume that was just a test.
8bpp would be of very little use to anyone.
>
> with sufficient funding however we may be able to go straight to a
> 1920x1080 EOMA68-compliant laptop, by redesigning the EOMA68-A20 to
> fit within the 3.3mm PCMCIA form-factor.  that will require some
> metalwork tooling costs, hence why this hasn't been done yet.
>
> the tablet: apologies but i did some _more_ layout changes, i decided
> to move the USB hub IC right next to the EOMA68 connector, in order to
> reduce the possibility of impedance mismatch problems (making the USB
> tracks leading to the USB hub incredibly short).  that meant moving
> the microsd card, that meant moving the power connector and
> lengthening the board on the right-hand siiide... maan this 3D stuff
> is tough! :)
>
> oh, if anyone is interested, the pyopenscad source code for both the
> tablet and the laptop are available here:
> http://hands.com/~lkcl/eoma/kde_tablet/3dcase/ under the GPLv3
> software license.
>
> l.
>
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-- 
simon

Simon Kenyon
Managing Director. The Koala Computer Company Limited
e: simon at koala.ie
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