[Arm-netbook] The opposite of the EOMA-68 laptop

[David Boddie]

On Mon Aug 8 21:25:17 BST 2016, Christopher Havel wrote:

> @ David -- by my eyes, that actually looks to be an incredibly nice, clean,
> and tidy production. I have a spare motherboard (ignoring busted audio jack
> and one questionable USB port) for my trusty ASUS 1000HE netbook. I was
> thinking of desktopping it until I saw just what a mess it would be simply
> hooking up a power button... the power button PCB connects to the
> motherboard with a tiny flat flex cable (FFC -- the little white fiddly
> cables in laptops that like to tear) and the pin pitch is frightening, at
> best... never mind rigging in a new cooling solution, since the original
> "heatsink" is the keyboard underlay! And so on.

I think I may have been a bit harsh on the old beast. Samsung did a pretty
good job of integrating everything on the motherboard. It's just a shame that
they had to include everything except the kitchen sink. It's not like I have
to deal with multiple boards strung together with cables. The board, once
extracted, is self-contained.

> May I ask how you handled that very issue (power button) yourself? Is video
> out automatically handled by BIOS or did you have to twiddle something...?
> Is it still hooked to the old battery? etc.

The power button is a simple push button at the top-right of the motherboard.
The top part of the board was covered by a panel with a grille that sat on
top of the fans and plastic covers for each of the buttons (Internet, e-mail,
user and power). Video out is handled by the BIOS. I haven't connected the
battery - the board doesn't seem to need it. I also left out the CD/DVD drive
because I think it no longer works. Oh, and the speaker outputs aren't
connected to anything. I think I unplugged the soft-modem at some point in
the distant past.

> You can email me off-list if Luke gets ornery ;) but I'm rather curious as
> to the full implementation and all.

I'll risk it for now. ;-)

Really, what you see in the pictures is all there was to it, unless you want
to see pictures of the inside of the case. The only thing I added was the
black CompactFlash adapter that plugs into the IDE slot. Feel free to ask me
more questions privately if you want.

David