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.
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.
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.
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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On Fri, Jan 9, 2015 at 8:16 AM, Simon Kenyon simon@koala.ie wrote:
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.
and low cost and low power. 1920x1080 LCDs more than double the BOM.
given the project lead times would it not make sense to go for 1920x1080?
not at all. 1920x1080 over RGB/TTL requires to push those 18-bit parallel pins at around 250mhz; the cost of the conversion ICs is enormous; i cannot _find_ suitable conversion ICs, and that *extends* the lead times - significantly
the important thing is to get a product out the door, and the sponsor agrees with both the estimated pricing and the specification. it's what *he* believes that he can sell easily, based on his business experience and prior sales records over the last few years, that counts more than anything here.
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.
no, it's what the $2 SoC is capable of. there is an internal bus bandwidth issue. theoretically it should not even be possible to achieve 1280x1024 *at all*.
for things like 800x600 it easily has the bandwidth to do 32bpp.
8bpp would be of very little use to anyone.
well, the alternative is monochrome. this is a *$2* processor where i have the unusual pleasure of being able to work _with_ the designers and engineers, rather than be told by the marketing team what's available.
look at the A33: it's reported as 1280x800. that's the end of the matter. ingenic jz4775? reported to bbe 1280x720 and that's the end of the matter. the IC3128? supposed to only be capable of 800x600@32bpp but i currently have it at 1280x1024 and i intend to test 1440x900 and beyond, to see how far it can go.
in the meantime there is always the EOMA68-A20 which _can_ do up to 1920x1080p60.
l.
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