Hackaday Belgrade talk about OSHW DIY Laptop

1. Hacker's friendly
Open Source Hardware
Do-It-Yourself modular laptop
with 64 bit ARM processor
Tsvetan Usunov, OLIMEX Ltd
Hackaday, Belgrade 2016

2. $whoami
OLIMEX Ltd – for 25 years we design
and produce development tools, boards,
devices, IoT, small Linux SBC.
OSHW DIY modular Laptop

3. Out of about 600 different products on our web
site half are with OSHW Licensee.
Distributors in many countries: Mouser, Digikey,
Farnell, Conrad, TME, Amazon and other, which
proves that OSHW model is not incompatible with
the business.
OSHW DIY modular Laptop

4. OSHW DIY modular Laptop
Why bother to develop Open Source Hardware DIY
modular Laptop?

5. OSHW DIY modular Laptop
ACER, BENQ, TOSHIBA, GIGABYTE, SONY, HP, FUJITSU-SIEMENS, COMPAQ, ASUS

6. OSHW DIY modular Laptop
Every couple of years my laptop die, or get obsolete!
The new software need more processing power or
memory!
The Batteries lose their capacity.
Laptops fall on the floor! Hard to find and expensive
spare parts!
Sometimes I spill coffee on the keyboard. Or some keys
just wear out.
Power jacks breaks and battery do not charge anymore.

7. OSHW DIY modular Laptop
Vendors made them HARD to repair,
they want you to buy new!

8. OSHW DIY modular Laptop

9. OSHW DIY modular Laptop
Let me check if someone already did it!

10. OSHW DIY modular Laptop
OMG!

11. OSHW DIY modular Laptop

12. OSHW DIY modular Laptop
Then why not make one ourself?

13. OSHW DIY modular Laptop
Let's make wish list:
- To be lightweight
- To work all day long on battery
- To may run my software fast
- To be elegant and stylish
- To be open source, so everyone could change to his
taste and needs
- To be modular
- Easy to repair and upgrade
- To have low cost spare parts

14. OSHW DIY modular Laptop
What if we sell it both assembled and as kit?
There will be more benefits:
- Educational element, you know every bit of your laptop
- Environmental benefit – upgrade and fix instead to
dump

15. OSHW DIY modular Laptop
How open it will be?
Everyone has his own definition for opennes
One may want open source GPU drivers
One may need electrolyte capacitors fluid formula
One may want to know how transistors are photo-
imaged on the silicon
I know that we can't please everyone!

16. OSHW DIY modular Laptop
The more things are open the better, but If I can buy
this component, transistor, resistor, capacitor it's OK.
For me one thing is open enough if you can learn,
study, re-produce and all components are available
and easy for purchase.
If I have the schematic, CAD files, Linux build scripts
this will be OK for me to make my own laptop.

17. OSHW DIY modular Laptop
Let's hear what community think about it!
I blogged at olimex.wordpress.com about this idea in
November 2015.
Got massive response, tips, good advices,
willingness to contribute with modules for different
architectures.

18. OSHW DIY modular Laptop
What we did so far for 4 months

19. OSHW DIY modular Laptop
We made A64 proto board in KiCAD and preliminary
Linux support

20. OSHW DIY modular Laptop
In February 2016 at FOSDEM I learned more about the
first Open Source Toolchain for Lattice iCE40 FPGA.
We made iCE40 development board with RAM, ADC and
DAC 100Mhz, VGA and PS2. The idea introduce people
to FPGA, and allow to the advanced users to play with
Open Source cores like RISK-V.
Now thinking about iCE40 add on for laptop to make it
Hacker's tool: Logic analyzer, DSO, DDFS generator.

21. OSHW DIY modular Laptop
Progress with the mechanical parts:
- plastic manufacturer
- learned a lot about laptop displays, we
found nice LCD eDP
- connectors for PWR, USB, SD card, HDMI
- nice small camera
-audio speakers, microphone
-battery which to allow 6 hours work
- keyboard, touch panel + arduino

22. OSHW DIY modular Laptop
What's next?
- To complete with working prototype by Tuxcon in July
- To do extensive testings and improvements based on
them for both hardware and software
- To have first kits ready by September

23. OSHW DIY modular Laptop
What we learned so far from this project?
- To design something so complex involving mechanics
and electronics takes longer than we expected
- OSHW should be opened from the very beginning, this
way you will receive valuable feed back and things which
you may oversight.

24. OSHW DIY modular Laptop
Questions?

25. OSHW DIY modular Laptop
Thanks!
© 2016, released under CC-SA-BY-2.0