Amigabill Projects

Amiga Netbook!

It seems that an Amiga Netbook (it. it runs AmigaOS, not some lame Windows or Android thing that has nothing more than an Amiga logo on it like some companies want to sell)
http://www.amiga.org/forums/showthread.php?t=59523
Thank you, whoever you are that is making this happen!

Now, I've very much wanted an Amiga laptop for many years, to the point that I tried to talk to Hyperion about a port to iBooks or PowerBooks from Apple, and then tried to figure out how to design a new laptop since they don't want to support old Apple PowerPC things. A Netbook is kindof underpowered for what I'd love, and kindof small at a rumored 12inch screen for what I'd like to look at. But I'll plan to buy one regardless, as they're talking about a price from $300 to $500, and it may be close enough as a tabled replacement for me. They don't yet sell a tablet I actually want yet anyway, closes that may come is Asus Transformer 2 or Slider if the Slider had the newer faster CPU.

But as this is a low-performance Netbook, I'll continue dreaming about a mid to high-performance laptop, and here's what I'd really like to include:

• Choose a popular PC laptop as a base/host. Remove PC motherboard and replace with the "Amiga" motherboard. Choose one which relatively easily can have new bottom shell panel made if any adaptions for space are needed.
• 15inch widescreen display size.
• Decent power brick connector that won't fall out or look in when not really connected. (My PC laptop has tricked me a few times) Are the magnet style ones usable? (or prevented by patent?)
  
• Air vents on sides or top of bottom section, laptop should be able to lay on something and not have its ventilation smothered.
• Matte display screen. I really hate all the glare from the ultra-glossy things. Not cool.
• Keyboard with numeric keypad. Lots of 15inch laptops have this now. 
• Touchpad with 2+ buttons. 
• Webcam & Microphone. Decent resolution that works in most lighting conditions. (ie. will not give a black picture in most rooms like my PC laptop does at home) 
• Goal is 4 or more hours of usage on battery before having to plug in. 
• Processor including Altivec SIMD/Vector stuff. (Since PowerPC is a requirement from Hyperion) As much performance as can fit into battery goal and heat removal ability. I'm currently very interested in Freescale AMP series, but know nothing about their power requirements.
• Main memory up to at least 1GB. Two channels each with its own SODIMM would be great.
• AMD SB850/SB950 southbridge chip for many functions. (HD Audio, USB2, SATA, ethernet, etc) 
• Modular system core such as Com-Express Type2 or Type6, or some other module standard that may offer a slimmer laptop. (I'm concerned that Com-Express would demand a lot of thickness due to how it stacks with its carrier PCB and heatsink system) The industry obsession with SLIM SLIM SLIM in recent years may make this hard to find a suitable popular host laptop shell to put such a modular motherboard into.
  
• MXM3 video card slot. (To be muxed with  Com-Express or whatever output to display)
• ExpressCard 2 slot (with USB3 SuperSpeed support) 
• Wireless Network card in a PCI-Express Mini slot. WiFi BGN+Bluetooth.
• Flash card reader with SDXC support. 
• Hard drive bay compatible with "thick" laptop drives, such as Western Digital and Toshiba 1TB is 12.5mm thick. This did not fit my PC laptop, and many months later I was happy that Samsung made a proper 1TB "Laptop" drive at 9.5mm and fits fine. (But I'm not sure about going all the way up to Seagate's 15mm thick drive)
• Bay for standard laptop/slim SATA optical drive.
• DisplayPort, 1Gb/100Mb/10Mb ethernet, USB(2 and 3), eSATA (in shared USB/eSATA connector for USB power to eSATA things), Thunderbolt???/LightPeak???, connectors

posted by Bill Toner @ 1:23 PM