How to blow a $50 note on a DIY, functionality-free "laptop"

Chris Fenton has a dremel, a few slabs of bass wood, and some nifty programming skills, and he'll be damned if he can't build himself a $50 laptop. At least that's the only way we can see anyone spending 4 months of their life building what would have been one mighty powerful machine - in 1974. Other than the impressively full-featured laptop keyboard (which we're pretty sure he didn't actually make himself), his project consists of a 20 x 4 character blue and white LCD display, some AA batteries, a wooden case (which hopefully won't catch on fire), and a few low-end processing components to make sure the whole thing comes in under budget, like a PICAXE 18X Microcontroller and a whole 96 bytes of RAM to address (though have no worries, Chris is planning on boosting that to a spankin' 8K before too long). The whole thing runs on Chris++, Chris's homebrewed programming language, which means he only has himself to blame when it doesn't run Doom.

[Via Slashdot]

[fred @ Mar 5th 2007 2:01PM]

I'm calling it now. In 10 years this guy is gonna be like the next Gates, or Jobs. A humble start for sure but, that's how most of the great ones start. Cut the dude a little slack.

[Rivet @ Mar 5th 2007 2:52PM]

The difference is that when jobs did this, it was cutting edge, not 40 year old technology. If this kid was the next jobs, he'd be making holographic processors out household items and a borrowed soldering gun in his moms garage.

[tiuk @ Mar 5th 2007 2:36PM]

Agreed. Whip something like this up yourself, then comment.

[Matt @ Mar 5th 2007 2:49PM]

Before you start criticizing the guy, just stop and ask yourself, could I do the same?

[Jacob @ Mar 5th 2007 2:54PM]

Can it run photoshop?

[Nick @ Mar 6th 2007 1:47PM]

Can it run Doom?

[Unomi @ Mar 5th 2007 2:56PM]

Hey, Gates and Jobs where rather busy stealing each others software wich even was not written by either one of them. This guy just programs the shit out of some hardware. The product is unmarketable, but who cares.

I rather see him becoming a Torvalds than some marketing-guru or a design-fetishist....

- Unomi -

[Pal @ Mar 5th 2007 3:00PM]

I know I couldn't do it. Great start, Chris!

[KC @ Mar 5th 2007 3:09PM]

Who need more than 20 chars by 4 lines?

[Chris @ Mar 5th 2007 3:10PM]

the "product" may not be marketable as is, but the skills certainly are. He's basically built an early AlphaSmart except his can compile what's written on it and then run the binary too.

[Richard Lai @ Mar 5th 2007 3:13PM]

Made out of wood, eh? I wonder what happens if we stick the old Sony battery in it for a while?

Joking aside, nowadays people think they've got computer building skills where in fact it is nothing more than putting lego bricks together; this guy, however, has real skills.

[BrandonLehman @ Mar 5th 2007 3:26PM]

You are exactly right. Building your own system used to mean something dang it!

[alex @ Mar 5th 2007 3:18PM]

does it have bluetooth 2.0, does it do wifi a/b/g/n?

[Hilz @ Mar 5th 2007 3:20PM]

Thats awesome! r0x on with your crafty lappy 186!

[Randavance @ Mar 5th 2007 3:23PM]

Dude, I want one. Seriously.

[Fungifred @ Mar 5th 2007 3:27PM]

I say it was a good project but, I don't agree with Fred. This guy is going to be an engineer some place for the rest of his live.

[threefingeredlord @ Mar 5th 2007 3:34PM]

I wish I could program in Chris++ : (.

[nigel @ Mar 5th 2007 3:49PM]

fred, i believe u mean Wozniak not Jobs. Jobs only takes credit for the innovator of others...fyi

[fred @ Mar 5th 2007 5:51PM]

Nigel,
Apologies, you are totally correct. I think I just used Jobs because he was more recognizable. I'm reading iWoz right now, and that guy is a genius!

[thispaceforsale @ Mar 5th 2007 4:14PM]

any spyware protection- you know, maybe from termites or army ants?

[Tom Gabriele @ Mar 5th 2007 4:34PM]

i agree with the author on this one. pointless. i bought a used pIII 1.2 ghz ultraportable that is smaller than this, lighter, has a 1024x768 screen, and can easily run anything but games. all for $100. i think i got the better deal.

[Matt @ Mar 5th 2007 4:43PM]

It's not about capability, it's the fact that he has the knowledge and skills required to build something completely from scratch.

[James Smith @ Mar 5th 2007 4:40PM]

I think this will give OLPC a run for it's money lol. But seriously, the fact that he made it himself outweighs the fact that this laptop is outdated.

[polkacrazy @ Mar 5th 2007 5:05PM]

actually it woulda been cooler if he had named it like 1337++

[RANDY Ruler of Zexernet @ Mar 5th 2007 5:39PM]

Actually, I did build something like this, but the screen only works intermittently (because none of it is soldered, just assembled on breadboards). Mine was probably closer to $80 (with the screen itself costing around $40 because it has a white LED backlight).

http://members.cox.net/c0demaster/Z80COMPUTER.SHTML

[M0les @ Mar 5th 2007 5:56PM]

Totally rocks!

Could have a bevy of inbuilt ROM-based software just like PDAs of yesteryear:

* Word-processor: specialised for entering cereal box competitions (25 words or less).
* Games: 4-room Hunt-the-wumpus; Tic-tac-toe (also doubles as spreadsheet application)
* Contacts: Keep up-to 50% of your immediate family's details close at hand at all times!
* Dictionary: Spell-correct all popular English 1, 2 and 3 letter words.

[GO SUNS @ Mar 5th 2007 6:57PM]

One question......WHY?

[js @ Mar 5th 2007 7:19PM]

Yeah, but can it play Doom?

[Alex @ Mar 6th 2007 1:13AM]

I'd like to think that engadget knocked Chris to get a retaliatory response from the comments and to egg him on to better things, that being said...
Great look at the complete package rather than just a single aspect of the engineering, keep on with the good work, hope to see you on hackaday again.

[JCA @ Mar 6th 2007 1:31AM]

Not trying to bash but not impressive if he's already studied assembly language and digital design.

What is impressive is the dedication. Nerding it up for 4 months (on and off most likely). Keep it up man!

A bit of advice for you EE newbs. Unless you eat, sleep and shit Electronics, you will come to dislike being an EE as a profession. Your once fun hobby usually isn't any fun once you start getting paid for it. True of most hobbies I bet. Except music. Cuz if you're gettin paid for music....you're probably also doing the sex, drugs and rock n roll thing and who could hate that!?!

[XGM @ Mar 6th 2007 7:59PM]

Not bad, id actually like to use something like that to take notes. What he should do next is integrate the chips, batteries and LCD in a small PDA like case and use one of those foldable/fabric keyboards. Nice small PC, in your pocket on the cheap.

[threadprinter @ Mar 7th 2007 3:11AM]

There's something like that at Make Magazine:

http://www.make-digital.com/make-look-inside/vol07/?pg=145&liid=155421331e&b=0&search=palmpilot+notebook

Except that Chris didn't cheat and gut a palmpilot. And the bass wood case is a nice touch. Kudo's Chris!

[wi @ Mar 7th 2007 10:51AM]

This took some serious mad skills. No where near like BUYING a subnotebook and loading Windows on it, all the work there was done for you.

The bashing is kinda lame. It's the same mentality behind the whole "Jocks pick on geeks." thing. This guy is the geek and the haters are the jocks.

[James Smith @ Mar 8th 2007 1:42AM]

To all the bashers here I just have one question...Can you build a laptop just like this one too? I mean if it's so crappy and useless we should all have ones like this taking up closet space.