AmigaOS 15" laptop one day?

@OldAmigan

Impressive. Thanks for the link.
I don't see how an individual could build such printer now. Maybe in a year or two with some open source kits.

@Elwood

There are posts on www.instructables.com where people build DLP (projector) or SLA (laser) resin vat printers for less than $100. I think the biggest cost is the DLP - but I got one for free!

@OldAmigan

Each 3D printing technology has its own pros and cons. SLA (or the DLP variant) printers are faster and have higher resolution, but the plastic tends to be more brittle and degrades faster over time (especially when exposed to sunlight). To me, that sounds okay for prototyping, but not so good for the finished product.

Yes, FDM printers are slower and have a lower resolution, but they're also cheaper and the finished parts are less brittle and degrade less quickly than SLA printed parts. You can speed up the printer by using a larger nozzle and thicker layers (yes, even lower resolution), and the surface finish can be improved by post-processing (e.g., an epoxy coating).

Either way, the final production method doesn't have to be what I use for prototyping. In fact, ideally I'd be able to use aluminium, as that would double as an RF-shield.

Hans

The guys behind the PowerPC notebook project that are collaborating with ACube are asking for a last round of support.
The laptop will be equipped, among other features, with a PowerPC CPU NXP T2080, an M.2 connector for the SSD, an MXM connector on a PCI-e 3.0 lane for the video card, and will have space for two DDR3L modules.

Here the latest post on their blog: Electrical Schematics as a present.

As of today, they reached the 67% of the required €12,600 goal for delivering the electrical schematics.

Here the donation campaign page, you may use PayPal.

They just launched another project for which they are looking for volunteers: the Open Source Laptop Chassis Designs

Here a simplified diagram of what the electrical schematics will try to achieve [click to enlarge]

@virgola

If you're part of the Power Progress Community then please consider using Patreon in addition to fund the project.

So that if the goal isn't met after this milestone announcement (new wave of donations dies) then that the funding doesn't become stagnant and the project eventually get cancelled.



If you're not aware of Patreon, it is a website where a individual or organization can create a account and others can then donate to that account on a timely basis (eg weekly, monthly) or per milestone.



I think that multiple 10 Euro donations per month would aid the funding significantly.

It's not as much as a couple hunderd Euro donations per milestone but at least the project eventually will get funded.


Best of luck!

@Helloworld
Thank you for the advice.
Having a look at it now, not bad indeed, but our choice was not to have any intermediary (and thus, their fee), apart from PayPal that fulfill the required needs.

The fund is not stagnant at all, as what we collected so far is already being passed to the engineer for the mobo design, and periodically we check together with ACube the current advancements.

(Quite) slowly but steadily progressing against the odds.
Here the latest post on the most recent development advancements
https://www.powerpc-notebook.org/2023/ ... or-latest-u-boot-version/

@virgola

thank you for the posting the news.

It went under the radat but A-Cube came with their laptop prototype at Amiga38, according to this blog : https://blog.amigaguru.com/a-complete-report-on-amiga38/

@Lio

Yes, the motherboard was shown, but it not booting.
little bit disappointing stand, they should have shown some sam460 running in background.

The notebook motherboard has a name and it is Powerboard Tyche, and no, it does not reach the point of launching U-Boot, yet.

Calling it simply the "ACube notebook" is fine, but technically not quite right, so here a little clarification of the somehow complex situation, for those of you that love the details.

The entire notebook project of the motherboard is coordinated by the not-for-profit organisation called PowerProgressCommunity, that finance the initiative via its notebook project website.

We at the PowerProgressCommunity (I am part of it) defined all of its specifications.
Being a not-for-profit organisation under the Italian law, we are not allowed to produce anything, we are limited to perform an intellectual work only.
Our goal is to publish all the electronic schematics of the board using an Open Source Hardware certification, so that potentially anybody could make it.

ACube Systems is being paid (hired) by PowerProgressCommunity to design the board, in their turn they hired an electronic engineer firm to do the job. Apparently it seems unusual to subcontract like this, but within our association we are all volunteers, and none of us has the expertise to be able to deal with the technical requests of the electronic engineer, so we are forced to rely on the ACube expertise to do so.

Once the prototypes will proved to work, we will publish all schematics, and the PowerProgressCommunity will reach its goal.

At this point, we all hope that ACube Systems will be enough motivated to make the boards based on the public schematics, which is a risky business for them given the small market.

Long story short: the more donation we receive, the faster we can pay ACube to finish the prototypes.

We fully confirm what Virgola says.
Power Progress Community decided about the features of the Tyche motherboard. and we are working together to bring this project to all people that want something else than x86 and closed-source ARM.
There is no doubt that we are interested by running AmigaOS 4 and MorphOS on this laptop. We hope everyone will make some donation to this project as it is a very big one.
As you know we could show a motherboard at Amiga38 and even if there is still work to do we are commited in bring it to market as fast as we can.

The ACube Systems team

@Elwood

The day this laptop is relased I´m an owner of said laptop!
Send the Friedens a prototype!

Several people at Amiga38 told us the same, and a developer from the OS4 team once said "make it and I take two" :-p