@billt

A pair of cans = headphones.

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@billt

Bill, I appreciate your desires and I understand the argument behind them. If I were designing a machine for myself, then I would also try to cram as much into it as I could.

But, to make a machine saleable, at a reasonable cost, it has to be simple and cheap to build (first priority). If we try to add this and that upgrade, we end up with another Boxer, the design that kept on expanding until it was no longer possible to make.

I agree that we would not be able to watch Blu-Ray disks. But then, with the licensing requirements for Blu-Ray, we will NEVER be able to watch them on an Amiga, so there is no point in making provision for them. DVDs we can do now - I watch DVDs on my Sam 440 through an external USB drive. Perhaps a slim DVD drive could be added to the case, but I would not insist on it if I were the designer.

What I would insist on is a nice row of USB ports on the back.

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cheers
tony

Hyperion Support Forum: http://forum.hyperion-entertainment.biz/index.php

How good is the onboard graphics card on the SAM460?

Has anyone tried running any kind of game on it? Emulators (Mame, Vice)?

Is a 9200 power hungry?
My 6570 2GB PCI-Express eats 44W.

I think that the DVD-RW should be left out. You can have USB sticks to carry stuff around with you and if you need to install anything you do it at home, before adventuring out.

Speakers should be included.

And I agree with tonyw, a few extra USB ports.

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@TheDaddy

You can even get external USB-based DVD drives, so that's not a problem.

I don't think a 9200 draws more than 10W, but that's already 1 extra li-ion cell per hour of battery use

Actually, that's fine but it's still not much of a "laptop" with all the extras you need.

Edit: And is it an actual noticable upgrade compared to the onboard video?
Edit2: Apparently yes it is, but only for 3D stuff. I think this is an excellent time to think about docking station (as in, PCIe out to a docking connector).

Last edited by olegil on 25-Nov-2013 at 10:50 AM.
Last edited by olegil on 25-Nov-2013 at 10:47 AM.

_________________
This weeks pet peeve:
Using "voltage" instead of "potential", which leads to inventing new words like "amperage" instead of "current" (I, measured in A) or possible "charge" (amperehours, Ah or Coulomb, C). Sometimes I don't even know what people mean.

@TheDaddy

The on board graphics card does not have Composition (and 3D), this is some thing I'm going to miss a lot, but considering this some thing your going to take whit you, I think we need to accept that things are not perfect whit the Sam460.

Composition make it possible to draw images on top of other images, whit out having to do it on the CPU, and it also does scaling and rotation, and stretching. It is what some of new games uses, and its some thing I'm going to use a lot more in future 2D projects (Games and programs).

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@TheDaddy

It does not make a lot of sense whit CDROM and blue rays, considering that you can probably boot of USB stick, or flash card reader.

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@billt

considering new mother boards coming are to big to design around, I think the Sam460 is the best option until Acube or AEON make a Mini ITX or Nano ITX, or else they might do a laptop motherboard its going to be lot more expensive considering your can't use the motherboard in normal computer ceasing.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/11/VIA_Mini-ITX_Form_Factor_Comparison.jpg

What Makes the Sam460 great for this project.

* Onboard graphic card.
* It has GPIO (this nice if want to connect some electronics)
* It has LVDS connector, so we can connect flat screens.

The problem whit the Sam460 is thats its a bit big, its going to take a lot of room inside a the laptop casing, also the angel of the connectors (SATA and PSU) are 90' degrees strait up, not flat.

The nice thing is that power connector and the SATA connector is on the edge, so it should be easy to replace, but also there is risk of damage if you do.

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@olegil

I think we should forget the internal DVD drive, just use USB sticks.

I wonder if the M9 chip on the SAM440 is more powerful than the onboard chip on the SAM460, it should be...in that case a SAM440 would be better to use although the memory slot is vertical...

Then it's back to the 460 with SSD, some extra USB ports and a 9200 or maybe not.

Total watts required I think = 30W?

Last edited by TheDaddy on 25-Nov-2013 at 11:54 AM.

_________________
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@NutsAboutAmiga

Don't worry about connectors, those can be replaced.

_________________
This weeks pet peeve:
Using "voltage" instead of "potential", which leads to inventing new words like "amperage" instead of "current" (I, measured in A) or possible "charge" (amperehours, Ah or Coulomb, C). Sometimes I don't even know what people mean.

@TheDaddy

The memory slot is 100% of the reason to use the 460. This is not something you can easily change.

For extra USB, a USB hub is easy enough to integrate, just buy one and pop the PCB out. External power is no problem if the PicoPSU can supply the required voltage, which is usually not a problem.

_________________
This weeks pet peeve:
Using "voltage" instead of "potential", which leads to inventing new words like "amperage" instead of "current" (I, measured in A) or possible "charge" (amperehours, Ah or Coulomb, C). Sometimes I don't even know what people mean.

@olegil

I also think that most cards c.an be replaced with a mini .
My old laptop had a radeon4550 mini pci-e graphics card

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@Yssing

mini pcie graphics card? Not bloody likely. MXM I can believe.

_________________
This weeks pet peeve:
Using "voltage" instead of "potential", which leads to inventing new words like "amperage" instead of "current" (I, measured in A) or possible "charge" (amperehours, Ah or Coulomb, C). Sometimes I don't even know what people mean.

My own thought is that the 440ep, with on-board graphics is powerful enough for a portable -especially for casual use or development.

@TheDaddy

I've seen your pm - I'll get back to you tonight (UK time).

_________________
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@yoodoo2

Hmm, just had a quick look at ACube's site, LVDS connector was a possible option.

Custom run of 50 boards, with on-board RAM and LVDS?

It would still make a full "new" laptop about £800......

_________________
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@tonyw

Quote:

If we try to add this and that upgrade, we end up with another Boxer, the design that kept on expanding until it was no longer possible to make.

And that is a danger, yes. My feature/spec wishlist has been stable for a few years now. Previous major revisions were due to chip non-availability events, such as when PA Semi and then Uli Electronics both vanished. The SDXC chip I was interested in a year ago has since vanished, another vendor declined NDA for documentation due to expected low volumes (and I didn't even say the 'A' word), but there is potential for a new chip. The chips may change here, but SDXC remains a static goal. Changing of the chips isn't a huge concern at this point since (in my case) no particular actual design effort (schematic, PCB) has occurred on that (or just about any other) feature to be lost or redone. In some cases, new chips becoming available have made it easier to get to my static feature set, and most likely make for a reduction in overall power consumption to boot. It's certainly an interesting thought-problem to ponder while I build my education toward this and other project ideas. Suddenly I find myself wishnig I could remember some of that fancy math from bachelor degree studies. :)

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All glory to the Hypnotoad!

@NutsAboutAmiga

Quote:

considering new mother boards coming are to big to design around, I think the Sam460 is the best option until Acube or AEON make a Mini ITX or Nano ITX, or else they might do a laptop motherboard its going to be lot more expensive considering your can't use the motherboard in normal computer ceasing.

Indeed. Though some items on MiniITX seem problematic, such as desktop memory modules perpendicular to motherboard, as I would expect such a mini-Cyrus might have been. (I don't remember what the prototype pictures actually had though)

My motherboard philosopphy for a long time focused on modular design, in particular the ComExpress standard. But real-live PC laptops didn't seem like that could fit, as this standard stacks PCBs in parallel to each other, and becomes too "tall". I haven't sorted out how to deal with that within a modern laptop shell. And thus my policy eventually was forced to change to a modular desktop (which I still think is a great idea, do the CPU/southbridge/memory design once, then motherboard is mostly wiring up connectors) and then any laptop motherboard is a fully custom item to it's intended casing.

I don't demand that things must be this way. but if I was doing a real design myself, this is how I'd be doing it. I do very much look forward to whatever anyone can actually make real.

_________________
All glory to the Hypnotoad!

@TheDaddy

I did some work on that matter with my Efika based picture frame a few years ago (which was a proof of concept work for a later netbook or tablet later on based on the once announced 512x device by Genesi).
The Radeon 9250SE I used for that work draws not too much power (somewhat between 8 and 15W). Haven't measured it alone. The Efika frame takes 30 W on average and 34W on maximum with mechanical 2.5" drive and 10" display (I did that years ago, displays advanced a lot since then).
The Sam460 itself takes a bit more than the Efika, but a modern display and an SSD should reduce the uptake quite significantly. If no Radeon gets added, but the onboard video chip gets used I could imagine that average to idle load could work with about 20W-25W uptake.

More about my Efika picture frame: http://via.i-networx.de/eframe/eframe.htm and http://via.i-networx.de/bench_en.html#uptake

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My programs: via.bckrs.de
MorphOS user since V0.4 (2001)

@Zylesea

That looks rather nice.

@The_Daddy


Find out what people want and really like to pay, do they just want a portable Amigaoid:
- X500 + TFT in a clamshell design.
- TFT+Mainboard in one case full PCI Slots + external keyboard, exterrnal mouse

Or are the priorities reall fixed to highly mobile device with batteries ...

Always keep in mind most AmigaNG OSes still don't support power management, shutdown or sleep modes.

And I have my doubt people will pay for battery powered PSU, when it can't run more than 30 minutes without recharging.

There are differnce between people searching for a compact portable desktop computers and people buying a netbook.

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AmigaONE. Haha. Just because you can put label on it does not make it Amiga.

I borrowed this comments from here (#27 & #28):
http://amigaworld.net/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?topic_id=38873&forum=2&start=20&order=0

@Arko

Quote:

Always keep in mind most AmigaNG OSes still don't support power management, shutdown or sleep modes.

Yes but if we can somehow read the battery level we can create a alarm to inform the user that battery is low, just bring wb to front and display a big alert box.

http://os4depot.net/index.php?function=showfile&file=utility/shell/poff.lha

"poff" can turn off the computer if battery is too low, to prevent power failure.
It's relatively easy to connect something to the GPIO pins, or connect something to the COM port.

I don't know how easy to do some card connected to the USB

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