@1Mouse

Quote:

Would love to see how your portable 440ep construction is coming along

It's all in one case, working fine, but very untidy.

Have just found a nice little wooden box to put it in, sadly the screen is about 12mm to wide so will need to find a 14" screen somewhere.

Hopefully I'll get round to uploading images over the weekend

_________________
Happiness is mandatory.
MindSpace: MindMaps and UML diagrams for OS4

We ran 5 Recursion Computer Fairs before hitting the exit condition

@yoodoo2

I have a couple of old 14" iBooks if you need a screen

_________________
1 AmigaOne G4XE (OS4 Pre-Release Update4)
Minimig
Sam440ep + OS4.1FE
Sam460cr + OS4.1FE

@Arko

Quote:

LOL ! The Sam440 & Sam460 have I2C, but no drivers.

I don't know why you keep repeating there are no drivers for I2C, but a simple search on OS4Depot will show you:

http://os4depot.net/share/driver/misc/i2c.resource.lha

"Title:

i2c.resource

Description:

The i2c.resource provides access to the I2C bus 0 found on Sam440ep and
Sam460ex boards.
I2C devices may be connected to the bus via the J10 connector on Sam440ep
and the J9 connector on Sam460ex.
Check your board user manual for the I2C connector pinout."

_________________
Massimiliano Tretene, ACube Systems, Soft3

@m3x

apparently he thinks that's not enough, as he thinks we think that just hooking up a laptop battery there will automatically make the trackpad and keyboard work (why he thought we were talking about that I don't know).

If we want info from battery, trackpad and keyboard over SMBus we obviously need to write the damn drivers, which he seems to think is impossible.

_________________
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.

@1Mouse

Cheers, I might take you up on that if I can't grab one locally.

_________________
Happiness is mandatory.
MindSpace: MindMaps and UML diagrams for OS4

We ran 5 Recursion Computer Fairs before hitting the exit condition

@yoodoo2

If It'll advance the possibility of an Amiga laptop then your welcome to pop up here to west Yorkshire and raid my tech for usable hardware.

I've got some old laptop cases, from 12" to 15" and plenty of RAM and HDs (Sata and IDE) and of course the CD drives that are in the laptops are still usable

_________________
1 AmigaOne G4XE (OS4 Pre-Release Update4)
Minimig
Sam440ep + OS4.1FE
Sam460cr + OS4.1FE

An i2c driver is nothing but a pipe. It just provides an interface. You need additional drivers for each component to talk to. Like a parallel port driver does not replace a printer driver, or an usb driver does not replace a scanner driver.

I think you underestimate the complexity of a laptop project.

It is not just about to make it work. It is about having propper support for cooling, cpu clocking controlls, backlight control, audio drivers, network drivers, temperature sensors (cpu, gpu, ...), battery management (charging, time left calculation, ... ), multi touch track pads, fn key support, overlay control display (e.g. the brightness controll pop over) and even more things you currently not even think about.

All this requires a proper concept or you need to adapt drivers over and over for any hardware. A proper concept like e.g. having a modular sensor system allows to just add small sensor read modules to the system, instead if having the same code reused all over the place with all its bugs you need to fix separately.

The goal of Amiga programming always was to create shared libraries and devices which get reused all over the place to get a slim and fast system down to the lowest drivers.

AmigaOS simply has not the interfaces yet, so they need to be invented first. MorphOS wasn´t ported to laptops with in a day. It got enhanced with multiple core libraries to meet the goal: Getting a slim and fast system. That is what took the time. It is easy to get it to work on a Laptop, but it is hard to make it work like the user expects it. Ever heard of user experience. Starting with making it silent without blowing it up.

This simply takes time. The MorphOS Team took their time to get it work properly, even if the internal wifi is still not supported, which only shows the level of complexity.

If you think building a SAM into a crappy case with some external battery will create a laptop, then you are wrong. It will be a static desktop system, that you barly move, because it may break. External power supply or battery is not helpful, too. There was a MorphOS Laptop 10 years ago and even if it is much easier to build case parts using 3D printers, I don´t think some proper looking and working system will emerge.

In the end the system is still incomplete and needs to be enhanced, so why not start there first? Maybe with some existing hardware, that gives a proper and usable result?

Geit

@geit

besides bumping the topic your common did not change anything, people are going to do whatever they like, and everything does not need to be solved at once.

Its logical that people that wants to work on this work in the direction of some kind of open project kit.

Last edited by NutsAboutAmiga on 28-Nov-2013 at 09:25 PM.
Last edited by NutsAboutAmiga on 28-Nov-2013 at 07:58 PM.
Last edited by NutsAboutAmiga on 28-Nov-2013 at 07:12 PM.

_________________
http://lifeofliveforit.blogspot.no/
Facebook::LiveForIt Software for AmigaOS

@NutsAboutAmiga

Quote:

NutsAboutAmiga wrote: @geit .. people are going to do whatever they like, and everything does not need to be solved at once ...

You must be a PC user

_________________
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

Having a problem is a motivation in itself, right.

It's not so much being a PC or Amiga users, it more to do whit never being happy about how things are done, and want to improve on it. I want the hacker attitude, and can do attitude back in the Amiga word, Linux user have a lot of it.

Last edited by NutsAboutAmiga on 28-Nov-2013 at 09:09 PM.

_________________
http://lifeofliveforit.blogspot.no/
Facebook::LiveForIt Software for AmigaOS

@yoodoo2

Quote:

I'm going to write a little commodity that pops up on boot, asking me if I'm running off battery.

Can't you read the output from the power pack to see if it's plugged in and supplying power? Surely you can use a pin on the JTAG connector as a digital input.

_________________
cheers
tony

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

@geit

I was wondering when some "common sense" was going to be interjected into this thread.

Still, I don't think it is harmful if a handful of users want to spend their time exploring what might be accomplished, even if it does not lead to a real laptop experience. Anything that they learn might be useful later, when a more comprehensive approach is attempted, such as what you have suggested at the end of your post.

Maybe the few people participating in this discussion will make good progress and surprise us with their results. But I agree with your statements, that creating a laptop from any of the SAM boards will be a difficult and complicated process, and ultimately the exercise may prove to be impossible, or produce less than satisfactory results.

_________________
Amiga! The computer that inspired so many, to accomplish so much, but has ended up in the hands of . . . . . . . . . .

@1Mouse

Quote:

1Mouse wrote: @yoodoo2 I have a couple of old 14" iBooks if you need a screen

And here you have your Amiga laptop: Take these ibooks and put MorphOS on it. Done.
Works OOTB including - battary tool and touchpad/kbd drivers.

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

I am a little confused why some people in this thread feel the need to be so hostile about what is being discussed.

The way i look at it, is that most people in the Amiga world (regardless of which 'faction' they perceive themselves belonging to) are into it as a hobby since they enjoy it. A part of that enjoyment comes from tinkering, general stuffing around and seeing what they can and can not achieve because it is fun and enjoyable.

The general tone i am getting from this thread is that no one has convinced themselves that they can 100% make themselves a professional quality Amiga laptop but it is more about exploring different ways they could approach making a hobiest version and enjoying the challenge with like minded people.

I doubt anything much will come from it but it is interesting to see different ideas people are coming up with and it is obvious some people will enjoy trying some of the theories out regardless of the outcome. And who knows, one or two interesting/useful discoveries may come out of this but if people decided not to explore things everytime someone told them it was stupid, i doubt the human race would have come as far as it has when it comes to the discoveries we have made as a species.

@Zylesea

Sorry to say that your statement is not very productive.

I already have a 12" iBook running MorphOS v3.3, I've never considered myself to be solely an Amigan as I have a PC laptop running Windows 7, a Linux box running Mint, a Sam440ep running OS 4.1.6, an A1XE runing OS4.0, an iPod touch running iOS 7 a couple of Tabs running Android and a few other pieces of tech running differing OSs.

I personally think the thread is very productive as a whole as ideas are being discussed as to whether an Amiga laptop/portable is possible, as the thread title would suggest that it is an OS specific thread.

We all know that MorphOS runs on laptops and also AROS runs on laptops.

_________________
1 AmigaOne G4XE (OS4 Pre-Release Update4)
Minimig
Sam440ep + OS4.1FE
Sam460cr + OS4.1FE

Not reading any threads anymore but this thread is going quite funny when read the news a few months ago and weeks ago published and now on the market.

The new Jolla telephone (from the Nokias kicked out people) has a dualcore 1,4Mhz, 8Mpix cam and 2Mb at the back for et. for Skype, runs on the better Symbian OS and can use Android apps, Nokia Maps, free other apps etc. This was done really fast vs. this forever going laptop for Amiga. Go Finland!.

I'll just put my A500 in a suitcase, Install the lcd in the top when opened, drill a suitable hole to insert sd cards/disks from the outside and even make a little holder for these old fashioned but important utilities and even for a pen and papers and a button to get the cup holder out from the side for the coffee/beer and pretend it's a laptop;)

THE PR EXTREME 500

The PR EXTREME 1200 could have offcourse internet but here we are again, there are no such advanced programs to easily go to the net and do what expected today so most easy to go with the Jolla or other phone..

If You didn't get the joke that's not Your fault. Maybe ask Your parents if they smoked or not;)

Got Soo bored Even with more than fifty boxes of Carlsberg so Please excuse me.

Best Regards: PR

I do not want one of these:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nf9JVfbcL_A

:)

_________________
All glory to the Hypnotoad!

@geit

There must be something I'm missing. I'm using ADC, DAC, FlashROM, EEPROM, FRAM (good old magnetic core memory, eh?), video reclockers etc over I2C and/or SPI (which is similar enough that I'll include it here) without ANY sort of driver.

For an ADC, all you need to do is send it an instruction that you want to sample a channel (as in, address + start command), then wait a bit (or poll another address), then read back the data. Why do you need a "driver" for that? Your software can easily do this using a raw I2C pipe.

_________________
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.

As I've said before, my contribution is at case design level, I have no idea about electricity.

And no, I'm not aiming for a suitcase.

_________________
www.loriano.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk

@tonyw

Quote:

Can't you read the output from the power pack to see if it's plugged in and supplying power? Surely you can use a pin on the JTAG connector as a digital input.

one of the issues is that the cheapo battery I'm using always drains power when the connector is plugged in, even if the machine is not switched on. I'm also not sure whether using the battery as a "pass-through" power supply would be detectable, as opposed to actually running from the battery.

The other issue is I don't have a clue what I'm doing...

_________________
Happiness is mandatory.
MindSpace: MindMaps and UML diagrams for OS4

We ran 5 Recursion Computer Fairs before hitting the exit condition