[HN Gopher] Retro Compaq LTE Laptop Powered by Raspberry Pi
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Retro Compaq LTE Laptop Powered by Raspberry Pi
Author : dmitrybrant
Score : 117 points
Date : 2022-04-01 15:48 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (dmitrybrant.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (dmitrybrant.com)
| glitchc wrote:
| How do you tackle the lack of a mouse, trackpad, trackpoint or
| equivalent?
| jjkaczor wrote:
| Wireless USB mouse attached via dongle. Or bluetooth mouse.
|
| If Wifi will go through the Compaq shell, so will mouse
| signals.
| rocky1138 wrote:
| There's a USB port on the side of the case.
| yjftsjthsd-h wrote:
| I wouldn't game with it, but keynav
| (https://www.semicomplete.com/projects/keynav/ /
| https://github.com/jordansissel/keynav) is pretty great.
| oktwtf wrote:
| I had a Compaq similar to this and it had a trackball that
| would clip onto the right side. I would love to see something
| like that hooked up to GPIO.
|
| Very neat project.
| nonamenoslogan wrote:
| This is AWESOME! Nice way to keep a classic alive. I'm with you,
| DOS games are kinda my thing.
| marcodiego wrote:
| Hmmm... it is lacking batteries, right?
| netsharc wrote:
| Looks like there's enough room to put in a portable USB battery
| pack.
| teeray wrote:
| That keyboard actually looks really nice to type on compared to
| modern laptop keyboards
| [deleted]
| hoistbypetard wrote:
| That was my first thought as well.
| [deleted]
| hadlock wrote:
| There's significant advantages to having a 3" thick laptop, in
| particular is you get 1mm (or more) of key travel; modern
| Thinkpads have 0.7mm travel due to their slim design. The other
| is air flow, you can push a substantial amount of cooling air
| through the case for the same amount fan noise.
| [deleted]
| AlanYx wrote:
| I love this, but it's too bad he wasn't able to find a way to
| preserve the original edge-lit passive matrix display. There's a
| growing niche of people interested in RLCD displays as a kind of
| e-ink alternative, and the display this machine originally had
| was similar to that.
| thathndude wrote:
| Yep. It was sort of a dealbreaker for me as soon as I read
| that. Someone put a raspberry pi and modern day display into
| the case of a 1989 Compaq. Cool project. But not particularly
| noteworthy.
| Melatonic wrote:
| That thing looks like it has a damn nice keyboard!
| xxpor wrote:
| With the RPi availability situation, it's probably easier to find
| the retro laptop than the Pi!
| thathndude wrote:
| Maybe Pro Tip: Amazon stocks a lot of Raspberry Pi "kits" that
| are a PI and some (usually junk) peripherals. Often these kits
| are cheaper than the price of the Pi alone on eBay.
| reaperducer wrote:
| Not so much a retro laptop "powered" by a Raspberry Pi. More like
| the shell of an old laptop with a Raspberry Pi stuffed inside. So
| it's not really a Compaq laptop anymore, just a portable Pi.
| pedrogpimenta wrote:
| What did you think "retro laptop powered by a Raspberry Pi"
| meant?
| mattl wrote:
| Some retro machines have Raspberry Pi boards as co-processors
| and accelerators.
| mzmzmzm wrote:
| Gorgeous! My mom had one of these that I would play Crystal Caves
| on for hours. Any room left in the case for a battery pack?
| loudmax wrote:
| The Pi's MicroSD card is accessible through the floppy drive
| opening (using tweezers). That in itself is pretty awesome.
| qbasic_forever wrote:
| Hah, it would be great to set the pi back a bit and cut the top
| off an old floppy disk to turn it into a caddy that seats with
| the card and pushes it back into the pi. When in use it would
| look like a disk is loaded. Perhaps you could even salvage
| enough of the disk and ejection mechanism to make it pop out
| with a button press too.
| robocat wrote:
| Or bought a USB driven floppy disk drive and fitted that
| instead. They are cheap - I bought one the other day to
| recover some data (although I haven't tried it yet).
| zitterbewegung wrote:
| I have this fantasy of making a sleeper laptop with a whole bunch
| of Raspberry Pi's and having a dedicated Raspberry Pi that
| operates as a KVM so you could have complete hardware isolation
| in a laptop.
| alar44 wrote:
| A sleeper with Pis? Any actual laptop will kick the shit out of
| as many Pis as you can fit in there.
| Pasorrijer wrote:
| I really hoped he had put an LTE version of a Raspberry PI, to
| really let the Compaq live up to it's name.
|
| This is awesome. I'm hopeful I can do a project like this someday
| with a Palm Vx!
| mattkevan wrote:
| I've got an old Newton eMate that I keep thinking would make an
| excellent raspberry pi casemod.
|
| Space for a decent 7" touch screen and plenty of batteries,
| friendly handle for portability and looks like something from a
| Cronenberg film.
|
| The only thing that's stopping me is that it feels wrong to break
| a perfectly functional device. (If anyone's got any broken eMates
| knocking around I'd be very interested)
| jll29 wrote:
| Great move, you got a wonderful keyboard and help protect our
| environment my using the laptop longer instead of putting it to
| electronic waste.
| Terry_Roll wrote:
| One thing I've not seen mentioned, is these smaller laptops are
| ideal for working on in confined spaces like cattle class seats
| on aeroplanes if one hasnt already made it and has their own
| private jet. ;-)
| netsharc wrote:
| I was looking for comments about airports, yours is the
| closest: taking this through airport security could result in
| several very alarmed guards and a very delayed and
| inconvenienced you.
|
| I wonder if the "what the hell is this guy doing with an
| ancient laptop" would cause even more jumping to a conclusion
| like "It must be a bomb!".
|
| Seems like in some places, even though the thing they're
| alarmed about is harmless, you might get refused boarding or
| arrested anyway.
| [deleted]
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(page generated 2022-04-01 23:00 UTC)