[HN Gopher] Show HN: I made an open-source laptop from scratch
___________________________________________________________________
Show HN: I made an open-source laptop from scratch
Hello! I'm Byran. I spent the past ~6 months engineering a laptop
from scratch. It's fully open-source on GH at:
https://github.com/Hello9999901/laptop
Author : Hello9999901
Score : 2532 points
Date : 2025-01-22 20:41 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.byran.ee)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.byran.ee)
| aunver wrote:
| Congratulations Byran, this is really impressive work!
| teddy__d wrote:
| amazing job!!
| baritodespa1 wrote:
| gg byran well played
| handfuloflight wrote:
| What's the BOM?
| Hello9999901 wrote:
| Thanks for the question. I'm working on compiling the BOM in
| these few days. A preliminary R&D BOM is here (apologies, it's
| in Google Sheets):
| https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/17arbJvPqW6koqEJwAzne...
| imcritic wrote:
| This seems to list some components multiple times in a
| versioned way, did I get it right that this is rather a whole
| list of components you've bought while working on this
| project rather than the final list of the components needed
| to assemble the notebook you've built?
| _fw wrote:
| Holy fuck
|
| People like Byran live amongst us
|
| Making their own laptops but from SCRATCH
|
| Imagine how good this man's pasta carbonara tastes
| Hello9999901 wrote:
| Thank you so much!
| ge96 wrote:
| damn it looks clean
| spicysev wrote:
| Holy hell. This is so cool ~ an admirer
| Palomides wrote:
| nice work!
|
| how much was it to get the case milled?
| Hello9999901 wrote:
| Thanks! Around $300 total from JLCCNC with 6061 aluminum, bead
| blasting, and matte black anodization (top, midplate, bottom).
| Palomides wrote:
| huh, actually not that bad
| bflesch wrote:
| well done, thanks for documenting and congratulations on
| completing the project!
| Hello9999901 wrote:
| Truly appreciate it. I spent many weeks afterwards documenting
| the steps as thoroughly as I could. My email's on the site if
| anyone needs to reach out, as well. :)
| laidoffamazon wrote:
| Very nice. Wish there were faster SOMs than the 3588 but maybe in
| a year or two.
|
| Looks like an MIT admissions portfolio project. Don't know if it
| fits the uniqueness category for it but I guess the quality of
| the end product makes it good enough.
|
| Admittedly this isn't fully open source like the Novena or the
| Reform but I doubt adcomms care. I just wish I was rich enough
| and skilled enough to be able to spend $4.5k on a neat project
| like this.
| Hello9999901 wrote:
| Thanks for your suggestions and criticism! Much appreciated.
| Which aspect of it (aside from the SoM, which I admittedly do
| not have the R&D to make in this timescale) isn't open-source?
| I'd love to hear your thoughts. The Novena and Reform are
| amazing pieces of engineering, but I believe they sacrifice the
| portability and looks for repairability which some people
| certainly prefer. I wanted to aim for something that a non-
| technical consumer might look and say "hmm, nice laptop!" and
| not think it came out of the matrix or built it myself.
|
| In terms of college, still waiting :)
| andrewmcwatters wrote:
| Sick! Finally someone posting something that puts the "hacker" in
| HN.
|
| Love the parts research you did.
| Hello9999901 wrote:
| Thank you so much!
| j3s wrote:
| VERY impressive. the laptop looks great. wish you could
| manufacture and sell the thing, i'd consider one :)
| Hello9999901 wrote:
| Maybe, depending on reception! I geared it so it could be
| manufactured at a semi-small scale. Unfortunately, I don't have
| the capacity to make them myself :(. Thank you for the
| interest!
| mwcampbell wrote:
| Not to take anything away from this amazing achievement, but if
| you want a similar open-source laptop, also based on an RK3588,
| that will actually be manufactured and sold, check out the MNT
| Reform Next: https://www.crowdsupply.com/mnt/mnt-reform-next
| snake_doc wrote:
| Okay, I'll help him humble brag:
|
| Bryan is in his last year of high school.
|
| </end>
|
| Keep building!
| GardenLetter27 wrote:
| You study quantum mechanics in High School in the USA?
| Hello9999901 wrote:
| We discussed wave functions, probability, fermions/bosons,
| did calculations for particle in a box, the Schrodinger
| model, and went just up to deriving the hydrogen atom.
| Nothing super fancy, but it was one heck of an experience!
| stackghost wrote:
| But did you win the Putnam?
| dang wrote:
| For those who don't know, stackghost is referencing this
| classic moment on HN:
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35079
| throwup238 wrote:
| I wonder how @sanj feels about their moment of fame
| (they're still active on HN).
| dang wrote:
| As I've pointed out before, his concession at
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35350 was both witty
| and graceful. It's great that he's still active here! and
| anyway he's done a ton of things that are a lot more
| important than that bit.
| throwup238 wrote:
| I hope that's in the highlights :)
| GardenLetter27 wrote:
| It's really interesting, in the UK I don't think we did
| (but I later studied Physics at university) - but we did
| have Further Maths which covered more advanced mathematics.
|
| Also your project is incredible btw, maybe look into
| robotics too.
| alias_neo wrote:
| > in the UK I don't think we did
|
| Perhaps you didn't go to a high school quite like this
| one: https://exeter.edu/admissions/financial-aid/tuition-
| costs/
| Izikiel43 wrote:
| > High school quantum theory
|
| > Nothing super fancy
|
| Yeah, that's college level stuff, it's pretty fancy for
| high school, you go to a nice place :)
| mattnewton wrote:
| Some do- He thanks Phillips Exeter at the bottom of the
| project page, which is a very fancy private highschool,
| probably the best in the US.
| macNchz wrote:
| I went to a peer school that had at least a couple of math
| teachers with PhDs--my friends at the time who took their
| classes were, if I recall, nationally competitive in math
| olympiads.
| govg wrote:
| Not all high schools but the US has some schools which allow
| you to take very advanced material / even get a head start on
| your college credits.
| mschuster91 wrote:
| We had a cursory introduction at least about 15 years ago in
| Germany, it's not that far off.
| rafram wrote:
| It's more possible than you'd think! The options are
| basically:
|
| - Go to a fancy private school like Phillips Exeter
|
| - _Really_ luck out and get into a great public STEM magnet
| school
|
| - Homeschool and take private classes / have very smart
| parents
| rafram wrote:
| Oh, or:
|
| - Concurrently enroll at a community college (a really
| great option that I think every country should have)
| jogu wrote:
| I tested out of high school and went to community college
| instead, one of the best decisions of my life.
| 2muchcoffeeman wrote:
| Can't tell if this is sarcasm.
| rafram wrote:
| The community college option is available to anyone who's
| willing to spend a couple evenings a week taking classes,
| so I don't think it's really that out of reach. Most
| countries don't offer their high school students any
| opportunity to study material that advanced.
| 2muchcoffeeman wrote:
| Your first 3 options are mostly "be born to the right
| parents". So I couldn't tell if your remark of "it's more
| possible than you'd think!" Was serious or not.
|
| Hell I went to a really selective school. But even then,
| within that the top students, whom I was not one, got to
| do some extra stuff that would have greatly interested me
| and I would have been able to do. But my grades in
| humanities weren't good enough to be one of the best.
| ericjmorey wrote:
| Community college course options often won't include
| quantum mechanics.
| cbmamolo wrote:
| All I did was provide him the space and time to work on the
| project ... his parents funded the entire project, but will
| get reimbursement soon. It's the great minds, and the
| desire to have meaningful projects that make Exeter such an
| awesome place. Byran is one of a kind!!!!
| notnaut wrote:
| Some public schools in very wealthy counties will teach
| some basic quantum mechanics in honors/AP classes, too. All
| you have to do is acquire parents that can afford the
| shittiest neighborhood in those districts!
| anonzzzies wrote:
| They did in mine in the Netherlands. Also electronics and
| programming (this was a long time ago so it was all
| pretty new); it was a special class to prep for
| university more than the regular curriculum does, but it
| was a public school and not even a very good one; just a
| few really good and switched on teachers (physics, math
| and chem).
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| In the high school in Poland I attended, I lucked into being
| in a class with a university TA assigned as physics teacher,
| and he did manage to sneak in QM - more-less the same stuff
| as 'Hello9999901 listed in their reply.
|
| (He also taught us differentiation in the first semester, and
| basic integrals in the second, because as he said, you cannot
| learn physics properly without those tools. This annoyed the
| heck out of our math teacher; she ended up deciding that, if
| we're learning this anyway, we might as well learn it
| properly - and gave us a much heavier intro to calculus in
| the last months of the last year.)
| volemo wrote:
| You don't study basics of QM in your high schools?
| apricot wrote:
| The USA has some great schools. OP goes to Phillips Exeter
| Academy, which is an exclusive private school that ranks
| among the best high schools in the country.
| chuckwfinley wrote:
| This is incredible work for anyone, let alone a high schooler.
| Seriously impressive!
|
| I hope this turns into something I can buy (maybe a diy kit),
| in the future!
| Hello9999901 wrote:
| Thanks! I've been considering it (or enough detailed
| instructions to build one) since starting the project. I need
| to get a working model first though ;)
| ricardonunez wrote:
| We are going full circle, Woz will be proud.
| d3rockk wrote:
| HOF HN post.
| gerdesj wrote:
| Care to explain?
| belden wrote:
| I think the message means that this post is worthy of a
| Hall of Fame on HackerNews.
| d3rockk wrote:
| ^
| MrDrMcCoy wrote:
| This is fantastic! I hope to follow in your footsteps as soon as
| a decent RISC-V board can supplant that RK3588.
| Hello9999901 wrote:
| I'd love to see one; hope to see that day come!!
| junon wrote:
| This is so, so cool. Reminds me of Clockwork Pi stuff. Thanks for
| sharing :)
| petsfed wrote:
| This is really cool!
|
| There are some obvious next steps for improving the polish on
| this, would you say you were more resource constrained, time
| constrained, or skill constrained?
|
| For instance, did you put any thought into making flex PCBs to
| make the cable routing easier?
|
| I also think the concept of a laptop with a removable wireless
| keyboard is brilliant, and I think your implementation is a lot
| cleaner than e.g. the Surface or the iPad's case-keyboards. If I
| had a laptop that did that, it would be my go-to travel machine.
| One less thing to cart around.
| Hello9999901 wrote:
| Hey! Thank you for the question. For sure, it's not a polished
| product and I don't mean for it to be. It works surprisingly
| well. (I've used it as my daily driver for school) With college
| apps and school work, the time was tight. I'd say that was the
| most limiting. Of course, resource and skill played its role. I
| did consider flex PCBs, but I didn't have the time to follow
| through with all the ambitions (i also wanted an FOC input
| sigh).
|
| I'm honored that you think my keyboard implementation is nice!
| I put a lot of thought into it -- truly. Oh btw the keyboard
| works just as well as a solo device. I've used the keyboard
| more than the computer in some ways. Thanks!
| petsfed wrote:
| If you keep this idea alive (and I hope you do!), you might
| consider shrinking the keyboard battery and designing its
| docking configuration so that it automatically charges from
| the main battery when stored in the laptop. A 3 month
| keyboard battery capacity seems sort of excessive when its
| mechanically part of a machine that charges daily.
|
| I think one of the limitations to the keyboard concept you
| have is that it complicates using the laptop base as a stand
| for the screen in a tablet configuration. Outside of tablets
| with fully detachable keyboards (e.g. the Surface or the iPad
| pro), I don't think anybody has a good design for that. Was a
| touchscreen ever a consideration for stretch goals or design
| for expansion?
| daquisu wrote:
| Regarding a laptop with a removable wireless keyboard, ZenBook
| Duo has that, although the touchpad is removed with the
| keyboard.
|
| It also has two screens and its own stand, I use it as my
| travel machine.
| petsfed wrote:
| Hmmm. That's also an interesting solution to the same
| problem. Although honestly, the scenario where I want to have
| a removable keyboard, I'm likely using an external display
| (probably a hotel TV), and a small wireless mouse is a lot
| easier to transport than a keyboard (and more ergonomic than
| a keyboard small enough for transport) so the extra screen
| and trackpad are sort of lost on me.
| vidarh wrote:
| Also loved the detachable keyboard (which has me fantasize
| about a detachable screen as well + external hdmi/displayport,
| as I hate the working positions I end up in with a laptop, so
| it'd be nice to be able to get a more comfortable setup in a
| hotel room etc. that still packages up to a laptop.
| camtarn wrote:
| Genuinely incredible work. Looking forward to seeing what other
| cool projects you do in the future.
| chironjit wrote:
| I actually spent quite some time trying to build a custom driver
| for a custom screen for my Framework 13, only to burn the screen
| driver.
|
| Very impressed by what you have done here. Kudos to you on
| achieving designing and building a whole laptop!
| Hello9999901 wrote:
| Thank you so much! If you'd like to discuss further, please let
| me know! My email is in the website. I have a Framework 16 and
| have tons of ideas. Never got around to it though. (I also
| burned a few screens, and had 3 as backup haha).
| KolmogorovComp wrote:
| Very impressive work, and also nice video editing. Congrats.
| amelius wrote:
| I'm curious how the USB-C connectors are made to the outside of
| the enclosure.
|
| What I've found is that it's a bad idea to use USB extension
| cables; these can introduce bit errors if e.g. you copy large
| amounts of data (order of terabytes). It's much better to insert
| a USB drive directly into a carrier board, but this is not always
| physically possible.
| Hello9999901 wrote:
| It's almost standard to have the USB-C have extra wiggle-room
| (around 1mm or so). Then, the housing is 1mm past the USB-C
| connector. That's how the casings are made so that when you
| stick the connector in, it's flush or nearly so.
|
| I agree with USB extension cables concerns too! The error would
| increase depending on the quality (impedance, power, etc.)
| amelius wrote:
| > Then, the housing is 1mm past the USB-C connector.
|
| Yes, this is often the case but sometimes the USB-C
| connectors are on the same side of the board where you also
| need to plug in some cables that you need internally (maybe
| even other USB devices). Thus the option of letting an USB-C
| port stick out on one side of the enclosure is not always
| available.
|
| > I agree with USB extension cables concerns too! The error
| would increase depending on the quality (impedance, power,
| etc.)
|
| Yes, and the user of your device (who doesn't see the
| internal cable) will assume that they can plug in their own
| cable, so you'll have two cables.
| madsmith wrote:
| Amazing project.
| lxe wrote:
| This is one of those special HN posts that demonstrates outsized
| excellence on the author's behalf. Watched the video and I'm very
| impressed.
| Hello9999901 wrote:
| Truly appreciate it thank you so much!! I poured my life and
| soul into this haha.
| cbmamolo wrote:
| You sure did!
| tuktuktuk wrote:
| Amazin! what's the total cost for you?
| Hello9999901 wrote:
| Hanging around 5 grand. Unfortunately the R&D process was
| rough! The R&D BOM is linked below, feel free to take a look.
| If you were to build it, I'd estimate it costing around 1500
| dollars (or less).
| someothherguyy wrote:
| Back in my day, I thought spending $50 in wood shop was
| rough.
| tuktuktuk wrote:
| Thank you for sharing!
| nashashmi wrote:
| Looks good. Could be a small step to my vision for a dock
| dependent palm sized pc with high powered cpu connected by a
| single USB C with no other ports except for micro sd. And backed
| up by a mini battery for power stability on low watt chargers.
| Hello9999901 wrote:
| Thanks! Have you taken a look at the Khadas Mind [1]? Super
| similar to what you're talking about with the handheld PC.
|
| [1]: https://www.khadas.com/product-page/mind
| nashashmi wrote:
| Wow. Precisely what I have been looking for. This is great.
| And mind 2 is even better.
| mschuster91 wrote:
| Holy. That's an achievement _very few_ people can claim. Wonder
| if HN has a "hall of fame", a worthy entry.
|
| You did the smart thing there with the SoM (for the uninitiated:
| power sequencing to individual parts of an SoC and its external
| components is an epic hassle to get right and that's assuming you
| actually have proper documentation - without it it's an utter
| pain), but how in hell did you get the high frequency stuff
| working out on what was likely your first or second try? This is
| IMHO where your work really shines.
|
| USB-C, DisplayPort (at 4K to boot) and PCIe at modern speeds are
| all but black magic to most, this isn't digital any more, this is
| good old analog circuitry and physics at work that most people
| don't even learn in university any more.
| Hello9999901 wrote:
| Thank you so much -- yes, that was the hardest part of this
| entire project! I spent 2 months getting eDP working (second
| PCB thankfully).
|
| I had the honor of learning high speed signaling from the best.
| I met some super cool people from Silicon Valley and research
| universities (from past work, like the MUREX Ethernet Switch).
| The ZMK Firmware community too!
| mschuster91 wrote:
| > from past work, like the MUREX Ethernet Switch
|
| Just looked it up...
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40694254 for those who
| want a direct link.
|
| Jesus. Wish I had had even a fraction your talent at that
| age. Most impressive.
| Hello9999901 wrote:
| I truly appreciate your encouragement. I can only imagine
| how successful you are! Thank you!
| aio2 wrote:
| my guess is when doing college applications, you figured you had
| to do something special to get into a good college, so you
| decided to do this lol
|
| Doesn't matter why, pretty sick. I'm studying physics myself, so
| its pretty inspiring to see you do this
| Hello9999901 wrote:
| Thank you so much! The story behind the laptop was quite
| interesting -- my friends and I were going to an athletics
| event far away, and he brought up the idea that I should make a
| laptop for my senior project as a joke (our school offers 1
| free class for a "project", graciously funded by the school). I
| said "hell yeah." That's pretty much how this came to be,
| college didn't play much of a role imho. And best of luck
| studying physics!
| triyambakam wrote:
| Hey Bryan, great work and very inspiring. This has me meta
| curious about how a project like this is possible. Besides the
| support from your school, I imagine that your parents have been a
| big part of your success?
| gerdesj wrote:
| At which point was the mental map created within Obsidion and did
| you really need it?
|
| You are clearly a very clever person and you do not need a web
| app wiggly graph thingie to throw ideas together.
|
| There's no need to gild a lily!
|
| Please keep the faith - I love that you are focussed on being
| altruistic and sharing your skills to the benefit of everyone.
|
| Thank you.
| montroser wrote:
| Byran... This is seriously impressive. You are very blessed to be
| so capable in so many disciplines -- design, hardware, software,
| storytelling. It is a massively complicated undertaking, and you
| executed in _style_. Nice work, and remember to use your
| formidable powers for good!
| Hello9999901 wrote:
| Thank you so much! For certain; goodness without knowledge is
| weak and feeble and knowledge without goodness is dangerous.
|
| It was a truly difficult undertaking! I was ready to quit at so
| many moments, but I always think about the final mission of
| sharing this little piece of knowledge with the world. :)
| MegaDeKay wrote:
| My hat is off to you, good sir. Way off. This is an
| unbelievable accomplishment, doubly so given that you're
| still in high school (!!!), triple-so given the time you did
| it in, quadruple-so given that you did it all yourself, etc
| etc etc.
|
| I was reading this over thinking "this guy should be working
| for Framework". It would be a total win-win.
| Hello9999901 wrote:
| Thank you so much! I'm currently working for Keychron!
| freedomben wrote:
| If you do decide to look at framework, I can help you get
| your resume in front of a high level decision maker. I
| agree you'd make a great fit with framework.
| Hello9999901 wrote:
| Woah! That would be amazing! I sent you an email just
| now. Thank you so much for this opportunity!!
| noman-land wrote:
| Really amazing and impressive work. And also an excellent
| resource for future explorers.
|
| One thing I didn't see mentioned in the video is the total
| cost of all the materials to complete one laptop not
| including all the experimentation cost. I'd be super curious
| about that.
| Hello9999901 wrote:
| I have the R&D BOM in a link below [1]
|
| https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/17arbJvPqW6koqEJwAzn
| e...
|
| Thanks.
| noman-land wrote:
| Thank you! For anyone else looking for the top line
| number, it's $4,673.81. Really nice work. I wish you much
| success in life.
| bluepuma77 wrote:
| "NOTE: THIS IS R&D total cost. The DIY price should be
| less than $1500"
| noman-land wrote:
| Thank you for this.
| cbmamolo wrote:
| I have yet to finish processing reimbursement. LOL. His
| parents pre-paid for this project.
| nwellinghoff wrote:
| Best 5 grand they ever spent. Byran your cross discipline
| knowledge is amazing. Well done!
|
| Quick question, are your parents in technology and
| science or are you self taught? Always like to hear about
| the backgrounds that create the environment for something
| like this to come together.
| Hello9999901 wrote:
| I've met amazing people throughout my journey thus far,
| but no. I have no background in engineering, but my
| parents have always been supportive. I started falling in
| love with it in 9th grade with keyboards + ZMK!
| jensgk wrote:
| Great work! I am also interested in what tools you needed
| to do the work. Could you elaborate on that?
| guywithahat wrote:
| Sometimes I wonder why I didn't get into MIT, and then I see
| people like this exist
| umrashrf wrote:
| I'd like to follow up to see how it handles heat or excessive
| heat if any
| Hello9999901 wrote:
| I played Minecraft (epic gaming) with friends for a few hours,
| no problem! The massive heat capacity of the copper + heatpipe
| + active fan is good enough.
| jwr wrote:
| Congratulations! From someone who does mixed
| electronics+mechanical design: this is _hard_. There are moments
| of desperation where you realize that everything depends on
| everything else, and there is no way to achieve all of your
| design goals. You then have to realize that engineering is all
| about compromises, and move on, compromising -- but this is very
| difficult. It 's easy to get bogged down in details and
| dependencies and never finish the project.
|
| It's very impressive work and it makes me so happy to see real
| hacker news on HN. _This_ is real hacking.
| Hello9999901 wrote:
| Thank you so, so much! You phrased it so well. The moments of
| desperation really hit you hard. I have uncountably many loose
| ends, but oh well, bad engineering :(. Honored that HN thinks
| I'm a hacker :)
| geerlingguy wrote:
| Always fun to read an article like this, for humility's sake.
|
| Wow! And I'm guessing if he attempts a 2nd edition, it'll
| probably be even thinner, lighter, and faster!
| Hello9999901 wrote:
| Oh my god! Jeff -- huge fan and subscriber!! Thank you for your
| words of encouragement :). Your videos have been a huge source
| of inspiration for me.
| eddywebs wrote:
| This is really cool ! Kudos for getting this started. I wonder if
| initiatives such as one laptop per child could have been
| effective with this kind of approach. Eitherway I hope this
| project goes along way as I could see its application not only at
| home but also in developing nations.
| xarope wrote:
| Wow this is fantastic, great job! I hope this heralds a new era
| of HW engineering.
|
| P.S. @Hello9999901 any relation to "Bunnie" Huang?
| Hello9999901 wrote:
| Haha I wish, but no. Just surname coincidence.
| webprofusion wrote:
| This is what the internet was invented for.
| Hello9999901 wrote:
| Thank you!
| stuckkeys wrote:
| Holly crap. This man is the messiah of tech. Keep going my guy.
| That is so impressive. I look forward to what you do next.
| reactordev wrote:
| Man!! This is sooo impressive. I did a little research on making
| my own motherboard (not even for a laptop) and didn't get
| anywhere nearly as far.
|
| I just want to throw money at you! We need an open source
| laptop!!
| Hello9999901 wrote:
| Thank you!! After schooling is done :)
| eviks wrote:
| Have you thought about finally adding a split ergonomic keyboard
| to a laptop instead of the standard slab?
| Hello9999901 wrote:
| That's a sick idea too! Wouldn't be too hard. I'll keep that in
| mind never thought of it before even though I've used my fair
| share.
| eviks wrote:
| There was a very old ThinkPad design that allowed the
| keyboard to take more space than the width of the laptop, but
| that was also bad old non-split layout
|
| But at least not wasting existing left/ right side space and
| having a gap in the middle instead would be a nice start
|
| Or maybe even get to the best of the portable/non-portable
| worlds: since the keyboard is wireless, you could detach 2
| halves of the keyboard and place them on a desk at ergonomic
| shoulder distance
|
| And this would allow you to also ergonomically position the
| laptop itself for a better screen position - vertical, just
| like your desktop monitor
|
| ThinkPad: https://youtu.be/RRHFi_l9UR0
| xarope wrote:
| The 701 "butterfly"? It was cool for its time.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_ThinkPad_701
| noisy_boy wrote:
| Framework team, hire this guy, when it's legal :)
| amatecha wrote:
| More suited to working with MNT Research[0] which makes actual
| certified open source hardware[1] :)
|
| [0] https://mntre.com/reform.html
|
| [1] https://certification.oshwa.org/de000017.html
| aragilar wrote:
| It looks like https://www.crowdsupply.com/mnt/mnt-reform-next
| and the anyon_e use the same SoC and similar parts (e.g.
| Cherry MX ULP switches). I wonder how much of that is they're
| the only parts that would be put in such laptops?
| dataflow wrote:
| This is crazy. Hats off to you. My guess is you'll have
| recruiters knocking on your door yesterday, trying to grab you
| before the next one does. Whatever you do, don't let your talents
| go to waste (corporations can do that), and think about your long
| term success, not whatever they dangle in front of you for the
| short term. You're going places.
| Hello9999901 wrote:
| Thank you so much for the heartfelt advice! I'll keep that
| close to heart :)
| bboygravity wrote:
| Tip from an experienced EE: try to avoid middle-men
| recruiters at all cost. Go straight to the company you want
| to work for. Or better yet in your case: start your own
| company :p
| amatecha wrote:
| I clicked through dreading that it's got a Raspberry Pi at its
| core, but no, RK3588 (same as MNT is using now)! Very nice. Ultra
| kudos for making it truly open source. Great work!! <3
| Hello9999901 wrote:
| Thank you! Yup, Raspberry Pi's great an all, but the RK3588's
| performance is king (and RPi would've also saved me many nights
| of head-banging at the software).
| jiveturkey wrote:
| came here to shit on this project, that there was no way it was
| open source down to the ME, like a raptor or framework computer.
| absolutely required IMO to be considered open source.
|
| i didn't find any firwmware in the repo (didn't look
| exhaustively) but I did find that the SoC this is based on is
| supported by https://github.com/edk2-porting/edk2-rk3588 .
|
| AFAICT the azoteq trackpad has proprietary firmware, so if that's
| true then i won't call this laptop fully open source. but from a
| practical perspective, i am much less worried about that then the
| boot path.
|
| love the keyboard, wish i could test drive it!
|
| so instead, i was left very, very impressed!
| felipelalli wrote:
| Brabo.
| nrp wrote:
| Super impressive, and awesome to see that you were able to use
| Framework Laptop hinges. Let me know if you need more. We have a
| ton of remaining 3.3kg ones!
| Hello9999901 wrote:
| Hey Nirav, super super honored that you saw this! I've always
| looked up to you guys for inspiration and guidance. Thank you
| for the offer! Although I probably won't be mass-producing
| open-source laptops like you (i have a framework 16!), I would
| love to meet you. Would that be possible?
| nrp wrote:
| Just sent you an email.
| Hello9999901 wrote:
| Thank you!
| xarope wrote:
| Can I just say that the fact HN can facilitate this sort
| of meetup is just, wonderful.
| kabakaba wrote:
| truly wonderful
| cekanoni wrote:
| it made my day, I can sleep now. nn
| azath92 wrote:
| This is the best of the internet. Connection based on
| interest, appreciation, and mutual respect facilitated
| with a high degree of good faith. Hope you folks connect
| fruitfully, and also appreciate that you kept some of the
| "sent an email" and "thanks" public. Getting to see that
| this happened has given me a real boost.
| ActVen wrote:
| This is a great example of why people should not be afraid to
| be bold.
| ankurdhama wrote:
| Hi Nirav, any plans to start Framework in India?
| eadmund wrote:
| This may be the coolest thing I've seen this year. Wait, it's
| January? This may be the coolest thing I've seen this year and
| last.
|
| And possibly the year before.
|
| Well, _well_ done. Good luck to you!
| Hello9999901 wrote:
| Thank you so much for your kind words!
| unethical_ban wrote:
| If you can do something like this, then you'd be great at
| Factorio! :)
|
| On a less joking note, I wonder if I'm decent at Factorio, I
| could learn this.
| fifticon wrote:
| not only that, you can use this laptop to _play_ factorio!
| op00to wrote:
| Hey you didn't mine the rare earth minerals! This ain't really
| from scratch!
|
| Just joking, incredibly impressive!
| jballer wrote:
| Incredible work
| AnthonyMouse wrote:
| I've long been disappointed that we've never really gotten
| standard laptops, in the way that there are ATX standard
| desktops.
|
| The laptop form factor hasn't really changed in decades. It's a
| rectangle with a screen in the lid and a keyboard in the base.
| Below the keyboard is a battery and a system board. The battery
| has to be replaced when it wears out and the system board when it
| becomes obsolete, but then why aren't they both fungible parts?
| If you take any arbitrary ATX PC from many years ago, you can
| replace the system board/CPU/memory/storage with modern ones and
| carry on using the same chassis, screen, power supply and
| keyboard provided they meet the required specs for the new parts
| (and they often do).
|
| So why can't I do this with the average laptop, instead of having
| to replace $200-$300 worth of perfectly good parts or more each
| time I want an upgrade?
| coryrc wrote:
| I think my laptops have been split between mechanical and
| hardware EOL. I don't think the mechanicals would ever go for
| two lifetimes. But I actually take mine around places and am a
| little clumsy.
| AnthonyMouse wrote:
| Mechanical what? The keys? There are people who have had the
| same keyboard for 30 years. You don't _have to_ design things
| to be disposable junk.
|
| That's even part of the advantage. If you want a higher
| quality chassis made of rubber-padded metal that can survive
| being dropped off a table then you'd only have to buy it
| once.
| numpad0 wrote:
| No one personally buys a Toughbook new for home use.
| AnthonyMouse wrote:
| Because you don't pay that much for something to be
| durable if the durability will just be defeated by
| obsolescence. Whereas if you could upgrade it to later
| generation processors, clumsy people would save
| themselves a lot of trouble to buy the chassis once.
| numpad0 wrote:
| I guess we're talking from a completely different range
| within spectrum of laptop computing. Hinges, shells, flex
| cables, power ports, etc. all tend not last longer than
| hardware end of relevance for me unless it's one of
| rugged ones, but my use case is to throw into a bag and
| strategically yeet onto another luggage kinds.
| kuon wrote:
| Congratulations, this is awesome. I worked on medical devices
| where I did both hardware and software and it is really hard. I
| wish you the best and I really hope you'll continue to use your
| skills for good and open products.
| itsmemattchung wrote:
| Just skimmed the YouTube video and I'm blown away as well ...
| anytime my ego needs to get checked, I just scroll through HN
| posts. Truly impressive
| Vekz wrote:
| Bryan, thanks for publishing, this is great work. I'm curious if
| this this build could fit and swap a 13.3 E-ink screen with
| display board. Some open source hardware synergy with
| https://github.com/Modos-Labs/Glider/tree/main
| 6510 wrote:
| Besides the enormous effort, what did the part cost?
| mllev wrote:
| So how long is the trip to Earth from your home planet? And do
| you plan on staying a while or are you just here for 6 months to
| humiliate us with your superintelligence?
| lemper wrote:
| aight, mate. that's definitely impressive. no, not only
| impressive, i believe it can help you land a great job somewhere.
| marssaxman wrote:
| This is one of the coolest projects I've seen here in a long
| time. Kudos! Your dedication to completion is admirable.
| shahzaibmushtaq wrote:
| An amazing challenge you set for yourself and pulled it off in 7
| months is admirable, commendable and exceptional.
|
| How much did it cost to make this open-source laptop? My wild
| guess is it's around $500-750.
| ornornor wrote:
| I wish I had your talent, that's impressive! And it took you 6
| months only.
| chrismorgan wrote:
| > _A highly integrated, high end, open source laptop._
|
| Not sure what's meant by "high end" here. Performance is a rather
| important aspect, and the RK3588 this uses will make it slower
| than almost every laptop on the market. Practically all are twice
| as fast (both single- and multi-core), most are 3-5x multi-core,
| and the best approach 7x (paired with 2.5x single-core).
|
| Looking at Lenovo India, they sell three laptops that are slower
| multi-core and maybe slower single-core (running Celeron N4020 or
| Athlon Silver 7120U); after that, they're all at least twice as
| fast, in both single- and multi-core benchmarks.
|
| (I'm simplifying to PassMark's single-/multi-core scores, using
| <https://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=Rockchip+RK3588&id=...>
| and such.)
|
| From <https://www.byran.ee/posts/creation>: "In many aspects, the
| Rockchip RK3588 is the fastest consumer-procurable chip on the
| market." As someone not involved in these spaces, this was my
| vague impression, but it still ends up disappointing if you
| simply _can't_ get good performance for a project like this
| because only bigger companies can buy the better-performance
| things. It's an extremely impressive project, but unfortunately
| will be rendered not viable for many--probably most--people for
| this one reason. That makes me sad. I wish they'd sell us the
| good stuff.
| utopcell wrote:
| I suspect that utmost performance was not the main focus of the
| project. Nevertheless, the complexity of the project would not
| be different if a different CoM was to be adopted. Even
| creating a custom CoM doesn't seem that much more complicated,
| as the daughter board is as complicated since it already needs
| to handle high-frequency traces as well. Super impressive
| project!
| barrkel wrote:
| There's a way to phrase this comment better, which reflects
| sadness on the facts of the market, and isn't a kind of attack
| on the author.
| justmarc wrote:
| A huge congratulations to Bryan, a wonderful achievement and a
| remarkable result! Keep it up Bryan!
|
| It's lovely to see HN so nice and friendly, keep it up guys!
| Justta wrote:
| Most of the older LED display have standard 30 pin or 40 pin
| connection. Lacking standard is keyboard connectors. Most
| standard are battery and fans.
|
| Maybe laptop should have two layers or parts.One for Motherboard
| and memory and another for connectors, fans, power supply,
| battery etc. Then we can have more standard even if a little
| thicker.
| vim-guru wrote:
| Congratulations on a beautiful build!
| vhiremath4 wrote:
| A seriously impressive piece of work, especially only in 6
| months. Bravo! :)
| teleforce wrote:
| Anyone know the amount of RAM available for the laptop?
|
| Personally I'm a bit disappointed that it's based on Rockchip.
|
| If someone can come up with low cost open source laptop with RPi
| compute module 5 with 16GB RAM I think it will selling like hot
| cakes given the software and hardware eco-system that exist round
| RPi [1]. It just that the compute module has yet to come with
| 16GB RAM unlike the normal RPi 5 but it will probably just around
| the corner [2].
|
| [1] Compute Module 5:
|
| https://www.raspberrypi.com/products/compute-module-5/
|
| [2] New 16GB Raspberry Pi 5 on sale now at $120 (191 comments):
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42642873
| actionfromafar wrote:
| I think 32 is the limit for the motherboard.
| numpad0 wrote:
| No hardware sell like hot cakes relative to the pain and cost
| incurred.
| teleforce wrote:
| Care to explain?
| paines wrote:
| > Personally I'm a bit disappointed that it's based on
| Rockchip.
|
| Why would you?
|
| You mentioned Raspberry where, compared to the competition, you
| pay more for the name while they deliver even the same
| capabilities or more bang for the buck... Don't get me wrong.
| Huge Raspi fan here. I have 3 models laying around here,
| because they are the easiest to purchase. But the competition
| is not to be overlooked.
|
| Also, aren't the compute modules strandarized or compatible? So
| it should be interchangeable, no?
| teleforce wrote:
| Because it's the eco-system for software, hardware, firmware,
| drivers, books, documentation, blogs, papers, training
| modules, etc. It's the same reasons Nvidia thriving for ML/AI
| while the rest are playing catch up.
| t4TLLLSZ185x wrote:
| For those that missed it, this Engineer is in _high school_.
|
| Byran, I have been a professional engineer longer than you have
| been alive, I can tell you right now that I have met very, very
| few people that would have the motivation, skill and
| sticktoitivness to pull this off.
| denysvitali wrote:
| And the time. Don't underestimate the amount of free time
| people have when they're in high school (vs when you have a
| family / intense job).
|
| Having said that, even with unlimited time this is such an
| awesome achievement and really shows the dedication. Well done!
| helboi4 wrote:
| Yeah I did some crazy things when I was in school. Had so
| much time.
| MonkeyClub wrote:
| And energy... I do miss those days.
| Vinnl wrote:
| ...and money, apparently? How do you pay for all this in
| high school?
| sibeliuss wrote:
| Supportive parents. Bless
| helboi4 wrote:
| Yeah I mean I wasn't doing things like this. I was
| constantly frustrated because I didn't have any resources
| to achieve the things I wanted. Didn't even have a half
| decent computer. I had some janky celeron thing that
| barely functioned and I couldn't even buy books about
| subjects I wanted to learn. To think the things I could
| have done if I was a well off kid.
| underdeserver wrote:
| We all had time... Almost none of us built a laptop
| hn_acc1 wrote:
| Yeah, but TBF.. in my early teens, my "internet"
| consisted of a 300 baud modem hooked up to an Atari 800xl
| (my 2nd computer - the TI 99-4/A was "obsolete"), my
| "manual" was a 6502 assembly book I borrowed and typed
| out and a binder full of photocopied notes called "De Re
| Atari" that I picked up at a garage sale or something. My
| later teens, some of my time in was spent debugging early
| Watcom SQL software and working on an educational
| software app in FoxPro, as well as studying computer
| engineering (and still working on the side in FoxPro).
| endofreach wrote:
| Yeah, that's a given. Everyone has only 24h of time per day.
| And everyone has different struggles.
|
| This is an incredible achievement. And i really don't like,
| that your comment invited other people to jump onboard &
| comment in a way belittling the achievements- even if just
| implicitly, to make themselves feel better why a high-
| schooler is doing things like that.
|
| If all that was really the main driver, HN frontpage should
| be flooded with projects made by high-schoolers. But it is
| not. It might be contributing factor.
|
| Btw: Funnily enough, i would expect these type of excuses &
| self-comforting negativity from high-schoolers.
| denysvitali wrote:
| I'm not saying this in a negative way - but priorities
| shift in life (unfortunately).
|
| I wish I had the time that I had back when I was in high
| school. The time part doesn't have anything to do with the
| skills though. At that age I would have never been able to
| do a similar thing - at my age I would probably struggle,
| but with enough time at hand I might achieve half of the
| project.
|
| This is what makes this whole thing exceptional: this
| person is very talented and is using his free time to do
| great things - I appreciate that.
|
| If my initial comment sounded like I was bragging I would
| do it too if I had more free time, it wasn't my intention.
| I actually am jealous that I get to spend less time on my
| side projects and I envy those who can build such cool
| stuff.
| mgfist wrote:
| It really depends on the person and the school they go
| to. I've had wayyyyy more free time in my 20s than I did
| in high school. With kids its a different story, but
| having a job and no kids is peak freedom. 8 hours of
| work, then I'm free. Meanwhile in high school I'd wake up
| at 6:30, school starts 8am and ends at 4pm, sports
| practice until 6pm, start homework at 7:30pm and
| hopefully finish by 11:30pm, then rinse and repeat.
| Weekends just meant more homework and very long sports
| events (swim meets, XC races for me). Summers were more
| chill but I was working full time starting from 15.
|
| Highschool was genuinely awful. So so sleep deprived and
| stressed. I went to a prep school so for those who
| didn't, your experience may have been different.
| jensgk wrote:
| And money for parts and tools :-) Also many in high school
| (at least here i Denmark) have jobs after school.
| highmastdon wrote:
| Don't underestimate the amount of knowledge you don't have to
| perfect things. I remember building scheduling software in
| PHP in high school, because I just fixed problem after
| problem, and I was not limited by any form of knowledge. If
| I'd have to do it again, I'd be perfecting the architecture,
| refactoring everything every other week...
| dceddia wrote:
| There's a real double-edged sword to this whole "becoming a
| 'better' software engineer" thing. I remember just hacking
| stuff together when I was younger with not a care for
| whether I was doing it right or not. I just wanted to make
| it work.
|
| I miss that feeling. It doesn't come around as often now,
| but I still feel like I move fastest when I can shut off
| the part of my brain that's been trained on years of online
| discourse about right and wrong ways to do things, and
| just... do them.
| butlike wrote:
| tbqh, I vividly remember rolling my eyes in high school when
| older people would say: "don't squander the free time you
| have; you'll wish you had it back someday..." and while I
| don't outright regret doing kid stuff and squandering the
| free time in high school as kids do, some days those
| sentiments ring out more true than others; today being one of
| them after seeing this video.
|
| Good job, kid
| httpz wrote:
| I sometimes wonder how many talented engineers top colleges are
| rejecting because they were busy working on real engineering
| projects like this than academics and test scores.
| rTX5CMRXIfFG wrote:
| Probably not a lot, kids who have the grit to work on
| projects like this are the ones most likely to succeed
| academically
| helboi4 wrote:
| I dunno. I only succeeded as a kid academically because of
| literally my IQ not because I had grit learnt from my
| projects. I pathologically hated being told what to do so
| the determination to do my own projects did not translate
| into anything assigned to me.
| pkolaczk wrote:
| Unless they are forced to learn things that are
| uninteresting to them. I almost failed the high school
| entry exams because I dedicated more time to soldering
| electronic devices and programming computers rather than
| writing essays about Polish literature or memorizing dates
| of historical battles. Same thing with the final high
| school exams - it was a really close call. I felt like they
| gave me good scores on non-STEM subjects just because I
| already won some prizes in electronics / physics olympiads
| and brought some fame to the school, so kida got away with
| that but... it was stressful anyways.
| H1Supreme wrote:
| > Unless they are forced to learn things that are
| uninteresting to them.
|
| This really resonates with me. I love math now, but
| absolutely loathed it in high school. The curriculum
| lacked any sort of way to apply math to real problems. I
| simply cannot learn things in the abstract like that.
| It's like learning a programming language without ever
| building a program.
| hylaride wrote:
| Same. I stopped "caring" about math when we started to
| learn polynomials. Binomials..ok. Trinomials...ok. But
| then it just became repetitive when the class was just
| adding more terms to the functions that over the semester
| I ended up spending most of the class daydreaming.
| hylaride wrote:
| Man, you just triggered me. This was also me in school.
|
| I even have a huge interest in history, but I remember my
| first history exam on World War 1. I was ready to answer
| questions on its causes, the people, how industrial war
| changed the nature of fighting, the new countries that
| formed after the war... First Question: What was the date
| the Serbian nationalist Gavrillo Princip assassinated
| Archduke Franz Ferdinand. Second Question: What was the
| dates each country declared war...
|
| It also took me years to actually sit down and read JRR
| Tolkien as we read the Hobbit as a class book in grade 8.
| First question for the test: List the names of the 13
| dwarves that attended the party at Bilbo's house (1 point
| each for a test out of 30 IIRC).
| jjkaczor wrote:
| Holy crap - I have read the Hobbit many times (and LoTR a
| few less) and I would never have taken the time to commit
| 13-character names to memory - most of them simply were
| not that memorable.
| makerdiety wrote:
| If you guys were so smart, then how come you didn't
| simply memorize the words in a book? Regardless of any
| excuse like "They're not memorable or exciting."
|
| Whatever happened to discipline and simple obligation? Or
| are we defining things based on how we feel instead of
| what is objectively true and out there right in front of
| our faces?
| koverstreet wrote:
| Discipline and obligation refer to things that materially
| matter to the people around us, and to society - not rote
| memorization of pointless facts.
|
| And intelligence is just as much about identifying and
| applying effort towards useful goals - your "if you're so
| smart" is anything but.
| makerdiety wrote:
| [flagged]
| koverstreet wrote:
| I think that's a poor way of framing it.
|
| If the work is genuinely worthwhile, and the people who
| do it are respected, there will be people to do it.
|
| Teaching people to suffer through work without any
| apparent reason - that's something capitalist society
| wants, not liberal democracy.
| DaSHacka wrote:
| You hit it right on the head, I think.
|
| Even at my own university, I struggle to maintain a 3.0
| GPA while at the same time actively tutoring students for
| the very courses I'm failing.
|
| The issue isn't knowledge or competency, it's a mix of
| work ethic and tolerance for menial busywork.
|
| I think some of us just aren't made for the academia
| grind...
| meristohm wrote:
| It's true, and okay, that the academia grind is only for
| a subset of us. It is not the only meaningful path! I
| went on to gradschool by rote, and I do not push it on my
| high-school students or anyone else. It took me about 40
| years to find a sense of purpose (having a child was the
| catalyst). Sadly, the push for STEM seems motivated by
| capitalists wanting further control of valuable labor, so
| I'm really chuffed by Bryan's Show HN post- even though
| open-source can be leveraged by capital, it doesn't have
| to be. It is a non-walled-garden model, and an example of
| what we can do collectively. Even if the Linux kernel is
| largely funded by corporations, it doesn't have to be.
|
| A concern is that a laptop is still not something my
| community can make with the local resources, and thus the
| exploitation of land, labor, and money continues.
|
| What would a fair-trade laptop cost?
| lobsterthief wrote:
| I disagree; I did similar projects like this in high school
| (not exactly like this; his is a true achievement). I did
| very well grade-wise and had a high GPA but I bombed the
| SAT because I didn't understand that you didn't lose the
| same number of points for questions you skipped. So the
| ones I didn't have time to answer I just randomly selected,
| which resulted in a poor score.
|
| I found out later:
|
| 1. How SAT scoring works 2. That you shouldn't take the
| last SAT of the year since then you cannot retake it 3. I
| probably should've taken the ACT instead
|
| I wish they'd prepared us in school for this, but they were
| too busy training us for standardized state testing since
| that determined their own budget.
|
| Could I have gotten into MIT? Unsure; back at 18 I didn't
| know MIT existed and this was early Internet times. It
| would have been nice if my high school mentioned it as an
| option.
|
| In my case at least, doing projects like this and getting
| good grades didn't automatically turn into attending any
| college I wanted. Either way, I ended up with a great
| career.
|
| Anyways, kudos to the person who made this project!
| blharr wrote:
| Thankfully, the SAT no longer deducts points for wrong
| answers. But I agree, there's a big difference between
| testing and doing really great work.
|
| I'm somewhat on the other end of this, where I excelled
| in school, graduated valedictorian, but didn't gain any
| meaningful experience with projects and such and had poor
| leadership skills all around.
| boesboes wrote:
| Going from how many gifted children end up underperforming
| because they are made to do stupid things & then getting
| labeled as difficult or slow: a lot more then you'd think.
|
| Being talented and gifted is generally not appreciated, not
| even in academia. Many of the most talented people never
| finish their education because academia is more about
| playing the game & having the grit (or lack of backbone?)
| to deal with the bullshit and do what you are told.
|
| And tbf, the best engineers I know are not necessarily the
| most talented ones, but those that developed the grit to
| push through the bs.
| f1shy wrote:
| I've known few exemplars like this one. But at least 2. One
| made a flight simulator for 737 in the backyard that was
| used regularly by airline pilots to train. The other made a
| complete discrete FM stereo transmitter, mounted his own
| radio later. He was 16, and it was the early 90. So all
| from books.
|
| Both guys brutally failed in the first year in the
| University. They dis not like theory, they wanted to make.
|
| So... i dunno. 2 reference points there.
| 0xbadcafebee wrote:
| Unless you aren't fit for traditional academic learning
| models.
|
| I spent most of my young adulthood working on projects (not
| nearly as insanely technical as this! but) similar to this.
| But I dropped out of high school, didn't go to college,
| because none of them would teach me in a way, or a pace,
| that fit my learning disability or mental models. Luckily I
| had the drive to teach myself, and built a successful two-
| decade career, despite my parents and teachers telling me
| I'd fail and become homeless.
|
| High school kids have _insane_ potential, and can achieve
| truly amazing things. But often people disregard them and
| don 't set them up for success. So many companies could
| hire really great engineers, even from high school, if they
| could just find the motivated ones and put them in a
| mentorship/apprenticeship program that aligned with their
| interests and ways of learning.
| makerdiety wrote:
| [flagged]
| dang wrote:
| Would you please stop taking threads on flamewar tangents?
| Your comments in this thread have been inflammatory and
| offtopic. That's not what this site is for, and destroys
| what it is for.
|
| If you wouldn't mind reviewing
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking
| the intended spirit of the site more to heart, we'd be
| grateful.
| makerdiety wrote:
| Well, sincerely, my objective here is to spark thought
| provoking discussion, which should lead to personal
| cognitive improvements. But I must admit that it's kinda
| not my fault that the format I chose is really
| provocative.
|
| edit: And doesn't that defeat the purpose of a nerd-rich
| forum like Hacker News? The stifling of creativity and
| abstract thoughts? I came here to socialize and find
| bright minds, no offense.
| dang wrote:
| I'm not worried about whose fault it is, I just need you
| to stop posting like this to Hacker News. As I said, it's
| not what this site is for, and destroys what it is for.
| And it's particularly dismaying to see in a thread such
| as this one.
| k8sToGo wrote:
| This guy is in high school yet has been CEO and what not
| according to his LinkedIn?
|
| What makes you think he is in high school
| t4TLLLSZ185x wrote:
| The words "senior project". Which, fair enough, might mean
| different things in different parts of the world.
| spicysev wrote:
| He is a high school senior right now. He is one of my closes
| classmates and really devoted to such projects. It's mind
| blowing
| lexicality wrote:
| Bear in mind he's "CEO" of the underwater MATE ROV team at
| Phillips Exeter Academy, and if you scroll down a bit, it
| says that Phillips Exeter Academy is giving him a high school
| diploma.
| k8sToGo wrote:
| Thanks. That makes more sense!
| toobulkeh wrote:
| Not just any high school. https://exeter.edu/
| larodi wrote:
| ...back in the day we had this partner who emigrated from
| undisclosed_balkan_country to the USA in the 90s. 20 years
| later his daugther in her teens gets $20k funding from the
| school principal, for her pet fashion project (not even
| STEM!). Her school is not even a top one, just a private
| school somewhere in major USA city.
|
| On the contrary, even though we've had top marks in the top
| math school in the same country, we'd never ever hoped to get
| even $200 for a project. Were we good enough to build a
| computer - of course, it's not that hard once you get the
| basics, and once you've done x86 assembly in your early
| teens. But it was just impossible to even think about
| spending the money, or loosing them per se.
|
| Exeter Philips school has quote "700 acres, 147 buildings,
| the world's largest high school library". And I'm sure also
| lots of engineering development facilities where you can
| actually get your hands dirty. I can imagine the progress had
| I found myself there by some miracle. This kid is absolute
| winner to be in it, but I bet his parents must have also won
| the lottery ticket, one way or another, cause UK education is
| crazy expensive.
|
| Now, in order to not make this story super sad, let's admit
| that, even though we as schoolkids didn't have access to such
| campus and funding, by last year in school I could track
| music with FT2; build Linux kernel and write ASM/C/C++/Perl;
| operated a BBS; debugged the IE9 source with VXDs and all;
| took part in writing two demoscene productions, that we still
| proud of; and finally, but not lest being a bunch of smart
| kinds in their 20s we started a hosting company in 1998(or
| '99) which soon handled the amount of traffic which equaled
| that of the whole country. This all with no GPTs, no Google
| searches, not even forums that much back then. So of course,
| it matters, that you are not a dumbass, after all.
|
| But nobody ever gave us the security to pursue dreams the way
| this kid does. And I'm absolutely convinced we could've put
| together a laptop or something along the line. I say put
| together, because a lot of these parts are easily available
| now, one click away, nothing like what it was back in the
| day. He's not producing the chips, neither the screen,
| neither putting elements together, but the chassis and kbd,
| and does some wiring. Of course - fascinating for a teenager
| to do, but you see, teenagers are not so stupid, and never
| were. And those in top schools are particularly bright and
| outpace many adults in many areas. From the images I can tell
| this is a school projects, so perhaps it took also a little
| mentoring to do it.
|
| This always make me think about two things - it absolutely
| matters which school you are lucky to have gone to; and very
| likely all talent is lost soon after high-school, because...
| reasons.
| Palomides wrote:
| yeah, it's a little bittersweet to see the adulation this
| is getting; I hope he has success in his academics and
| career, I got my first computer by dumpster diving parts.
| j_w wrote:
| Hits close to home. Apart from what was a family PC
| (terribly cheap), my main rig for a time was assembled
| via old junk the computer lab at school was done with but
| wasn't valuable enough (or fully functional) to say no
| when I asked if I could have it.
| rozularen wrote:
| Yeah... Just checked and disclaimer I'm not trying to
| diminish OP's achievement which is huge but ...
| https://exeter.edu/admissions/financial-aid/tuition-costs/
| jmb99 wrote:
| Hilarious that there's a separate sub-$1000 line item for
| books and supplies. If it's that expensive, you can't just
| throw in some pens and pencils with the tuition?
| leoedin wrote:
| This is an incredible achievement! I've been working in
| hardware design for 10 years. I've touched on most of what was
| covered here across various projects in my career, but never
| all at once. To have the discipline and motivation to carry a
| project like this through to completion is seriously
| impressive.
| dc3k wrote:
| i'm playing around with your onshape document and learning a lot
| of things for my own projects. thanks! (also, amazing work of
| course)
| doubleorseven wrote:
| Dear @Lenovo
|
| Please hire this guy to help you make the thinkpad's keyboard to
| do wireless magic with the trackpoint and the mouse buttons
| include. Thanks
| system2 wrote:
| FYI, none of my engineer friends in the U.S. can pull this off.
| This is truly impressive.
| bjarneh wrote:
| This is what we come here for!
| ritonlajoie wrote:
| OP you are incredibly talented. I believe very few people on
| earth could do something like that at your age and deliver.
| Congratulations !
| swiftcoder wrote:
| Mad respect for this build. That's well beyond what many
| professionals in this field are willing to attempt
| wickedsight wrote:
| Just opened Youtube and your video was on top of my home page! I
| will watch it later today.
|
| Congrats on the awesome project! Actually, I think 'well done' is
| more fitting since this must have taken a ton of work and
| willpower!
| _joel wrote:
| Astounding, well done.
| jokoon wrote:
| So if you want to install windows on this, do you have to add
| some secure bios feature? Is it possible to have access to that
| without big license fees?
| wizzwizz4 wrote:
| You can just patch Windows to remove the check. It's not like
| any critical components of Windows are encrypted.
| itzami wrote:
| The project is outstanding but the fact that you've documented
| everything AND did a video about it speaks volumes about what
| you'll achieve if you keep at it
| KeplerBoy wrote:
| Super cool work! One question: How much does JLC want for such a
| low volume cnc part of reasonable complexity like the laptop
| shell?
| martin293 wrote:
| I might have missed it but how much did this cost in total?
| rcarmo wrote:
| Pretty awesome. As someone who deals with Rockchip stuff a lot, I
| am going to take a look at the software part for sure.
| 0x38B wrote:
| This is one of the coolest, most inspiring projects I've seen
| anywhere - wow! Seeing you and nrp connect here in the comments
| was so cool; just the start, I'm sure.
|
| ---
|
| It was neat to read through the progress log (1), which begins,
|
| > "It was around 1AM. I wrote up the mission goal (2) and went to
| sleep at 2AM. The start",
|
| and ends:
|
| > "With the YouTube video and blog post almost done, I hope this
| isn't the last of anyon_e. But rather, the start of a
| trailblazing journey."
|
| This project is the epitome of MUREX Electrical's mission
| statement, "attempt the impossible": It's
| "impossible", a non-MUREX Robotics Electrical member might say.
| However, we accept it as the process. In the end, we will have
| achieved something others might have called "impossible". But the
| achievement only comes through endless, motivated attempts at the
| impossible. (3)
|
| 1: https://www.byran.ee/progress
|
| 2: https://www.byran.ee/posts/mission, which links to (3)
|
| 3: https://github.com/murexrobotics/electrical?tab=readme-ov-
| fi...
| mchinen wrote:
| This is really one of the best things I've seen on HN in 15
| years.
|
| The mixed presentation of plug and play components interspersed
| with EE problems and solution really helped make it more
| accessible. It also got me excited about the possibilities and
| made me realize that we we might already approaching another open
| architecture DIY boom.
|
| I got the sense that this is a side project, but I'm sure many
| have noticed that it could be a legit framework-level company.
| Someone already mentioned the recruiters, but also you're sure to
| have investors knocking. Whatever you do, please keep having fun
| and sharing it.
| frognumber wrote:
| Impressive!
|
| Suggestion: It would be nice to include a price list on the
| article.
|
| This project is impressive as heck, but aside from being
| intellectually out-of-reach for most kids, it would be
| financially challenging as well. Last I looked, CNC aluminum
| blocks were well out of the reach of 99.9% of kids (but that was
| decades ago; perhaps prices went down).
|
| For people wanting to follow in those footsteps, it'd be nice to
| know which things cost $5, which $50, $500, or $5000. Just that
| kind of intuition is helpful.
| dmoy wrote:
| Looks like the cnc milling was done by a shop - jlccnc.com
|
| So there's probably a price there, but it's probably well under
| $1k
|
| Price list would be cool to have
| rothos wrote:
| Amazing work. How much did it end up costing?
| intelVISA wrote:
| Nicely done, huge amount of grit and craftsmanship.
| honeybadger1 wrote:
| some people just have what it takes and all you can do is watch
| and appreciate. really awesome!
| ValdikSS wrote:
| How is the idle power consumption of RK3588? I bet it's pretty
| high, I'd expect more than 1W.
|
| I have a board with old MT6572, it idles at 270mW with working
| CPU, even less when in semi-sleep (turns off CPU and wakes up
| every half a second).
| ValdikSS wrote:
| By the way, you can tune boot times further. My print server
| board boots in 8 seconds to Debian 12 (bootloader + kernel +
| userspace). 1. Make sure the bootloader
| (u-boot) loads the kernel as fast as possible. -
| Disable automatic Ethernet/USB/other subsystems initialization
| (you can keep them enabled, just don't activate unless requested
| in the shell manually by the user) - Tune
| `distro_bootcmd` command - Make sure that
| MicroSD/eMMC/SSD works full-speed (with proper clocks and speed
| protocol) 2. Use fast decompression algorithm for the
| kernel and initramfs - It's either zstd or gzip
| 3. Collect boot file access data and sort the files on the
| filesystem - The benefit in near-linear access &
| read-ahead
|
| I'm pretty sure that the current 20 seconds could be shrunk down
| to 14 or so.
| sebastiennight wrote:
| Went all the way through the article to be surprised at you
| saying:
|
| > I ran out of time
|
| And then realized this was a ... high school project!?
|
| Way to go, amazing work!
| miunau wrote:
| Extremely cool project and congratulations on having the mental
| wherewithal to see it through, and in such short order!
| ekunazanu wrote:
| This is some seriously impressive stuff.
| forinti wrote:
| That's impressive.
|
| I'd be really happy with myself if I just built a case and put
| off-the-shelf components in it.
| Atreiden wrote:
| Unbelievably impressive. Such a wide breadth of skills and
| expertise needed to pull this off. And the final product looks
| great! Kudos to you!
| throwaway58670 wrote:
| While this is impressive, how come you can't make your website
| scroll without stutter?
| snickmy wrote:
| because the guy spent more time shipping the product than
| iterating on the website that describes the product. (Deadly
| sin of every startup wannabe)
| apricot wrote:
| Heck of a high school senior project, my hat's off to you.
| mkesper wrote:
| Thanks to the work of the community the RK3588 is also on the
| right track regarding mainline support, severly reducing the fear
| of turning into unmaintained kernel hell.
| https://gitlab.collabora.com/hardware-enablement/rockchip-35...
| engineer_22 wrote:
| Awesome work, the future is bright
| phlipski wrote:
| Super impressive!
| numpad0 wrote:
| My vocabulary hasn't got appropriate compliments - so I'd just
| say congratulations to the author, you've got serious talent,
| hard earned skills, and great mentors.
|
| Just commenting so I can't come back later and claim I wasn't
| stealing lots of ideas from the author for my own project; the
| hinge problem, keycaps, the mainboard designed on KiCAD, are all
| interesting.
| lr4444lr wrote:
| Fantastic work. How did you learn all of the EE and low level
| programming needed to pull this off?
| myheartisinohio wrote:
| Cool project. Keep building!
| WaitWaitWha wrote:
| Well done!
|
| Mental note, a commercial laptop of similar specs should never
| cost more than $4,673.81.
| oofbaroomf wrote:
| That was the R&D cost. According to OP, the cost of building
| one of these is around $1500.
| cjbgkagh wrote:
| I'm honestly rather envious. I guess my 'sour grape' is that the
| lack of funds and opportunity for me to do this is what lead me
| to go into software and then on into Machine Learning which I do
| think turned out for the best. Making electronics like this,
| while still difficult, is far easier than it used to be and I do
| enjoy it as a hobby in a way that I probably would not have as a
| career.
|
| It is no doubt an incredible achievement. I don't like the
| 'anyone can do this' when that clearly isn't true - it comes
| across as a humble brag and seems to be a strong part of hustle
| culture. I would much prefer 'anyone with a decent amount of
| money and a high enough intelligence can do this', or 'this is
| now far easier to do than it has ever been'.
|
| I do like the idea of MIT being a beacon to the best and
| brightest and I do think that the lack of a level playing field
| means that many otherwise talented people miss out on that
| opportunity. Perhaps what I would really like is for the world to
| have more MITs but I don't know if that is possible and I worry
| that attempts to do this would undermine the quality of MIT. So
| perhaps I should be content that MIT exists as is and that some
| people get to go there even if I did not - we all benefit from
| the fruits of their labor. My university was a top tier
| university renowned for harsh grading and I was still rather
| disappointed by the quality of my peers and I worry that the
| quality at universities in general has since declined further.
|
| Cheap and high quality small batch electronics and hardware
| fabrication is rapidly changing the world in a way that I think
| few people understand. It used to be that you had to have a
| decent size company to do this kind of stuff and that company
| needed capital investment, layers of management etc. So the cost
| of bringing a widget into the world was really expensive, risky,
| and took a long time. The only way to make that money back was to
| do things in bulk and sell a lot of them which meant you had to
| be sure there was a sufficient target market. These days a single
| person can design and fabricate a single item for comparatively
| very little. And if they want to make it accessible to the rest
| of the world there is no need to build a factory, just upload the
| plans. If it's a popular design in all likelihood someone in
| China will produce it in bulk at commodity prices. The speed of
| commodification has become so fast that it's practically instant.
| There is a bit of a phenomena going on at the moment with 'high
| tech overproduction' where it is claimed that China is
| intentionally over producing high tech goods to undermine Western
| markets - it's my view that they're ahead of us on the
| commodification curve. As manufacturing also manufactures the
| manufacturing tools the commodification process is a self
| reinforcing cycle.
| Havoc wrote:
| Also the 3588 chips can run LLMs on the NPU.
|
| Not quite llama.cpp level easy but definitely doable.
|
| For 7B class models the speed is usable
| mlepath wrote:
| This is an awesome project! Thanks for taking time to document
| this. What's next on your plate? How do we follow you?
| stevelacy wrote:
| This is amazing, love the ESP32 watchdog controller. Had a
| question about the keyboard - would it make sense for the
| keyboard to be hardwired to the laptop via USB-C and detachable
| to have one battery source?
| ysofunny wrote:
| I only would regard this as from scratch if they smelt they own
| foundry
| redbell wrote:
| I hardly know where to begin! This project is exceptional in
| every sense--a true masterpiece. Remarkably, its creator is still
| in high school, yet he's already demonstrated brilliance beyond
| his years. The endorsements he's received, the connections he's
| begun to forge, and the incredible opportunities now within his
| reach are nothing short of extraordinary. As he himself put it,
| accomplishments like these are only possible when you believe
| deeply in your vision and persist relentlessly until the finish
| line. None of this would have been possible if he had given up
| before completing this remarkable work of art.
|
| It's posts like this, fueled by incredible community support,
| that make Hacker News not just great but _unmatched_.
|
| With 2,000 points (and counting), this Show HN is currently
| ranked as the 4th-best Show HN of all time. If we exclude the #1
| post (this upvotes itself)--which isn't a true project--this post
| would be the 3rd-best of all time. Who knows? By tomorrow, it may
| surpass 2,741 points and claim the #1 spot outright.
|
| Outstanding work, Bryan. All the best.
| Hello9999901 wrote:
| Thank you redbell! It truly means a lot. I'm incredibly
| grateful of the reception and the support from everyone. HN <3
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| I'll just echo the amazement and congratulations of all the
| other comments. I do have a question though - your post
| stated "The hardest class I've taken so far was quantum
| mechanics in my junior spring term." Kudos to your
| educational system that allowed you to take quantum mechanics
| _as a junior in high school_ - it looks like it clearly
| provided you a framework that allowed you to excel. Without
| giving away your privacy, is this some sort of special
| program where you live, or is it a standard opportunity?
|
| Again, just gobsmacked by this entire project.
| cbmamolo wrote:
| He goes to Phillips Exeter Academy, where Zuckerberg once
| matriculated. Students' voices are heard through the
| Harkness method of teaching. There is plenty of opportunity
| for students to grow curricularly (e.g.,dynamic chaos
| theory in math, senior projects, though not required ...)
| and extra-curricularly (e.g. competition robotics, physics,
| bio,chem clubs, etc ...) which may not be a norm in most
| public or even private schools.
| NooneAtAll3 wrote:
| > runs +7B LLMs
|
| +7B means "additional 7B"
|
| if you want to say "more than" or "at least", you say "7B+"
| CYR1X wrote:
| Obviously super cool and kudos like everyone else in here.
|
| Feel like you could make a pared down version of this with
| commodity parts outside of the chassis if you aren't going for a
| flagship competitor. I guess you could also just buy a $20
| chromebook, too. Maybe...you could fit a nice rockchip SOM inside
| a chromebook??
| juhanakristian wrote:
| Wow I didn't even know this was possible.. some people are just
| on another level.
| jagermo wrote:
| wow, this is way more awesome than I could have thought. Very
| well done.
| LeFantome wrote:
| Building the laptop is impressive given his age. I would be hard
| pressed to duplicate this feat even with the time and money to
| allocate to it.
|
| Honestly though, I think the maturity shown in his write-up
| impressed me even more.
|
| Inspirational.
| gsuuon wrote:
| I was impressed this is open source, then impressed it was done
| by one person, then impressed it only took 6 months, and
| eventually somehow impressed again that it was a _high schooler_.
| My mind is blown. Kudos for managing to do something insane like
| this. Very inspirational.
| dishsoap wrote:
| What in the world, almost half of the comments here spelled his
| name wrong.
| dang wrote:
| You're right! I hadn't noticed that until you pointed it out
| and I'm sure most readers didn't either.
|
| Hopefully Byran doesn't mind that glitch in this otherwise
| rapturous and justly triumphant reception :)
|
| I feel like this thread is helping HN to reorganize itself
| around its proper purpose.
| posed wrote:
| Dude this is great, you not only build a cool thing, but also you
| know how to preach about it! Very proud, hope you do great
| things. Don't let the spark die.
| makerdiety wrote:
| Hopefully this new hardware development framework you just
| released can help me avoid being spied on by the National
| Security Agency's Tailored Access Operations gang and other scary
| creatures. True, if you have nothing to hide then you have
| nothing to fear. But I intend to build a billion dollar company
| that can fit entirely on a laptop (AI models are my employees). I
| don't want the pesky U.S. government or other bad hackers being
| privy to my advanced technology and corporate secrets.
|
| Thank you for your service to the free and open source principle.
| Richard Stallman and Eric Steven Raymond would be proud.
| binary_slinger wrote:
| Is your mainboard the same as the CM3588 carrier board [1] that
| has been re-layout to match the form factor you wanted or did you
| have to make other modifications?
|
| The part I am most interested in is the 'powertrain' and how it
| manages battery charging.
|
| [1]
| https://wiki.friendlyelec.com/wiki/index.php/CM3588_NAS_Kit#...
| iooi wrote:
| Which high school is teaching quantum mechanics for juniors? Is
| this like a crazy private school?
| jamessb wrote:
| > Established in 1781, it is America's sixth-oldest boarding
| school
|
| >...
|
| > Exeter is one of the nation's wealthiest boarding schools,
| with a financial endowment of $1.6 billion as of June 2024, and
| houses the world's largest high school library.
|
| >...
|
| >Its list of notable alumni includes U.S. President Franklin
| Pierce, U.S. Senator Daniel Webster, Facebook founder Mark
| Zuckerberg, and three winners of the Nobel Prize.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phillips_Exeter_Academy
| cshaw03833 wrote:
| Let's go! I'm so proud of you, Byran!! Imagine your teacher gets
| hit in the eye with a bottle cap, the contents of the drink fry
| your laptop, and you just build your own. This may not have been
| the motivation, but I'm honored at your resiliency, lol. You
| never cease to amaze me! Keep going!
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2025-01-23 23:00 UTC)