Project: Ultra-portable PC (handheld like OQO or Tiqit)

I apologize too for the crappy pics, It's been awhile since I used my camera and therefore forgot to tell Tom how bad the flash is.
 
Borgschulze said:
Might wanna put some static bags under that motherboard....
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Correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure that just setting something on a static bag does more harm than good...
 
correct, infact the only way to have a useful static bag is to have it sealed. just make sure you ground everything and you should be set :)

You might want to consider getting a game pad like the one handed keyboards with 3 lines of keys and a trackball for portable gaming. DO NOT get ati 9200se pci video card, it sucks major balls for gaming.
 
Morphes said:
. DO NOT get ati 9200se pci video card, it sucks major balls for gaming.
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Tom can correct me if I'm wrong, but I think he's planning to use the onboard video, most of the games he'll be playing will be NES emulators and stuff like that.
 
weasel2htm said:
Tom can correct me if I'm wrong, but I think he's planning to use the onboard video, most of the games he'll be playing will be NES emulators and stuff like that.
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Correct. The onboard chipset can handle light 3D, but not much more than that. I'm not going to be playing UT2004 constantly on this system (maybe every now and then, but I love large maps loaded with mods, so not often), mostly web surfing, emualtor playing, and video watching.

You might want to consider getting a game pad like the one handed keyboards with 3 lines of keys and a trackball for portable gaming. DO NOT get ati 9200se pci video card, it sucks major balls for gaming.
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I don't really have room for a video card in the case, especially considering the cooling one requires, and that it'd have to be PCI. I've been looking for a keyboard that could fit in the case, but be closer to a full-sized keyboard than the very mini keyboard I have now (see first post) for use when websurfing. If I can find one of those 'frogpad' keyboards, like you describe, for cheap I might go with one of them.
 
Pic of the cardboard prototype in all it's cardboard cut with a pocket knife glory:


Color enhanced picture of the intended layout of controls (made before the see-able pic above was taken):
layout.jpg


The green dots are mouse buttons, left and right are the top buttons, middle is the bottom button (for invoking the scroll circle/auto-scroll in Firefox for web browsing).

Red dot is where the track point will go.

Black plus is the D-Pad.

Darkish blue square is about where the screen is

Blue dots are the buttons for the D-Pad, though I may only put 4 on the front, and then have shoulder or side buttons.

I should be getting the wire harness Tuesday, so this may be finishing up soon.
 
If i was you i would just put a power&reset button on it then just have ports for the other stuff.
 
Morphes said:
how do you plan to power this puppy?
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A 5.4Ah 9V battery intended to power portable DVD players, ran through a 7805 to bring the voltage down to 5Volts that the motherboard needs. I may get another battery to extend how long I can power it.


altec said:
If i was you i would just put a power&reset button on it then just have ports for the other stuff.
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I'd have to store anything I wanted in the unit itself, otherwise I'd likely not bring it with me, like I often do with my PDA accessories. Not a bad idea for at least one of the stages, though.

I likely won't cut everything into the case all at once, instead modding it closer to the prototype in stages. Doing it in stages will let me modify things easier. First stage will just be fitting everything in the case, without cutting holes and just opening it to use it, kind of like a mini-laptop. Probably will have that up in a week, as I'll have all parts needed to run the board about Tuesday. Second stage will probably just be the PSOne screen cutout.

I'm still not decided on what to use for gamepad and buttons, so that's definately not going to be carved into the case until the last. I'm re-thinking the CPU heatsink. I was playing with watching videos on the prototype (DVD player providing video), and had a tendency to set the unit down on my lap. That wouldn't work well with a fan or warm heatsink on the bottom. I may go with a 'tunnel' from the bottom, when holding the unit up, to the top with a fan running directly off the 9V from the battery either pushing or pulling the air to the top. The CPU placement would work OK for gaming, which is what the prototype was really set to test the layout of, and why I didn't notice the problem until now. Having the fan and heatsink stick out was kind of a kludge anyway.

Now I'll have to figure out whether to have the board facing up or down (relative to the box being laid flat).
 
New UPS driver for the area, and he didn't know the street I live on existed. Rolling Eyes UPS called to make sure and were given directions to here, so I should be getting the wireing kit tommorow. Forgivable, I suppose, as the street is only two blocks long and oddly named. :/

Will probably be doing the retractable cord on the mini-keyboard mod here: http://leeland.net/dreamps2keyr.html

Looks like a nice mod to do to mine, consdiering I'm going to be carrying it inside my uPC.
 
tom61 said:
New UPS driver for the area, and he didn't know the street I live on existed. Rolling Eyes UPS called to make sure and were given directions to here, so I should be getting the wireing kit tommorow. Forgivable, I suppose, as the street is only two blocks long and oddly named. :/

Will probably be doing the retractable cord on the mini-keyboard mod here: http://leeland.net/dreamps2keyr.html

Looks like a nice mod to do to mine, consdiering I'm going to be carrying it inside my uPC.
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Thats a real cool little keyboard, looks a bit like the ones for pdas. Should go well with your mini-pc!
 
tom61 said:
New UPS driver for the area, and he didn't know the street I live on existed. Rolling Eyes UPS called to make sure and were given directions to here, so I should be getting the wireing kit tommorow. Forgivable, I suppose, as the street is only two blocks long and oddly named. :/

Will probably be doing the retractable cord on the mini-keyboard mod here: http://leeland.net/dreamps2keyr.html

Looks like a nice mod to do to mine, consdiering I'm going to be carrying it inside my uPC.
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Not to mention an odd house number... :rolleyes:

Actually I think the street picks back up on the other side of town but is about the same length over there.

But at least it made it safely.
 
weasel2htm said:
Not to mention an odd house number... :rolleyes:

Actually I think the street picks back up on the other side of town but is about the same length over there.

But at least it made it safely.
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15 in binary isn't that odd. ;)

As Weasel noted, I got the wiring kit today. However, the wiring kit is not 100% compatable with my board. I'll still have to build some things. It certainly helps me out though, as it has a compatable VGA breakout and USB breakouts, which was a surprise! USB is not part of the official kit, but Advantech (literally) threw a couple in the box.

That's the problem with comparing pin-outs of embedded boards, the pin-outs may be the same, but the physical pins may not be. Stuff like the audio cable and keyboard/mouse breakout being the wrong pitch (2mm instead of .1").

Testing out the board will have to wait until tommorow, as the only USB keyboard I have is the PS2 mini one, and I have to get it into the BIOS to boot it past the intial screen. (I've booted the system before with just a PCI video card plugged into it) The mini board lacks keys like Esc. Should be able to bum a USB keyboard off a friend. Hopefully, the board will let me navigate the BIOS with a USB keyboard.

I'll need to stop by Radio Shack to pick up some connectors for the battery hook-ups, tommorow, as well.

That was an interesting idea that just crammed itself in my head writing the above sentence: There's plenty of room up front for alot of things, including my Pocket PC PDA. There's software to let you use a Pocket PC as a touchpad, or a limited touch screen. 8) I'll have to look into it further.
 
Well son of a
shocked.gif
!
I tied a USB K/b onto my bicycle, rode the mile uphill trip to Tom's house, and he friggin already got one!!
angry.gif


So my trip was in vain, but at least I got some exersize

----------------------
Addendum:

Maybe I should have called first. :rolleyes: :p :D
 
Tried out the system today with a friend's (not Wes's :p ) usb keyboard, it doesn't let you enter the BIOS with one. :( Tried to take pics if it hitting the 'keyboard not found, hit F1 to continue' screen, but the pictures were fuzzy and hard to make out of anything in the picture.

At least the good news is that the board still works, and VGA adapter at the very least works.

I'll have to wire up the PS/2 keyboard and mouse connectors to get it going. :/
 
well my suggestion is keep the usb plug on the keyboard and wire up the ps/2 port with the converter, this way it looks seemless and sexy :) my 2cents
 
there SHOULD be a bios option to recognize USB keyboards :) my mobo has one but its a K8N neo2 platinum lol
 
Yes, but without the leading 0's. There's no need to express every binary number with 8-bits, you know.
 
...and for the illiterate UPS Drivers, it's the two story house next to the tornado siren.
 
Update:

Wired up the PS/2 keyboard port today, it works. However, USB does not, as the system freezes whenever a USB keyboard is plugged in. I'm guessing that the USB breakout I have isn't wired right for this board.

I got it to boot off an old laptop drive running Windows 95, kind of nice to see it up, even in such a limited sense.

To Do:
Get the plugs needed to wire up the battery to everything else. (Not opening mine, considering all the trouble others have had opening their's. Not cutting cables, either, in case I decide to use it for something else.)

Wire up a VGA connector to the PSOne screen.

Wire up the sound and PS/2 mouse.

Get Linux onto the 20GB drive I intend to use, and configure it to use 15kHz for video.
 
Got the connectors from Radio Shack, should wire it up to battery power soon. I'm going to measure it's current draw from the battery, I'm hoping that it'll be fairly low.

Forgot to mention last time; I couldn't find where to increase the FSB speed (or any CPU setting), which means I'm limited to a 100MHz FSB and a processor running at 600MHz. :(

I need to load some software onto the Win 95 1GB drive and see if I can get some real-world ideas of what the system can handle (i.e. DivX sizes, gaming).

For wireless 802.11g/b I think I may go with a bridge connected to the onboard ethernet, as Linux 802.11g support is immature at the moment. I mainly want 802.11g that way I can access more access points, not so much for the speed.
 
tom61 said:
Forgot to mention last time; I couldn't find where to increase the FSB speed (or any CPU setting), which means I'm limited to a 100MHz FSB and a processor running at 600MHz. :(
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That cute little problem again :rolleyes:

Maybe it scared to goto 133Mhz with that tornado siren blasting every 30-45 min and GETTING LOUDER!
 
Well, on my Advantech board there is a BIOS option for FSB, so there should be something similar on yours. Pretty sure mine has 103MHz and 112MHz settings, although trying either of them results in no video. The built-in video can't handle the higher AGP bus speeds when overclocked. It's a BX chipset, so anything over 100MHz FSB results in overclocked AGP speeds. Might need some cooling on the video chipset if you try for more speed.

Wait, you're running a Via chip, right? Might be that the BIOS doesn't have those options when you use a Via chip?
 
Embedded systems don't follow any paterns that I can see. I have one with a Pentium level chip that doesn't support USB and has 1MB of RAM soldered on it, with a 32MB Disk On Chip and a PC/104XT slot (equivelent to 8-bit ISA).

Kind of odd that it actually sees the C3 as a 'CIII' (I can't remember if it said Via or Cyrix though) but doesn't clock to 133MHz automatically. I'll have to check to see if there isn't a nested menu somewhere in the BIOS with the option to set FSB. Hmmm... maybe there are jumpers for FSB settings. I don't recall seeing any in the manual, though. Something to check I guess.

Hopefully, mplayer is able to handle DivX at decent rates even with an 600MHz C3 processor.

The connector for the mouse is being a PITA, there is a header that goes to the motherboard, the other half of keyboard's header, that was already wired when I salvaged it (used to be some firewire thing in my friend's case), and one of the wires ripped off instead of stripping. So, I'll have to take that pin out of the header, rewire it, and figure out how to get it back in.

Edit:
Looking through the manual now. Just stumbled across a setting called 'CPU Host Clock (CPU/PCI)' listed under "Chipset Features Setup', that I'll have to look into. I can see how I missed it before, I saw 'PCI' and instantly skipped over that setting, on top of that, it's over to the side. :/ Looking at more screens in the manual, I may have a different BIOS, though.
 
tom61 said:
Hopefully, mplayer is able to handle DivX at decent rates even with an 600MHz C3 processor.
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prolly not. if I remember correctly, a PII-400 is faster than that chip.
 
Though Tom would lose the benefits of the low power/low heat C3, Intel PIIIs and Celerons are currently going preatty reasonable (read CHEAP!) on ebay.

Just saw a "Lot of 3 Intel 633/650/800 MHz Processors Socket 370" go for $10.49.
 
My laptop at that speed (366) could but my K6/2 500 couldn't even decode DVD (and then output to s-video port) without dropping the occasional frame or two.

I think it'd be unlikely to have a set of jumpers on a board that size - they take up quite a bit of real estate. Are the C3's multiplier locked? Can you do a pinmod on the socket to unlock it?
 
Once I get it hooked up again, I'll try the BIOS option I missed before. If that doesn't work, I'll try to figure out some way to change the multiplier, as not only is the C3 multiplier locked, even wtih a under clocked FSB, but I didn't see a setting to change it in the BIOS either (not even in the manual).
 
what about a hardware decoder card, wouldnt that work for divx too?
 
Morphes said:
what about a hardware decoder card, wouldnt that work for divx too?
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There are some that can help with MPEG 4/DivX decoding, but I'd probably get a higher end processor instead of trying to cram in a decoder card, if it can't play DivX well. Doubly so if I can't get the internal USB working, which would mean putting in a USB 2.0 card.
 
I don't know why I keep buying these little boards, I've bought another Socket 370 EBX board: http://www.ibase-i.com.tw/i815e.htm

* Intel 815E Chipset, 66/100/133MHz FSB
* Up to 1GHz CPU, UDMA/100
* 1 DIMM Slot PC100/133 supports up to 512MB
* Integrated VGA/Audio, Shared Memory & Optional Panel Link
* Integrated LAN (the second LAN is not installed on the one I'm getting)
* 1 PCI, 4 USB Ports & ATX Type Rear Connectors

Good news is that it doesn't use headers, instead it has most everything broken out to a ATX style backplate, takes standard sized SDRAM (versus laptop), and states that it supports 133MHz FSB. Bad news is that it uses a ATX connector for power. :confused:

Around $45 on Ebay. It might end up replacing the board I'm using currently, and then I'd pick up another Li-Ion and get an 18V power supply intended for Mini-ITX systems.
 
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