

How I Built a Raspberry Pi Tablet - nkvl
http://makezine.com/2014/01/07/how-i-built-a-raspberry-pi-tablet/

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rhgraysonii
For those interested in the actual build process and materials rather than
just a writeup, here it is from his personal site:
[http://mkcastor.com/2014/01/02/pipad-
build/](http://mkcastor.com/2014/01/02/pipad-build/)

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girvo
A compliment from Bunnie is something to be proud of! The PiPad looks awesome,
well done :) I'm working on a palmtop in the vein of an HP 200LX, running
RetroBSD on a PIC32 micro controller. So much fun, but gosh hardware hacking
is harder than I thought. New found respect for the hardware people!

~~~
zokier
HP 200LX is so neat, so I'm immediately interested in your project. What sort
of keypad and display are you planning to use/make? What about case, a
3D-printed one?

Using PIC32 sounds like a challenge, it would be in the same ballpark than the
original 200LX performance wise?

~~~
girvo
RetroBSD is a port of BSD 2.1 for pic micro controllers, so a lot of the work
is done for me! I'll be writing drivers for the lcd and key pad. I'm going to
be making the keypad from scratch at this point, but performance wise it's
actually pretty damned fast!

This is the board I ordered: [http://www.seeedstudio.com/depot/fubarino-
sd-p-1265.html](http://www.seeedstudio.com/depot/fubarino-sd-p-1265.html)

PIC32MX440F256H - 256K Flash, 32K RAM @ 80MHz 32-bit MIPS core

While the RAM is lacking, it should be enough :) the case will likely be
vacuum moulded, I've experience doing that when I use to make portable
consoles from hacked SoC's, but the prototype will be 3D printed for sure.

~~~
zokier
Does RetroBSD really work with only 32K of RAM? Their frontpage just mentions:
"RetroBSD needs only 128 kbytes of RAM to be up and running user
applications."

~~~
girvo
Oops, I linked the wrong board!

Fubarino SD chipKIT
[http://fubarino.org/sd/index.html](http://fubarino.org/sd/index.html)

Little bit better ;)

It's only for prototyping to be honest, I'm likely to end up wiring up my own
PCB with the chips myself, to give me more flexibility in shape and speed, but
for now this will do to get it started!

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enscr
Quick grep for cost/price didn't show up anything. Sorry if I missed. How much
did it cost? Just out of curiosity, I'm wondering if it's possible to build an
extremely cheap but waterproof tough tablet for toddlers to play with. They
don't care about performance at all.

~~~
kfk
Hey, let me know if you do. I am not a toddler (of course), but for my kayak
trips I need something decent, cheap and waterproof.

~~~
riffraff
I don't mean to sound as a luddite, this is an honest question: why would you
need a raspberry pi tablet in a kayak trip?

~~~
sdoering
Maybe he needs a cheap display for reviewing photos taken on the trip?
Something, he might do some basic editing on? Something durable, not too
expensive, that fits his needs.

Just throwing thoughts on a wall, waiting to see, that sticks.

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peterburkimsher
I put my Raspberry Pi inside an iPod:
[http://peterburk.tumblr.com/pipod](http://peterburk.tumblr.com/pipod)

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msoad
If you are interested in hardware components these people have decent products
[http://www.hardkernel.com/main/products/prdt_info.php](http://www.hardkernel.com/main/products/prdt_info.php)

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greenyoda
Are there any commercially available Linux-based tablets out there that people
can recommend?

~~~
girvo
Nexus 7, replace ROM with any Linux port. That's what I did anyway :)

~~~
ics
What's the average battery life like (and which distro)?

~~~
sn0v
Not the OP, but I'm guessing Ubuntu? Especially since Unity is touch friendly
and Ubuntu is generally the best Linux distro out there when it comes to
drivers etc. Also because Ubuntu are developing a touch version for the N7.

I'm guessing the battery life is probably around 7 hours or so. Again, take
this with a grain of salt :)

~~~
anonbanker
> Ubuntu is generally the best Linux distro out there when it comes to drivers
> etc

Thank you for this comment. It shows how RMS was correct; when people think
"Linux", they should really be thinking about the kernel inside the computer.
This is what handles "drivers, etc" that you were talking about. a Linux
Distribution (normally referred to as GNU/Linux, because it has a full GNU
system alongside the kernel) can have a branding such as Red Hat, Debian, or
Ubuntu. A similar situation exists in the BSD landscape as well; FreeBSD and
Apple's MacOS share kernels (Darwin was based off FBSD's kernel), but you're
really just using a branded version of Berkeley Systems Distribution.

Ubuntu provides a GNU/Linux distribution (though they seem to be anti-GNU
overall) with the latest stable kernel they can get away with. Any
distribution with a kernel of the same version will have the same hardware
compatibility with "drivers, etc".

Unity is not the only touch interface. Plasma Active and Enlightenment both
have touch interfaces that make Unity pale in comparison.

~~~
girvo
Ever used plasma on an touch screen? It's terrible. Getting better, sure, but
not good in my opinion. Unity is far more consistent and modern in touch
usage, IMO.

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blaze33
Just nitpicking over the website: loading the gif took some time... yeah,
18MB, it was a good occasion to test gfycat:
[http://gfycat.com/OblongSilentAndeancat](http://gfycat.com/OblongSilentAndeancat)
it could have been reduced to 6MB.

Related discussion from 2 weeks ago:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6975202](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6975202)

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kevinchen
This is a really cool DIY project, but probably not practical. That thing's
going to be slow as molasses.

~~~
jnbiche
Maybe with the RPi, but not if you use the board from this comment:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7055540](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7055540)

Quad-core 1.7 GHz Exnyos with 2 GB of RAM for $59.

I just found out about this board, but it appears pretty impressive for the
price. Has anyone used it?

You can read more here:

[http://liliputing.com/2013/12/odroid-u3-59-dev-board-with-
th...](http://liliputing.com/2013/12/odroid-u3-59-dev-board-with-the-power-of-
a-galaxy-s3.html)

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bitwize
I like the woodgrain bezel. It looks like a device from the movie _Her_.

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tostitos1979
I think this is wicked cool. Is the underlying desktop mouse based or
optimized for touch?

