
Popcorn Computer’s Pocket P.C. Open Sourced - nullagent
https://blog.popcorncomputer.com/2020/08/05/pocket-p-c-open-sourced/
======
hinkley
Looking at the circuit board is reminding me if a thought experiment I
entertain from time to time: we keep trying to make the single purpose
keyboard smaller so we have room for everything else in a compact device.

What if we didn’t? Instead of removing the volume, can we put something in it?
Take this one for instance. How many layers does a keyboard trace need? 2? 3?
How many things can you stuff on the backside of the keyboard? Between? Under?

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StaticChamp
I wish there was a video on the website. What are the use cases?

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dangoljames
All I can say about this is 'Raspberry Pi 4 8GB @75$US' and available right
now.

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stephc_int13
I would buy something with slightly different specs and design.

\- square screen, possibily of higher resolution \- high quality tactile
switch keyboard, optimized for thumb typing \- useable in bare PCB form (maybe
with a two PCB sandwich) \- similar design aesthetics as the pocket operators
from Teenage Engineering, but built as a powerful full featured pocket
computer for hackers

~~~
afandian
That was the Blackberry Passport hardware-wise.

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Stierlitz
According to Wikipedia, Palm copied the “Pocket PC” from the PDA, who knew. Or
was it Microsoft first named the “Pocket PC” the “Palm PC”. So as to render
confusion in the public mind and steal market share. That's probably when Palm
became “a newer entrant into the Pocket PC market”

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pocket_PC](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pocket_PC)

~~~
imglorp
Sharp may have predated that around 1980. They were called pocket computers
but the model name was PC-nnn surely implying it was a PC.

[https://sharppocketcomputers.com/](https://sharppocketcomputers.com/)

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darksaints
Just out of curiosity, what kind of resources would be needed to be able to
develop something like this with a risc-v processor? I know the architecture
is in its infancy, but it would be awesome to have stuff like the popcorn pc
or even a raspberry pi on a risc-v architecture for tinkering with.

~~~
Const-me
You can’t render anything complex on a FullHD screen with a low-power CPU.
Need a GPU. Risc-V doesn’t have it yet, Pocket P.C. does. ARM Mali ain’t
nVidia or Apple, but still, it’s not too bad for a mobile device, and orders
of magnitude faster than rendering stuff on CPU.

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joezydeco
Holy cow look at that silkscreen. Five-digit component numbers? Populating
this board is like Where’s Waldo...

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emberdaway
And the PCB has 10 layers! They must have had fun designing it.

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microcolonel
Kinda does beg the question whether ten layers were really necessary, but I'm
not a board designer.

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phendrenad2
I see a pretty fine-pitch BGA on there, so I'm guessing it is (but also not a
designer)

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joezydeco
BGA isn’t usually the reason for 10 layers, it’s high speed signals like SDRAM
that need isolation and timing.

~~~
banks_h
Not sure why you're getting downvoted, you're dead on.

I just finished routing an LPDDR4 bus (high speed + low voltage => worst case
signal integrity) between two BGAs with signals routed on only 3 layers. The
catch is that you need each high speed bus to be comfortably sandwiched
between solid copper planes. Layers dedicated to reference planes start to add
up quite quickly when you've got RAM, eMMC, ethernet, wifi, camera input,
display output, SD card, etc all crossing over and through each other.

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shakna
> Our goal is to ensure that we get all aspects of our products mainlined so
> that custom kernels will not be required.

I love these kinds of projects, but after being burned by the PocketCHIP, who
also said this but never made it there, this is isn't somewhere I want to go
again.

~~~
emberdaway
Yeah, ditto. Why can't mainline Linux support come first? Then they could sell
a working product.

Crazy, I know. Investing in difficult R&D problems to produce a quality
product is not a good business model. It's so much easier to churn out a
working devkit and ask for pull requests.

Sorry for the snark and pessimism, but that's what happens when you keep
getting burned. This statement does _not_ inspire confidence:

>Finally, to ensure that Pocket P.C. has great software support out of the
box, we have requested embedded development help from the community.

Why is software always an afterthought with these projects? Especially a
project like this, which has clearly seen an enormous amount of effort put
into the hardware design.

~~~
voltagex_
The only example I have is the LibreComputer S905X based board - it took
_years_ of work with a small team to get the kernel changes upstreamed. Hell,
look at the Raspberry Pi - I think mainline support is pretty recent.

~~~
aspenmayer
This project shows a lot of promise.

> TRYING TO BUILD THE ULTIMATE RASPBERRY PI COMPUTER (ZERO TERMINAL V3)

[https://n-o-d-e.net/zeroterminal3.html](https://n-o-
d-e.net/zeroterminal3.html)

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wiJqUWfR90I](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wiJqUWfR90I)

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softwarejosh
what can i do woth it, its twice as expensive as a flipper

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bgorman
It runs Linux, has a keyboard and has a 1080p screen. I doubt the flipper even
has a MMU.

~~~
emberdaway
Some Flippers have an i.MX6 running Kali Linux, but they do seem like
completely different products.

Many more radios, but many fewer buttons and pixels.

It's nice that we have so many options for tiny computers these days, but
sooner or later, someone is going to have to find something useful to do with
them.

The UI and developer experience has never gotten quite good enough to drive a
market the size of smartphones or laptops, so...what are we doing here? Is it
time to acknowledge that the masses don't particularly want general-purpose
computing machines? That there isn't much of a market for anything that isn't
plug-and-play? That's a depressing thought.

~~~
asveikau
> someone is going to have to find something useful to do with them

Looking at that pocket pc website... If that usb c port could drive a display
it might be interesting to dock that thing and get a full desktop experience.
Then take your work with you when you are ready to go mobile. On buses and
trains or other places where it might be clumsy to use a laptop.

I guess this was a thing many people have fantasized about for a long time but
nobody has really made practical. I guess laptops, phones and tablets being
separate entities is good enough.

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newsbinator
What are some interesting use-cases for this?

I can imagine sys admins would like this for remote admin.

I can't think off the top of my head why general hackers would keep this in
their pockets most of the time.

~~~
theon144
It's got integrated LoRa, so I assume they're targeting a lot of hackers or
people working on IOT stuff "in the field", as it were.

Well and I'm not one of those, but I'm still seriously considering getting it
- or rather, the cheaper version without LoRa. I can't really tell you
anything from the top of my head, but back when I had my N900, it found so
many unexpected uses constantly. Having a full-blown Linux machine in your
pocket is a seriously different game than any of the current gen of
smartphones.

~~~
noir_lord
I just want someone to take _this_ form factor[1] (and crucially _build
quality_ )

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psion_Series_5#/media/File:200...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psion_Series_5#/media/File:2005-04-16_Psion_Serie_5mx_PRO_24MB_beschn_unscharf_scharf.JPG)

and shove modern hardware/screen into it running stock gnu/linux.

~~~
alectroem
this may right up your ally! [https://www.www3.planetcom.co.uk/gemini-
pda](https://www.www3.planetcom.co.uk/gemini-pda)

As far as I can tell, it can dualboot linux and android (or even sailfish OS!)

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sschueller
Yes it dual boots, I have one. The issue is that only last week they got the
modem to work under Linux and there are still many open issues. I wish they
opened their development including Android as there are issues that the
community could fix much faster.

As for use cause. I don't know. Nice to have a keyboard but I'm carrying two
phones around now which is kind of stupid. The front display it total garbage,
slow ui and useless.

Their next model seems more practical as the screen is on the outside allowing
use without having to fold open the keyboard which is kind of annoying on the
gemini.

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numpad0
Confusing name but not related to Microsoft’s obsolete Pocket PC platform

~~~
ocdtrekkie
That was immediately where I went. I loved my little iPAQ back in high school.

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postpawl
I could only afford a Handspring Vizor. iPAQs were so high-end.

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kube-system
I could only afford an iPAQ but I really wanted a Jornada.

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bitwize
I wanted a Sharp Zaurus. They had a pretty good Japanese hacking community.

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tluyben2
I had an iPaq and a Zaurus: the quality difference was miles removed: the
Zaurus was so much better at everything (for me) but the iPaq and gprs so that
was a reason to hold onto it. Zaurus is still working and running Linux today,
iPaqs, multiple, are all dead even though used less. Build quality was robust
even though it had a swivel screen (which was also great).

