Bounty Proposal: A laptop of some kind

How about a RISC OS laptop?

I know there is the lapdock etc. but honestly, I’d like something more elegant. So now there is a range of ARM power laptops in the form of Chromebooks, I’d love to see a port to one of these. I don’t mind which, whichever is easier to port to really.

I’d be happy to start the bounty by providing funds for the Chromebook (or other device) itself.

Garry

If this is feasible, I’d also contribute.

See also Which A15 board would be better for a Risc OS Port???.

Well, to be honest I’m not in a position to offer any reasonable comment on which laptop/board/processor would be best.

However, I am still willing to buy someone a Chromebook if they feel they can port RISC OS to it.

The only thing I ask that works is networking of some kind, that can use of a built in Ethernet port, or a USB dongle, I don’t mind. Obviously Wifi would be amazing, but I appreciate that is a whole other thing.

With Samsung unveiling two ARM based Chromebooks, the opportunity for RISC OS to be ported to a laptop is that much greater. I forsee a couple problems

a) Laptop manufacturers change models/parts at a much faster rate than single board computers
b) Finding someone in our community with enough time to port it before the machine is no longer being produced
c) Dreams never come true

I’ll pitch in to the bounty if this ever gets off the ground.

I know this isn’t quite what people are asking for but pro tem would this work on an RPi running RISC OS:

http://www.raspberrypi.org/use-your-desktop-or-laptop-screen-and-keyboard-with-your-pi/

I’ve successfully connected and run the RO desktop on a Windows XP laptop via vncserv/RealVNC over my LAN but could I connect directly using a standard network cable as in the method above?

Yep, this can be done, as per the instructions contained in here – be careful not to make the mistake I made with IP address settings!

Thank you andym – having read through all your instructions, it worked perfectly!

With Samsung unveiling two ARM based Chromebooks, the opportunity for RISC OS to be ported to a laptop is that much greater

Considering there is an Arch Linux port for them, you’d think it would be easyish.

The Pi-Top looks quite promising. I’m after an ARM laptop to run RO5 for development purposes, this looks perfect for the job.

I will be making a formal announcement some time, but I have mentioned at the last two? RISC OS shows our plans for a RISC OS laptop this will be using a standard Laptop Case with 15.6" 1366×768 LCD ¹. It will probably not be available until the second half. Our next generation desktop machine using a next generation CPU will be before that we expect:-)

¹ Our preferred chassis even has a full keyboard with separate numeric pad.

Are there plans for a higher res screen? 1366×768 is very low these days, I run my Pi at 1080p and the RPC’s at 1280×1024 for example.

Whilst standing in Currys today, I seriously considered buying a Surface Pro 3 which was 2160×1440 or a MacBook Air Retina which was 2880×1600 to run RISCOS under emulation, as I usually have around 20 code files open, a compiler, calculator, CLI, reference docs and a browser!

I always thought there was an opportunity with the Compute module. A custom carrier board holds the Compute module in the standard laptop optical drive bay (who uses CD/DVDs these days?!), draws the 5v from the SATA connector, and just gives two USB ports and some sort of custom ethernet port on the outside (I’m not sure a standard RJ45 found physically fit, so some sort of slimline version may be required). Although cludgy, an ethernet cable from the port to the laptop’s built in ethernet port, with Internet Connection Sharing enabled, and the newly improved VNC server, gives a sort of RISC OS in a Window on the host system. Best of both worlds, and with a sort of RISC OS wifi via the host system into the bargain. Perhaps an extra USB with a working USB-ethernet adaptor and an additional mini-HDMI would allow for a setup and debug HDMI output, too?

Can’t be that hard, can it?! ;-)

Indeed. I was going to look for a suitable old laptop when I go back to work next week. There’s enough boltons for the Pi now to allow connection to a normal laptop screen and keyboard with hats (I think that’s the Pi term)

Our preferred chassis even has a full keyboard with separate numeric pad.

Does that imply the keys are tiny or the laptop is large?

1366×768 is very low these days, I run my Pi at 1080p and the RPC’s at 1280×1024 for example.

My Pi runs 1280×1024, the netbook is attached to a monitor that is 1440×900. So this display appears to be “somewhere in between” (and is more than 720p). Is it so unreasonable for a laptop ?

Is it so unreasonable for a laptop ?

I suppose it depends on the price.

The reason I raise the point is that I’m currently using a laptop that’s 1280×800 and I’m finding developing on RISCOS at 768 vertical very difficult. Hence why I was looking at Mac’s and the Surface Pro today.

Ironically, for my personal needs 1366×768 would be fine as I only want it to playtest games which run at a max of 640×256. I could carry on doing the development on a Mac or Wintel laptop.

It would be nice to develop and test on the same machine but the ARM laptop market hasn’t developed that much yet, so perhaps one day in the future there will be a MacBook Pro Retina type laptop running on an ARM chip. Can but hope I suppose.

1366×768 might be reasonable for a 10" screen cheap netbook. Everyone else has at least 1920×1080. Heck, my Dell laptop in 2002 already had a 15" 1600×1200 screen.

For a seriously nice ARM-based laptop, look at the Acer Chromebook with the NVIDIA Tegra K1 2,3 GHz Quad-Core, 13" display with of course 1920×1080, the battery lasts for over 12h. For only 350€.

I am awaiting Chris’ announcement that this is the RISC OS laptop he talked about :-)

Whilst standing in Currys today, I seriously considered buying a Surface Pro 3 which was 2160×1440 or a MacBook Air Retina which was 2880×1600 to run RISCOS under emulation, as I usually have around 20 code files open, a compiler, calculator, CLI, reference docs and a browser!

Looking for a similar solution, I bought a 2nd-hand Samsung Ultrabook with a 13" 3200×1800 screen. It is a beautiful machine and I could probably use RISC OS at that resolution, but it cannot do that. First, Widows 8.1 does not cope with that resolution very well and you have to make compromises. Second, VRPC, working with Ws, does not do it. So I have ended up using 2048×1152. This is still pretty good and I can splatter windows all over. ;-)

The reason I raise the point is that I’m currently using a laptop that’s 1280×800 and I’m finding developing on RISCOS at 768 vertical very difficult. Hence why I was looking at Mac’s and the Surface Pro today.

My 1280×800 laptop runs XP and is connected to a 1920×1200 screen for most of the time. It has VRPC at the same resolution and a Pi B+ is also connected to the same screen.

Heck, my Dell laptop in 2002 already had a 15" 1600×1200 screen.

I still have one of those in comission, much updated.

I suppose my Lapdock and Raspberry Pip is largely a toy, because of the 768 vertical resolution, but it is emminently portable.