Hardware Archive

Now this is a real treat - over the past few years, Christopher Masto has been building (and where possible, selling) a PDP-8 replica called the PiDP-8/I. As you may have guessed from the name, the core of the PiDP-8/I is a Raspberry Pi, complemented by a replica PDP-8 front panel and case.

The PiDP is fully open source, so you can download the schematics, design files, and software and build it yourself from scratch. You can also order a kit from Christopher Masto for $145, or pay an additional $170 for an assembled version (but isn't building half the fun?).

He has a few great videos of the PiDP up on his YouTube channel, including a 90 minute build video and a tour and demo video.

Articles like this are very satisfying to post, because we can all agree this is just plain awesome, no ifs or buts.

This is sorcery - and art.

Back when this machine was just a crowdfunding project, we got a few submissions about it. Since we generally do not link to crowdfunding projects before they're, you know, actually available products (for obvious reasons), I never did anything with them. Now, though, the GPD Pocket is out and about, and it seems to be a pretty amazing tiny laptop we really have to talk about, because it's adorable and remarkably capable.

It's an all-aluminium Windows 10/Linux laptop with a 7" 1920x1200 IPS display with 323 ppi, the top-of-the-line Intel Atom x7-Z8750 1.6Ghz quad-core processor, 8GB RAM, Intel HD Graphics 405, and a 128GB SSD. It has a chicklet-style keyboard, a little nub mouse pointer, and can be ordered with either Linux or Windows. It has decent battery life too - they claim 12 hours. According to reviews, it seems to be ticking all the right boxes, making it an actually decent product to buy. IT's $469 on IndieGoGo right now, and the retail price will be $599.

I've always wanted such a tiny laptop, but most of the time they were ugly plastic pieces of garbage that barely got by. This seems to be the first one that isn't actually a bad product (save for the terrible product descriptions on their website), and I'm definitely intrigued. Is there a market for machines like this?

It's amazing what talented programmers can eke out of old 8bit machines.

Okay so I'm using this perfectly fine article as an excuse to bring something up, so bear with me here.

This is only slightly related, but it's something that has been bugging me for years, and since I was confronted with it again this past weekend, I might as well get it out of my system: why is nobody innovating anymore in the field of building your own computer? So many aspects of building your own computer are completely crazy when you think about it, and it seems like nobody is really doing anything to fix them.

For instance, why haven't we come up with a way to increase the power you can draw from a PCI-E slot, so that graphics cards don't have to be plugged into the PSU directly with unwieldy power cables, with connectors in the most boneheaded location on the graphics card?

Why are we still using those horrible internal 9/10-pin connectors for USB, the front panel, audio, and so on? These are absolutely dreadful connectors, spread out all over the motherboard in illogical places forcing you to route cabling in unnatural ways, and the pins can easily bend. This is terrible 80s technology that we should've fixed by now.

And the most idiotic connector of them all, which is huge, stiff, almost impossible to plug in, remove, or route properly: the ATX power plug from the PSU to the motherboard. This thing is probably one of the worst connectors you can possibly find inside any computer, and the slot on the motherboard is in an incredibly illogical place considering most case layouts. To make matters worse, the CPU power connector sits at the top-left (usually) of the motherboard, so that's another unwieldy connector and cable with an unnatural route that you have to deal with. It's just terrible.

I like the inside of my computer to look as neat and tidy as possible - not only because it looks nice and is easier to clean, but also because it improves airflow, something quite important with today's processors and graphics cards. However, aging standards with terrible designs and horrible usability that wouldn't look out of place in a 1960s mainframe make that quite the challenge.

We've seen some minor improvements already these past ten years or so, with the advent of modular PSUs and the death of the dreadfully terrible IDE cables and Molex connectors, but more work is definitely needed. We need a replacement for the aging ATX standard, which delivers enough power to the motherboard for the board itself, video cards, and the processors and fans, through a single cable with a modern, easy-to-use connector. It'd be great if a replacement for SATA could also carry power, so that we no longer need to route individual power cables to our hard drives. We need to get rid of 9/10-pin connectors for things like USB and the front panel, and replace them with easy-to-use USB-like connectors.

And last but certainly not least: put all of these things in locations that make sense for the vast majority of cases in use today, so we can reduce the length of cables, save money in the process, and end up with cleaner, easier-to-use computers.

Intel, AMD, NVIDIA, case makers, Microsoft, and whomever else is involved here - sit around a damn table for once, and hash this stuff out. ATX is outdated garbage, and needs a modern replacement. ATX was introduced in 1995 - do you still want to use Windows 95? OS/2 Warp? Version 1.2.0 of the Linux kernel? System 7.5.1? Floppies? CRTs? Of course you don't!

Then why the hell are we still using ATX?

The creator's blog has more detailed information about the project.

This brand-new Atari compatible is not cheap, but much like the current Amiga computers, if you're worried about the price, you're probably not the intended audience. Note that even though the order page says "pre-order", I think that's a typo - you can order them directly from the Swiss company that makes them, too.

I love that people and companies are passionate enough to keep developing, building, and selling machines like this - it's a vital effort to keep platforms alive well into the future.

You can either build it yourself, or buy a prebuilt kit. This seems like a great DIY project.

It really feels like the Japanese electronics industry lost most of its appeal and cachet, with the sector now being lead by American and Chinese companies. I love the design of the Panasonic laptop, though.

If I could wave a magic wand and bring just one dead form factor back to life, it would be the small, (almost-)pocket clamshell. I have a Psion Series 3, and its size, shape, and keyboard would, in a modern incarnation running, say, Android, be a great, much more capable alternative to a modern tablet. Sure, you can lug around an unwieldy external Bluetooth keyboard, but I'd much rather have an integrated, clamshell solution.

Too bad nobody else would buy it.

I'm a sucker for these kinds of stories. Great work!