reading the thoughts about a bare mainboard and the Pyra-Phone ideas, I couldn't help to think about my old idea of having a Pyra in side the old Palm3 cases and the foldable keyboard for that:
http://www.dansdata.com/portkey.htm
Here are my rough thoughts to that:
- case is easy enough to open, screwed instead of glued
- has a nice retro look
- it should be cheap to get hands on (my last Palm 3 was 10 Euro on ebay)
- there is a battery case for 2 AAA Batteries on the backside, that perhaps could hold connectors
- for the keyboard I have done some work. The PCB is replaceable, it is possible to convert it too USB. That should make the port reusable, so you can use the foldable keyboard as USB version
Backdraws:
- perhaps I'm too optimistic about the space available in the case
- screen is more like 3:4 and there is perhaps no way to find a fitting modern one
My personal preferences:
- e-ink Display (because on the road I would use it for e-book reading and writing text). For more stuff a additionally external HDMI Display should work
- perhaps the on the road things could even run on the M0 cores of the OMAP?? (no idea)
It might be at least worth to look into it to design the bare mainboard in a way that it might fit into it...
Maybe in a way, that all connectors are on the edge of teh PCB, so you could design an "extension board" around it later...
just my 2 cents
http://www.dansdata.com/portkey.htm
Here are my rough thoughts to that:
- case is easy enough to open, screwed instead of glued
- has a nice retro look
- it should be cheap to get hands on (my last Palm 3 was 10 Euro on ebay)
- there is a battery case for 2 AAA Batteries on the backside, that perhaps could hold connectors
- for the keyboard I have done some work. The PCB is replaceable, it is possible to convert it too USB. That should make the port reusable, so you can use the foldable keyboard as USB version
Backdraws:
- perhaps I'm too optimistic about the space available in the case
- screen is more like 3:4 and there is perhaps no way to find a fitting modern one
My personal preferences:
- e-ink Display (because on the road I would use it for e-book reading and writing text). For more stuff a additionally external HDMI Display should work
- perhaps the on the road things could even run on the M0 cores of the OMAP?? (no idea)
It might be at least worth to look into it to design the bare mainboard in a way that it might fit into it...
Maybe in a way, that all connectors are on the edge of teh PCB, so you could design an "extension board" around it later...
just my 2 cents
