Today, the cell computing area has been fairly properly standardized — you may have any cell system you need, so long as it’s a smartphone, pill, or a laptop computer. However within the earlier days of computing when the know-how was simply beginning to come of age, notably via the late Nineties and early 2000s, the cell computing panorama was way more fascinating (and typically bizarre). There have been the PDAs just like the PalmPilot and Apple Newton, and there have been the ultra-mobile PCs (UMPCs) just like the HP Jornada 720 and the Psion 5Mx, every designed to satisfy the various wants of their customers.
It’s arduous to disclaim that immediately’s trio of cell choices are far superior technologically to the alternatives that have been out there previously, however we have now misplaced the imaginative type components and consumer interfaces that stored us excited when new merchandise have been launched. Software program engineer and Hackaday.io consumer Icepat wished to revive that pleasure with a {custom} UMPC that blends the weird with fashionable know-how. The outcome was the Pocket Z, a pint-sized Linux laptop with a bodily keyboard that you would be able to shove in your pocket prefer it’s 1999.
The HP Jornada 720 served as an inspiration for this challenge (📷: Icepat)
Pocket Z is powered by a Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W, so it has fairly respectable efficiency for some informal hacking, but it surely won’t strategy even most smartphones by way of uncooked energy. A keyboard was constructed right into a custom-designed PCB to be used with a silicone membrane and keycaps. An ATmega32U4 microcontroller was included to deal with processing inputs from the keyboard and to feed them into the Raspberry Pi by way of the USB-OTG port. There isn’t any touchpad on the current system, however it might be added in a future revision.
A seven-inch 1024 x 600 pixel capacitive touchscreen show was additionally included within the Pocket Z. To cut back vitality consumption and prices (the purpose is to remain below $99), the show was straight wired into the Raspberry Pi’s GPIO pins. Whereas this works properly, it does expend the entire out there pins, leaving nothing for added equipment or hacking with. Energy is provided by way of a Li-Po battery.
Raspberry Pi inside (📷: Icepat)
For the OS, the Pocket Z makes use of a Raspberry Pi OS Lite set up that has been personalized with XFCE and Conky. That is nothing earth-shattering, but it surely will get the job completed and is environment friendly, which is essential for the comparatively resource-constrained Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W. Naturally, one may use almost any appropriate OS that they select, nevertheless, because the laptop is powered by a inventory Raspberry Pi with an off-the-shelf show and what’s seen as a USB HID keyboard.
The Pocket Z could also be a private challenge at this level, however Icepat sees it as doubtlessly greater than that sooner or later. The pc remains to be below improvement, however Icepat is in search of suggestions on this preliminary prototype. After amassing suggestions from the neighborhood, the plan is to construct one other model of the system, seemingly additionally with a five-inch show choice (which might occur to depart some GPIO pins open, as an added bonus). After that, if there’s sufficient curiosity, Icepat hopes to mass produce the Pocket Z. Try the challenge write-up and get your suggestions in when you would possibly like a contemporary UMPC tailor-made to your specs.