My honest opinion on this would be to make a SoM that uses an AMD 3020e (or some similar Zen-based core) and includes an eMMC module on the board (64GB at least). Allow stock Debian or Ubuntu or <your favourite Linux distribution> to be installed with mimimal/no tweaking. Possibly even Windows (though that might be a challenge with the webcam requirement coming next year) - as a Windows user primarily, I’d at least like the option.
The real priority, though, should be building an SoM and software image that fully supports suspending. This is a portable machine, I want to be able to tap the power button and put it to sleep, slip it in my briefcase, then get it out an hour later and wake it up - without 30% of the charge having vanished.
The printer is already optional - you can remove it or skip installing it. I’d have other expansions available that you can snap in its place - maybe a 4/5G modem module with a SIM slot/eSIM. Maybe a serial/parallel port, or a full-size SD card reader, extra USB ports, physical network port, &c &c. Hell you could even make an SD RAID module for expanded storage. Or a fingerprint reader.
An optional touchscreen expansion would also rock. The trackball sucks balls, even with the rewritten firmware.
Probably not. ClockworkPi chose the pinout. BUT, a sodimm carrier board that snaps into the devterm, and then the x86 sodimm snaps into it would be simple to design and relativity cheap to produce.
I’m in the middle of a move across the country, but once I settle in I’m going to buy an hdmi-in lcd in the same size and try to jam the lattepanda in the DevTerm… (once I get the lattepanda replaced…)
Honestly, I think Clockworkpi has moved on from the DevTerm. I don’t see any more hardware or OS releases coming from them. But that’s just my opinion.
They way they update with news and such does leave MUCH to be desired… All this from their from their start with the gameshell. we have all seen how that has aged and updated. dont ask them to make an changes to your order either… they’ll just cancel your order instead.
“Could be it” could mean anything from “well it’ll fit in the case” to “it’s practically perfect already as long as we can interface it to the DevTerm peripherals”.
That’s the lattepanda v1 that I mention above in several posts. Display connector not compatible. I’m working on getting a replacement to my broken one. If that ever happens, I might get an hdmi display of the same size and try to jam it in there, but it would be a custom tangle of wires. You’d have to dump the complete CPI v3.14 backplane.
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