Agh – I really wish I had seen this post before I assembled mine!
Looking at the instructions again, it is clear that the antenna is supposed to go on the outside face of that plastic fin, so I don’t know why I installed it on the inside, but I did, and I’m reluctant to redo it because of the adhesive. It seems to work fine though.
That aside, how I would describe the assembly experience is: it’s like building a really good Gunpla model – I would almost say it’s RG νGundam or Sazabi good – except that it is a very quick build. Or, if you’ve built a GameShell, it’s as good as that (except the current packaging isn’t quite as slick). If someone was not familiar with that kind of model kit, I wouldn’t know how to explain how delightful it is. But even if you aren’t into physical making at all, you will definitely be able to assemble this with no problems, and end up with better build quality than you see in most preassembled gadgets.
The installed software isn’t remarkable, but everything’s set up right. If you are interested in a DevTerm then you probably plan to tinker with it anyway.
I guess people’s biggest question is about the form factor / keyboard / pointer etc. – it was for me – and overall I would say that I am happy with it, and it’s about what I expected.
size: I have smallish hands for a man, and it’s pretty comfortable for me to hold. I would prefer if it were an inch or two narrower, but I wouldn’t want to give up any keys or screen space, so it’s about right. The hump on the back means I can hold it easily without having to rest the weight on my pinky fingers (which puts it ahead of any iPad and some phones, and makes the exact weight a non-issue).
trackball: I won’t lie: in my experience so far, it’s not good. The ball itself is OK; it works reliably, and has a kind of textured movement so you can position it precisely. But you have to spin the ball several times just to get from one side of the screen to the other, which is painful, and the “acceleration” slider in the installed software doesn’t seem to do anything. I’m sure this can be improved in software, but I don’t know how much. Also, it would be nice if the trackball were on one side rather than in the middle; since it comes as a kit, you could choose left or right.
keyboard: If it’s not already obvious from the size, you cannot type on this with ten fingers. Even if you had toddler-sized hands, it feels more like the face buttons on a gamepad than a regular keyboard; and anyway, you’d have to hunch over it. It’s much more comfortable for thumb typing, and once I get used to it, it will be nicer than a touchscreen keyboard. The biggest adjustment is having to hold down the modifier keys, because I only use left shift on a full-size keyboard. I may turn on sticky keys, or try to come up with a way to make shoulder buttons for shift / ctrl / alt.
On the positive side, it’s a nearly full set of keys, and the layout is almost normal. It’s the first small keyboard I have used that is tolerable for writing code or using a command prompt, since all the special characters are there and mostly in normal places.
I haven’t used the gamepad buttons, but I should mention that the D-pad uses the same soft, deep keys as everywhere else, which seems like something you would definitely want to change.
screen: pretty good, weird shape. I think I’ll be spending a lot of time tweaking things to work well with the wide format.
Tl;dr I feel like I will actually use this. It won’t be as productive as a laptop, but it’s close enough that the appeal outweighs the limitations (especially if I don’t have to use the mouse).
I’m impressed with the keyboard’s fit and finish. The trackball is as I remember it on my old Blackberry, it does the job but I think I’ll be using keyboard shortcuts more so than I do on desktop Linux.
I was missing a part. One of the four B3 crosspoint stand offs that hold down the Ext. Module. Three seems to hold it in place, if I get desperate I can fix my 3D printer and make one. Or cast one in resin, which would be faster for me.
The construction manual has a lot of problems. I was missing what to do with the LCD’s ribbon, and I had two sections duplicated two or three times. I am happy to walk anyone through the build process over email, txtmsg, or zoom. Whenever you’re unsure or you think the picture doesn’t exactly match what you’re doing, stop and think things through, peek a little ahead, and take a glance at Clockwork’s homepage’s images of the insides of the DevTerm.
I probably should have searched for the PDFs of the guide but I pushed through and the build turned out just fine.
Waiting on printer paper, not that I need it, but felt I should test it out. Maybe I’ll crack out my old code for printing random D&D character sheets. I still haven’t found a good source for 18650 cells. I’m not too worried though, I’ll eventually find batteries of a good quality at a good price and get this thing mobile.
I’m not sure what plans people had for theirs. I bought mine to use as a scratch pad for coding little ideas and as a calculator to use at my work bench. The tiny keyboard won’t slow me down because I use short variable names when I code. gasp
Overall I’m happy with the results. Feels solid and the screen looks great.
i think a lot of people are having trackball issues, i think it has to do with the acceleration + sensitivity. is there any program available for the CM3 OS that’ll let you finetune how the ball works?
It’s small but really ammazing.
Keyboard is much betetr than on the Pocket Chip and actually usable.
Hdmi seems not to work out of the box. I think there is some configuration needed,
Have anybody of you managed to get the hdmi output running?
My keyboard has a funky F11 key (much larger than the other keys) so I had to file away a few millimeters from the cover to make it fit, otherwise it would stay stuck underneath the cover
Apart from that… the machine is working, but not very easy to operate (unsurprisingly) using a graphical user interface. With a single program in full screen it’s ok, but it’s probably more suited to the tasks which require a low interaction rate overall.
You’re making me even more excited. The Nu (v) Gundam and the Sazabi RG kits basically discarded everything that the community complained about (floppy frames?) and made something from the ground up.
This almost sounds like the growth from the Gameshell to the Devterm. That said, I’m still a fan of one of the “loathed” RG kits: the Sinanju. I guess this could be same way that I will always still have a soft spot for the. Gameshell. Just like I put lots of work into my Sinanju, I put lots of work into my Gameshell; but will no doubt put even more into my Devterm!
Can’t wait to receive mine!
@bobtato - Add lights and make it an MGEX Unicorn XD. Or make a HUGE detailed build; PGU style. (Good to see another Gunpla fan on the forums. ;))
Ok, I’ve had mine for a few days and got to assemble/play around with it. Overall, super happy with it.
I didn’t have any real issues with the build process as a few others did and found the manual pretty straightforward. There are a few steps that might be intimidating for those who haven’t assembled computers or changed RAM before, like popping in the CM3, inserting the ribbon cables, or attaching the wifi antenna. You really have to look closely at some of the pictures to make sure you’re orienting the parts correctly, like the speakers for example.
The keyboard takes some getting used to, but I like it compared to some of the tiny keyboards I’ve used before. I also appreciate the placement of the tab key where caps lock usually is. The gamepad is nice too. Some acceleration options might be nice for the trackball, as it seems a little slow at times.
I installed RetroArch and it needed a lot of things to get it working properly (setting the URL for the core repo, adding some latency to audio to avoid breakup, etc). It works pretty well now though and I was able to test out some SNES and NES games.
My main wishes for this are:
A faster, more optimized OS (which I believe is on the way). I’d definitely be interested in installing that on the CM3 or perhaps buying an upgraded A04/06 to pop into it. The mockups on the website show a minimal looking, sleek OS which reminds me a lot of Crunchbang (now Bunsen Labs), which used Openbox and Conky. Crunchbang was very efficient on my old netbook.
More info on what modifications to the kernel were done to support the hardware.
SD card images available with software packages installed already that the folks at Clockwork Pi thought were fun. I don’t mind buying a larger SD card for that.
Ability to buy A04/A06 core (probably coming once orders are fulfilled, but maybe hampered by global supply chain issues?)
Haven’t tried to print yet, but ordered some thermal paper. The expansion port looks like it would be perfect for an audio interface board.
I got mine in the post today. The packaging and instructions are slick, hats off to clockworkPi for the experience there.
The only complaint I have is I wish it were just bigger to fit a 60%/plank style keyboard but holding it in two hands using my thumbs seems to work well enough for now.
Got mine yesterday. It’s really solid, feels great. Only two things are really irritating:
The trackball. It takes forever to get anywhere. As someone who’s frequently used to mouse keys on my moonlander, i think it would be 1000% better to just be able to use the d pad as mouse keys than the trackball. Definite good software-based addition
The cut-off teeth on the printerstreak the print. I can’t get it to stop by trying to push the paper down and I don’t see it in anyone else’s photos but it’s really bad - it basically scrapes the ink off where the teeth are and makes the paper all ridgey. Has anyone else had this issue or has any fixes or whatever?
Oh one other thing: there was a big ol misprint in the manual that skipped a bunch of steps. I only noticed because the steps before the missing ones were also duplicated. Def something to watch out for.
I’m expecting to be in the last batch of the A0604 orders. Only communication I received was on the day of my order, July 8th, order number 153xx.
I don’t remember getting much in the way of confirmation when the GameShell shipped either, until it was on its way. It’s frustrating, but the quality of the GameShell (hardware at least) was what encouraged me to order this. They made good hardware before, even if the software (and apparent testing of the software) was rather… lacking. Thankfully the software side of things can be improved in time.
So far it sounds like plenty of basic details (like even the best way to turn the device off, which hasn’t been answered yet, as well as some battery and printer issues) may have to be figured out by the community. But there’s already some active tinkerers posting good information so I’m hopeful the Devterm can get to a more usable state in time.
Regarding the manual, @Alazoral, I’ve noticed a few other posts referencing misprints or duplicated/missing information. How does the printed manual compare to the PDF? DevTerm/Clockwork_DevTerm_Assembly_Guidelines.pdf at main · clockworkpi/DevTerm · GitHub
I’m hoping that digital version is complete/correct, as it would be nice to have the best available info when assembling it. But I don’t see the heatsink reference in this PDF, and that seemed to be something mentioned that was missing in the printed documentation as well.
Here’s hoping that when it arrives it won’t be necessary to dig through all the posts here again to hopefully find and piece together the missing steps and fixes when assembling it! (Personally, I’m more comfortable with software hackery than hardware hackery.)
