Real Amiga portable? Humour me.

[Locutus]

To continue on that MNT Reform fancy, it seems they already have a board in progress for something like this:

https://source.mnt.re/reform/reform-kintex-som

So then the question is mostly would one of the various Amiga FPGA Cores be portable?

[khayoz]

I'm sure someone can make/hack something out of an Amy/Denise board(17x17cm) without the Zorro slots and wire some low profile ports to the PCB - https://www.enterlogic.se/?page_id=75

Edit: There is 11 boards in stock as of 2024-03-26 - https://www.tindie.com/products/enterlogic/denise/

[Locutus]

The thing is, the Reform does all the hard parts of making it into a laptop. Screen drivers, battery management, keyboard/mouse integration, case, etc.

[pandy71]

Isn't those cheap VGA (TV) to LVDS converter boards are best to use for Amiga video source and flat panel display connectivity? https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005001656907988.html

[rare_j]

Originally Posted by Dunny

Dunno about that, it's 100% true - Applied Systems & Peripherals, from Elsham Wold industrial estate in North Lincolnshire. They also made a few other products - saw at least two genlocks come out of that company while I was there.

I made demo production disks that we sent out to potential customers - kinda like scene demos but which featured the products. I'd love to get my hands on some of those disks but I'm afraid they're gone now.

Ok I take it back. You've got to admit though it sounds like a tall story. A laptop Amiga made of wood for £3000 - three were made - and a travelling carpet salesman snapped one up!!!

[khayoz]

@Locutus
Yeah the Reform is nice, would like one for myself,
but the topic of this post was Real Amiga Portable.

Have a spare Amy board here, I'm tempted to start a project..

And as a little side note, I did a request a couple of years ago
if Mr.A(creator of Amy/Denise) could consider making an Amiga laptop PCB.
No answear yet, but who knows! He got the skills to pull it off.

[VladR]

Originally Posted by d4rk3lf

Thanks...

Ahh.. too bad you didn't purchased one yourself... imagine today's prices on such rare retro comp...

Yeah, too bad. Except 3,000 pounds is still a lot of money today. And in '93 ? Probably could have bought a new small car with that...

[dreadnought]

Originally Posted by Locutus

The thing is, the Reform does all the hard parts of making it into a laptop. Screen drivers, battery management, keyboard/mouse integration, case, etc.

It also costs 1000 USD. It's a nice gadget, but for me at this price point the attractiveness of the open-sourceness and the fact you can maybe boot straight into a core kinda fades away. I think you can get GPD Win much cheaper these days, not to mention Steam Deck and its ilk.


As a side-snigger, they seem to have been much faster than Dragonbox Pyra with their design...

[CCCP alert]

Oddly battery tech is good enough now to use an actual A1200 motherboard but as it will be paired to the LCD display tech no need for real chipset on a shrunk mb

[Dunny]

Originally Posted by rare_j

Ok I take it back. You've got to admit though it sounds like a tall story. A laptop Amiga made of wood for £3000 - three were made - and a travelling carpet salesman snapped one up!!!

Oh god yes it certainly does - if I'd not been there at the time I would never have believed it

[Adrian Browne]

Originally Posted by CCCP alert

Oddly battery tech is good enough now to use an actual A1200 motherboard but as it will be paired to the LCD display tech no need for real chipset on a shrunk mb

Interesting to know that the battery tech could handle and a1200 board.

[Adrian Browne]

Originally Posted by Locutus

To continue on that MNT Reform fancy, it seems they already have a board in progress for something like this:

https://source.mnt.re/reform/reform-kintex-som

So then the question is mostly would one of the various Amiga FPGA Cores be portable?

Right. And whats the price of one of these boards?

[Adrian Browne]

Originally Posted by khayoz

@Locutus
Yeah the Reform is nice, would like one for myself,
but the topic of this post was Real Amiga Portable.

Have a spare Amy board here, I'm tempted to start a project..

And as a little side note, I did a request a couple of years ago
if Mr.A(creator of Amy/Denise) could consider making an Amiga laptop PCB.
No answear yet, but who knows! He got the skills to pull it off.

Oh yes. Do you think Amy could be viable for an actual amiga portable? It would be cool if the MR.A made a handheld/laptop specific board yes.

I guess it would be cool to have a portable amiga in beige or black- maybe with a basic docking system or even an inbuilt keyboard like the Dragonbox Pyra has.

[crobin]

In the late 80's I was working away from home put my A500 and HD8 on a block of wood with all the fixings and took it with me hooked it up to the tv in the digs I was staying in.
The hard disk has packed in now but the A500 still works but switched to a A1200 now.
So portable been done