WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:05.040 Every so often, some brand or another takes a stab at a modular or upgradeable laptop. 00:00:05.040 --> 00:00:09.600 And as someone who does an awful lot of PC building and is very pro-right to repair, 00:00:09.600 --> 00:00:16.240 I am so here for it every single time. I even invested my own money and framework to show my support for the dream. 00:00:16.240 --> 00:00:21.600 But alas, a dream it remains because almost all of these efforts end up discontinued 00:00:21.600 --> 00:00:24.960 before they even become a real product, which raises the question. 00:00:24.960 --> 00:00:29.200 If all these big companies can't do it, how come this guy can? 00:00:30.160 --> 00:00:38.320 Byron here, custom designed, built, and open sourced his own ARM-powered laptop in just six months. 00:00:38.320 --> 00:00:45.200 And it's a shockingly potent machine. I'm talking a 4K AMOLED screen, Cherry MX mechanical keyboard, 00:00:45.200 --> 00:00:50.160 and a custom machined aluminum chassis. And the guy's still in high school. 00:00:50.160 --> 00:00:53.920 Then he casually throws together this highly polished video showing how he did. 00:00:53.920 --> 00:00:59.200 I mean, have you seen my first videos? Obviously, I had to meet this guy, so hang on one second. 00:00:59.200 --> 00:01:04.560 Hey Byron, Zoom is just so impersonal. So I flew Byron out here so I could check out the... 00:01:05.760 --> 00:01:10.160 Anyonee? Yes, Anyonee. Yes, in person. 00:01:10.160 --> 00:01:13.040 And my first question for you is, do you dance? I do. 00:01:13.600 --> 00:01:16.640 Really? Do you know the... Here, do you know the segue? 00:01:25.520 --> 00:01:30.320 Didn't notice how bad the quality was. It's funny you say that because as I was walking up to set earlier, 00:01:31.040 --> 00:01:32.640 I saw your machine. I thought it was mine. 00:01:34.240 --> 00:01:38.000 I am impressed at how good it looks actually. 00:01:38.960 --> 00:01:41.840 This is incredible. Oh no. 00:01:42.880 --> 00:01:47.200 You broke it already? Wow, that was actually really quick even for me. 00:01:47.200 --> 00:01:50.320 Okay, what happened? It's all right. I don't really know. Wait, did you just throw it away? Yeah. 00:01:50.960 --> 00:01:54.480 That was a screw. It's okay. Screw, you know, bad quality. 00:01:54.480 --> 00:01:58.160 But the important thing is that it's still all together, right? Do you want to put the screw back in? 00:01:58.160 --> 00:02:01.360 No, it's all right. Because I think I have the perfect tool for you. What is it? 00:02:03.120 --> 00:02:06.240 What are you talking about? A screwdriver from LTTStore.com? Yeah, let's go. 00:02:06.960 --> 00:02:10.000 My first and maybe most important question is why? 00:02:10.000 --> 00:02:13.920 When I set out to make this laptop, I really wanted to focus on creating something. 00:02:15.920 --> 00:02:21.440 That's going to be the memes forever now, right? That's going to be in the drop reels going on in the future. 00:02:21.440 --> 00:02:24.560 You set me up. I did. You set me up? I did, yeah. 00:02:24.560 --> 00:02:27.760 It looks like you didn't watch the video I made. I still could. I skipped through a little bit. 00:02:27.760 --> 00:02:33.440 Yeah, I can tell. Well, see, here's the thing. Whenever I know that we're going to be making a video about something, 00:02:33.440 --> 00:02:38.640 I go out of my way to Cloister myself. I don't want to learn any more about it than I have to. 00:02:38.640 --> 00:02:41.920 The keyboard, I know it's Cherry MX. That's right. 00:02:42.960 --> 00:02:46.640 I know that it was custom made, including the keycaps. 00:02:46.640 --> 00:02:50.400 That's right. You know that there are commercially available laptop keyboards, right? 00:02:50.400 --> 00:02:53.520 So what inspired you to take this detachable approach? 00:02:53.520 --> 00:02:57.040 So when I set out to make it, I really wanted to focus on creating something that 00:02:57.040 --> 00:03:02.320 the keyboard will be a centerpiece of the laptop. And yeah, when I can't focus on the performance of the chip itself, 00:03:02.320 --> 00:03:06.160 I'm limited to, you know, a crappy Rockship RK3588. 00:03:06.160 --> 00:03:09.680 I wanted to make the laptop stand out in other aspects, like the 4K AMOLED display, 00:03:09.680 --> 00:03:14.880 and of course, this wireless removable keyboard. The entire battery is enclosed in here, 00:03:14.880 --> 00:03:21.280 and it is a fully wireless Bluetooth keyboard. So it just, you know, simply slots in to the laptop chassis magnetically, like so. 00:03:21.280 --> 00:03:24.480 And you can use it on another laptop. You can use it on this laptop, whatever you want. 00:03:24.480 --> 00:03:28.080 Putting in Cherry MX mechanical switches was a challenge that I really wanted to do, 00:03:28.080 --> 00:03:32.720 because I love mechanical keyboards. You never actually answered the question of why. 00:03:32.720 --> 00:03:36.480 So in the past, I really worked on a lot of open source electrical engineering projects. 00:03:36.480 --> 00:03:40.080 And so I've worked on various parts of what might be considered a laptop system, 00:03:40.080 --> 00:03:45.920 like power systems, keyboard, compute, display driving, human input. 00:03:45.920 --> 00:03:49.520 I worked for Keychron in the past, designing a new product. After making all those things, 00:03:49.520 --> 00:03:52.960 I really wanted to put everything together into this one cohesive package, 00:03:52.960 --> 00:03:56.480 and make it open source for everyone to see. I'm going to try to use the keyboard first, 00:03:56.480 --> 00:04:00.480 because we haven't even powered this on yet. I want to have that experience a little bit later. 00:04:00.480 --> 00:04:04.560 I want to connect the keyboard to my laptop. All right, great. So I would assume there's a pairing button somewhere. 00:04:04.560 --> 00:04:08.400 No, there isn't. There is not. There's no off button on this keyboard. 00:04:08.400 --> 00:04:12.240 It's always on. Wow. Yeah. Uh, good. 00:04:12.240 --> 00:04:15.360 Yeah. Of course, convenient. It is. Okay. It's always on. 00:04:15.360 --> 00:04:19.440 And the reason it can do that is because it's on ZMK. So it runs almost a year on a single charge. 00:04:19.440 --> 00:04:22.640 No way. Yeah, almost a year. I haven't charged it really since I built it. 00:04:23.040 --> 00:04:26.000 94% back. It even has battery life reporting. 00:04:26.640 --> 00:04:30.240 You got to be kidding me. Yeah. That is very cool. 00:04:30.240 --> 00:04:34.720 Also, I cheated a little bit while you were distracted. I pressed down on one of the keys. 00:04:36.560 --> 00:04:39.920 That is a shocking amount of travel. That's right. 00:04:39.920 --> 00:04:45.360 Considering how thin this thing is. Yep, yep. Like it's like it goes all the way down to the PCB. 00:04:45.360 --> 00:04:48.720 Every single slice of this keyboard has been designed to be as thin as possible. 00:04:48.720 --> 00:04:51.920 If someone brought this to me as a V1 prototype of a product, 00:04:51.920 --> 00:04:57.120 I'd be like, f***ing send it. Yeah. Because this is awesome. 00:04:57.120 --> 00:05:01.440 I don't know if you know this, but I'm actually a 915 TKL user. 00:05:01.440 --> 00:05:04.560 And what I love about it is that it's a desktop keyboard, 00:05:04.560 --> 00:05:08.080 but it's super low profile. And I love the feel of the keyswitches. 00:05:08.880 --> 00:05:13.280 I would say there's a little work to do on the profile of this before it was a retail product. 00:05:13.280 --> 00:05:18.320 But in terms of the feel, like what you've accomplished here is outstanding. 00:05:18.320 --> 00:05:21.120 Yes. Thank you so much. 00:05:22.000 --> 00:05:27.600 He knows it. Thank you, yeah. It has a shockingly typewriter-esque sound. 00:05:27.600 --> 00:05:32.240 Yeah. I actually kind of love it. Here, hold on. You got to kind of hear it up close. 00:05:35.840 --> 00:05:42.000 Like it almost, it has a bit of a clang, which in the mechanical keyboard space is not quote unquote desirable. 00:05:43.200 --> 00:05:49.040 But it does it in kind of a cool way. I guess my next question is how confident were you going into this 00:05:49.040 --> 00:05:55.920 that you would be able to build something resembling, like I said, I mistook it for my own machine, right? 00:05:55.920 --> 00:05:58.400 A real laptop. I'm calling mine a fake. 00:05:59.200 --> 00:06:03.200 No, I'm calling it not commercial. Ah, yeah, yeah. 00:06:03.200 --> 00:06:08.880 I set myself really, really high bars. Like I looked at a framework 13 and I looked at a 14-inch MacBook Pro. 00:06:08.880 --> 00:06:15.440 I tried to make as many comparisons as I could to them and accomplish as close as I possibly could. 00:06:15.440 --> 00:06:19.760 The confidence pretty much zero. Why don't we talk about the thing that really sets this machine apart 00:06:19.760 --> 00:06:24.160 from other DIY laptops? And that is the machined body. 00:06:24.160 --> 00:06:26.480 It's less flex than yours. Hold on, let's validate this. 00:06:27.520 --> 00:06:30.400 Okay. Okay, that's a lot of flex. 00:06:32.800 --> 00:06:36.240 Pretty good. I think that is less flex. I've never done that to it. I'm just too scared. 00:06:38.800 --> 00:06:42.400 Oh, it didn't break. So that's a, yeah, let's go. 00:06:43.280 --> 00:06:46.320 So in choosing the chassis design and the material 00:06:46.320 --> 00:06:50.400 and the anodization, I made a bunch of these cubes. Just half of the cubes I evaluated. 00:06:50.400 --> 00:06:55.360 And so in the end, I settled on this one. The reason I know it's this one is because I actually like milled into it. 00:06:55.360 --> 00:06:59.120 So I knew how malleable the metal was if I had to modify it later on. 00:06:59.120 --> 00:07:04.080 Oh, got it. So you were looking both at the finish and at the actual material 00:07:04.080 --> 00:07:07.520 because we say, oh, it's made of aluminum, 00:07:07.520 --> 00:07:12.320 but almost nothing is made of pure aluminum. It's made out of some aluminum alloy 00:07:12.320 --> 00:07:18.560 and they have very different properties potentially. The unibody design is quite special than a traditional laptop. 00:07:18.560 --> 00:07:23.040 The palm rest or the mid plate, as I call it, actually screws in from the top. 00:07:23.040 --> 00:07:27.760 And the reason stems from the actual keyboard being a removable detachable piece. 00:07:27.760 --> 00:07:33.920 So I wanted it to just slide right in and the most optimal way to do that would be 00:07:33.920 --> 00:07:39.840 by having the bottom completely screwless. There's nothing behind it. And you just machine out basically this bottom shell 00:07:39.840 --> 00:07:42.880 and then the top shell. And then you put framework hinges. 00:07:42.880 --> 00:07:46.160 This bit disclosure, right? Yeah. Yep. All right. 00:07:46.160 --> 00:07:50.480 You put these hinges in and you just, you know, it all comes together just like that. 00:07:50.480 --> 00:07:55.440 Obviously it's a function first design, but I want to have a quick philosophical conversation with you. 00:07:56.000 --> 00:08:00.400 Personally, I don't like seeing the function of a product harmed 00:08:00.400 --> 00:08:03.680 by this, I feel, irrational desire to hide screws. 00:08:04.560 --> 00:08:09.040 Do you think it's okay to just have some screws visible on something? 00:08:09.040 --> 00:08:13.840 Of course. I mean, why not? If you get to where you need to go, screws are the way. 00:08:14.160 --> 00:08:17.600 I also have duct tape there, you know. Okay. There's only two types of screws. 00:08:17.600 --> 00:08:21.360 There's only torques and Phillips on there. Nice and repairable. 00:08:21.360 --> 00:08:24.720 And now we're pulling up the CAD. So this is the bottom chassis itself. 00:08:24.720 --> 00:08:28.640 And no wonder it's so rigid. Yeah. It is fully CNC'd and... 00:08:28.640 --> 00:08:31.760 And heavy. What? It's a little heavy. Oh yeah. 00:08:31.760 --> 00:08:34.960 Oh yeah. Hefty. Yeah. Hefty. Yeah, I missed the F. 00:08:35.920 --> 00:08:41.360 Hefty. There's a lot of different parts that come fitting, 00:08:41.360 --> 00:08:45.680 that comes to fit into the actual chassis, including the two Framework 13 hinges. 00:08:45.680 --> 00:08:48.800 Yeah. And then so the powertrain board mounts right over here. 00:08:48.800 --> 00:08:52.560 Yeah. And then the actual main compute board, I call it the main board, 00:08:52.560 --> 00:08:56.240 or the motherboard, goes right here. Did you call it that? Did you come up with that term? 00:08:56.240 --> 00:08:58.560 No. Main board? I didn't. But I call it that. 00:09:00.960 --> 00:09:05.040 And then here we have four individual battery cells. And I wanted to make these battery cells separate. 00:09:05.040 --> 00:09:08.720 One for safety. I didn't want to blow up the entire laptop when I was sleeping. 00:09:08.720 --> 00:09:12.160 But it also allows me to build a custom battery pack 00:09:12.160 --> 00:09:17.760 so I can specify to however much I want. This can actually discharge 150 watts at any given moment. 00:09:17.760 --> 00:09:21.600 But obviously, it won't ever do that. But you know, just for this future. Not on a rock chip. Not on a rock chip. 00:09:21.600 --> 00:09:27.280 Here on the left side. Right. We have two USB-C 3.1 Gen2 ports. 00:09:27.280 --> 00:09:30.320 I don't have the firmware to support a external display on them just yet, 00:09:30.320 --> 00:09:35.280 but maybe in the future. In the many revisions I've made with the laptop, I actually have three separate designs for the main board. 00:09:35.280 --> 00:09:38.800 I switched from an HDMI, which didn't really work, and the signal integrity was a little off. 00:09:38.800 --> 00:09:43.360 I switched to a USB 2.0 port at the very end. Also, just because I'm mad that, you know, 00:09:43.360 --> 00:09:47.360 how can a MacBook not fit a USB 2.0, you know, a USB-A port? 00:09:47.360 --> 00:09:50.640 Yeah. And this is no thinner. This is all right. This is no thicker. Since we're at it, 00:09:50.640 --> 00:09:54.640 why don't we look at the rest of the aisle? You've got a microSD reader. Nice to see. 00:09:54.640 --> 00:09:56.880 Headphone jack. Doesn't work. Oh. 00:09:57.760 --> 00:10:01.200 Yeah, bad engineering. Oh. Yeah. It just didn't work. I don't know why. 00:10:01.200 --> 00:10:06.000 And then this is a power only input, right? Yes. So you cannot charge the battery from this side, 00:10:06.000 --> 00:10:09.760 I would assume. Fortunately not. The reason you can't charge from these USB-C ports 00:10:09.840 --> 00:10:15.680 is because I wanted to separate the compute and the power system so they individually function first to save the timeline. 00:10:15.680 --> 00:10:18.720 This looks great, by the way. This is very classy. Yeah. I really like that. 00:10:18.720 --> 00:10:23.760 So did you just take it to a third-party shop to have it machined out? I did. I got it CNC'd by JLC. 00:10:23.760 --> 00:10:28.480 It didn't cost that much. It only cost, what, $300 to $500? 00:10:28.480 --> 00:10:32.960 Really? For the entire chassis. Every metal piece combined. And that included the cost of the metal? 00:10:32.960 --> 00:10:36.800 Yes, it does. And the anodization. So it came to me fully blacked out already. 00:10:36.800 --> 00:10:42.160 Dude, I would have guessed over a thousand for sure. Do you want to take a guess at how much this laptop cost at R&D? 00:10:42.160 --> 00:10:45.840 Everything added up together? How are you calculating the R&D? 00:10:45.840 --> 00:10:49.440 What are you billing out at? Everything that I bought. 00:10:49.440 --> 00:10:52.480 Everything that I bought to make this laptop. So just parts? Just parts. 00:10:52.480 --> 00:10:56.960 Every failed revision. Every, you know, the mis-input. Everything that I had to buy because I burned it. 00:10:56.960 --> 00:11:00.560 All of that added up. So really, I should be looking more at you than at that 00:11:00.560 --> 00:11:04.080 because it's like, how much would he burn? How much would he destroy? 00:11:06.160 --> 00:11:08.320 A lot. I'm going to say... What? 00:11:09.520 --> 00:11:12.880 5K. You're spot on. It's about 4.8, 5K. 00:11:12.880 --> 00:11:15.840 Yeah. Yeah. I still got a big one. Oh my god. Yeah. 00:11:16.880 --> 00:11:20.000 Well, look, we've developed a number of products ourselves. 00:11:20.640 --> 00:11:26.400 So I have some idea of what the failure rates are like when you're trying to figure stuff out. 00:11:26.400 --> 00:11:31.360 This is a big moment. I get to turn it on now. I have expected it to make like a mac bone noise or something. 00:11:31.360 --> 00:11:34.080 I don't know if you're an Apple fan or whatever. The fan turns a little bit. There it goes. 00:11:34.960 --> 00:11:38.080 Oh dude, you got like a, you got like a splash screen and everything. 00:11:38.080 --> 00:11:43.600 That's cool. Thank you. I still remember when I set up my old machine when I was about your age to have a, 00:11:44.240 --> 00:11:47.840 to have a Jolly Roger for the Windows XP loading screen. 00:11:48.800 --> 00:11:50.800 And it said Windows XP Pirate Edition. 00:11:52.400 --> 00:11:53.680 I might not be alive for that. 00:11:55.760 --> 00:11:59.840 Okay, let's get through this video and then I retire. 00:12:01.360 --> 00:12:08.720 Is reception an issue? Where did you put your antennas? Yeah. So the antennas are actually underneath the space between the battery and the palm rest. 00:12:08.960 --> 00:12:16.320 So there's metal in front of them? Yes. But metal and air are just, you know, the difference of molecules. 00:12:17.760 --> 00:12:23.120 I mean, yeah. Are you sure you wouldn't have considered maybe, you know, running them up here? 00:12:23.120 --> 00:12:26.800 Like they do on other laptops? Yeah, but I got lazy. 00:12:26.800 --> 00:12:31.600 From my past, having done 2.4 gigahertz and 5 gigahertz and RF engineering, 00:12:31.600 --> 00:12:35.840 it doesn't really matter if you're going through metal that much. 00:12:35.840 --> 00:12:39.680 All right, let's see this display. Okay, man, this display looks incredible. 00:12:39.680 --> 00:12:45.520 Okay, so let's talk a little bit about that. Where on earth do you go about getting a 4K AMOLED panel if you need one? 00:12:45.520 --> 00:12:51.600 I was just looking through scrolling and I found this panel, the ATNA33TP11 from Samsung. 00:12:51.600 --> 00:12:57.520 That's the 4K AMOLED display panel you see here. It was on some old ASUS laptops from three, four years ago. 00:12:57.520 --> 00:13:00.800 And I really liked it because it looks so good and it looks awesome. 00:13:00.800 --> 00:13:05.280 And so I bought some of Taobao, the Chinese AliExpress basically. 00:13:05.360 --> 00:13:09.760 And the hard part was running it directly from the RK3588 over an embedded DisplayPort. 00:13:09.760 --> 00:13:15.600 Right, because here's the thing. Embedded DisplayPort theoretically is a standard, but everyone, 00:13:15.600 --> 00:13:19.840 both on the system side and the panel side, f***s around with it. 00:13:20.880 --> 00:13:23.760 So how did you get it working? Yeah, one sec. 00:13:25.040 --> 00:13:29.680 He's gone. He left. I mean, I broke his laptop, I guess. 00:13:29.680 --> 00:13:35.680 I kind of had it coming. When I first started the project, I chose this RK3588 system on a module. 00:13:35.680 --> 00:13:39.440 Yeah. So it slots into this felt and board. Just like that, you know, just pop it right in. 00:13:39.440 --> 00:13:42.800 Beautiful. I did it. Is this that thing that we featured, the little NAS thing? It is. 00:13:42.800 --> 00:13:45.840 You were the one that inspired it. Oh, oh, that's cool. Great. 00:13:45.840 --> 00:13:49.680 Nice little board and, you know, you can make it a laptop now. Yeah, it's a really cool little board. 00:13:49.680 --> 00:13:52.160 Now, when you talked about different pinouts, different protocols, 00:13:52.800 --> 00:13:55.920 OLED panels actually have a different pinout than LCDs. 00:13:55.920 --> 00:13:59.280 And since no one DIYs OLED panels, I had to reverse engineer them 00:13:59.280 --> 00:14:03.360 from a data dump on Linux from the ASUS laptop that used to have them. 00:14:03.360 --> 00:14:06.800 So after some reverse engineering and maybe procuring a data sheet, 00:14:06.800 --> 00:14:11.920 this is the cable that is needed to drive the display. Very, very fine-pitched 40-pin cable. 00:14:11.920 --> 00:14:15.440 And it's impedance matched to the EDP specifications. 00:14:15.440 --> 00:14:19.520 And that's at least one thing that they go by somewhat. Well, how do you source one of these? 00:14:19.520 --> 00:14:26.320 How do you know it's the right one? Yeah. So on Taobao, they actually sell OLED EDP cables. 00:14:26.320 --> 00:14:29.520 And so I just bought one and pray that it works. 00:14:29.520 --> 00:14:35.680 Unfortunately, it didn't really work because these cables actually convert from a standard LCD pinout to an OLED pinout, 00:14:35.680 --> 00:14:40.960 which is not what I actually want. Oh, because you want to go native. Yes, I want to go OLED to OLED. 00:14:40.960 --> 00:14:45.920 Yes. So then what did you have to do? So what I did was I made two of these boards. 00:14:45.920 --> 00:14:49.520 They look wildly different from one another, because one of them works and one of them doesn't. 00:14:49.520 --> 00:14:53.040 Can you guess which one works and which one doesn't, Linus? I'm going to say this one works. 00:14:53.040 --> 00:14:56.400 How did you know? Because it's just simply. He's right. 00:14:57.520 --> 00:15:01.680 He's right. So again, we've designed a couple of products. 00:15:01.680 --> 00:15:05.120 RF engineering is kind of black magic. So a lot of the signals you can't really probe, 00:15:05.120 --> 00:15:09.520 you just have to guess based on vibes. So my guess was that this was just too much loss. 00:15:09.520 --> 00:15:12.640 And it looks really, really cursed, plugging into HDMI. 00:15:12.640 --> 00:15:19.760 But actually, the RK3588 itself has a multiplexer inside the chip 00:15:19.760 --> 00:15:24.000 that takes either HDMI or embedded DisplayPort and sends it out. 00:15:24.000 --> 00:15:31.360 So what I actually did was I changed the Linux kernel driver or the device tree to output EDP off of this HDMI port instead. 00:15:32.080 --> 00:15:34.880 And then you went straight into here. 00:15:35.600 --> 00:15:40.480 Boom. Yeah. And after a lot of kernel development and a lot of device 00:15:40.480 --> 00:15:45.760 tree definition development, it just works. Plug it in and it just works as a native display. 00:15:45.760 --> 00:15:49.520 Let's talk about the trackpad. This thing feels great. 00:15:50.320 --> 00:15:52.320 Is this glass? It is glass. Glass topped. 00:15:54.400 --> 00:15:58.640 Man, everyone should just use a trackpad with a glass top like this. 00:15:58.640 --> 00:16:02.800 Sorry. What gesture did you want me to do? If you do three-finger like that, like on a MacBook. 00:16:02.800 --> 00:16:04.800 Hey, look at that. 00:16:06.240 --> 00:16:13.200 Oh, I love it. Fun fact, by the way, Linux had that like a decade before anyone else did. 00:16:13.200 --> 00:16:16.640 I have a spare trackpad right here. It's a module from Azotec. 00:16:16.640 --> 00:16:20.000 Azotec. Azotec. So they're an OEM trackpad manufacturer. 00:16:20.000 --> 00:16:24.320 I decided to just buy a module and modify it to fit within this laptop. 00:16:24.320 --> 00:16:29.840 They don't actually don't make it anymore. I think they were losing money selling them. It's too bad that they don't continue to sell them because 00:16:29.840 --> 00:16:33.920 for DIYers that DevKits can be an absolute lifesaver. 00:16:33.920 --> 00:16:37.360 I want to hear the speakers. Your speakers? They will shock you. 00:16:38.080 --> 00:16:39.920 What flavor of Linux are we on right now? Ubuntu. 00:16:41.440 --> 00:16:45.120 Yeah. You know, the crazy thing is if you press it down. 00:16:50.640 --> 00:16:54.480 I'm just, I'm just lit. Why am I so flush? 00:16:54.480 --> 00:16:58.400 It's like a twinge. I thought I was going to blow you away, right? 00:16:58.400 --> 00:17:03.280 Yeah, you didn't say if it was going to be in a good way or a bad way. So I certainly can't call you a liar then. 00:17:04.000 --> 00:17:11.120 Now, I have a question for you. You obviously are using an ARM-based chip for cost and power efficiency reasons 00:17:11.120 --> 00:17:18.160 and also because there's no way Intel is going to send you, you know, the drawings that you would need to develop an Intel-based laptop or whatever. 00:17:18.160 --> 00:17:21.040 Did you really feel like that was that much of a compromise these days? 00:17:21.680 --> 00:17:25.600 I think with the RK3588, it really wasn't that big of a compromise 00:17:25.600 --> 00:17:30.960 because you can do pretty much everything that you'd expect on a mid-low-end laptop. 00:17:30.960 --> 00:17:37.760 Of course, you can't play in a Baldur's Gate or something, but sure, you know, you can do, you know, regular everyday tasks on it, no problem. 00:17:37.760 --> 00:17:44.160 Theoretically, there is a project that's working on having Windows run on RK3588-based chips, 00:17:44.160 --> 00:17:47.520 but the development, it requires to support a custom hardware like mine, 00:17:47.520 --> 00:17:51.360 where I made a motherboard and I made the power system and driving the display. 00:17:51.360 --> 00:17:55.440 It required a lot of work to develop the firmware itself to boot the laptop 00:17:55.440 --> 00:17:58.960 and get it to a working state. That's super cool. I want to see Minecraft. 00:17:58.960 --> 00:18:03.600 So you said 4K60, I guess you meant 4K60 Hertz? 00:18:04.160 --> 00:18:08.160 Yes. Not 4K60 frames per second. Well, you see, if you look down at the ground, you get 60 FPS. 00:18:09.360 --> 00:18:13.600 I see. Yeah, but, you know, it's playable. 00:18:13.600 --> 00:18:18.400 It's playable, especially on Bedwars, high pixel where you're actually rendering a lot less than a world. 00:18:18.400 --> 00:18:22.880 You actually hit quite high frame rates. It looks great, right? It does, it does look great. 00:18:22.880 --> 00:18:25.360 There's no webcam. No. What was your reason, though? 00:18:25.920 --> 00:18:28.160 Well, publicly, it's for privacy. 00:18:29.360 --> 00:18:32.880 But honestly, it's just so difficult to implement something so thin. 00:18:32.880 --> 00:18:37.040 I didn't have the time and the capability to fit in a full webcam and run it through this entire display. 00:18:37.040 --> 00:18:42.240 And it's easy to complain about webcams. It's really hard to make a better one. 00:18:42.240 --> 00:18:45.520 I am playing video games right now on this laptop, 00:18:45.520 --> 00:18:50.960 which looks like a real laptop and obviously has some rough edges. 00:18:50.960 --> 00:18:56.880 Yep, it's falling apart a little. What would you say is your biggest specialty that helped you execute this? 00:18:56.880 --> 00:18:59.200 It's the, making these circuit boards myself. 00:18:59.920 --> 00:19:03.520 Yeah. And you can see here, he's got his own soak screening. 00:19:03.520 --> 00:19:09.600 This board here is clearly a lot smaller than the development board here. 00:19:09.600 --> 00:19:13.120 Got your own socketed M.2, your own socketed Wi-Fi module slot. 00:19:13.120 --> 00:19:16.400 The fact that this works is a small miracle. 00:19:17.200 --> 00:19:22.080 Are you doubting my skill, Linus? Nope. I'm saying that the fact that your skill exists is a small miracle. 00:19:22.080 --> 00:19:25.120 Thank you, thank you. I'm calling you a miracle. Take a compliment. Thank you, Linus. 00:19:25.120 --> 00:19:28.960 I appreciate it. Wow. And that's it. 00:19:28.960 --> 00:19:33.280 Sorry, I have this one, too. And then we just put the rock chip. 00:19:33.280 --> 00:19:36.800 That's it. Daughter board, brain board, whatever you want to call it. 00:19:38.080 --> 00:19:42.240 On there. Boom. Just like that. 00:19:42.240 --> 00:19:50.320 This is outstanding. Like the density here, I would be impressed if I saw this on a professional product, 00:19:50.320 --> 00:19:53.680 let alone no offense, but from like some kid. 00:19:53.680 --> 00:20:00.480 How many layers is this? Six layers. So I have the top and bottom layer for signal and power, 00:20:00.480 --> 00:20:03.520 the second two layers for impedance matching as a ground reference plane, 00:20:03.520 --> 00:20:13.520 and the middle two layers as power rails. So every trace on the high speed signaling, like the USB-C, USB-A, SD card, 00:20:13.520 --> 00:20:16.720 they are all impedance matched, and particularly the embedded DisplayPort 00:20:16.720 --> 00:20:20.560 signaling. Everything in this region is impedance controlled and impedance calculated, 00:20:20.560 --> 00:20:24.560 simulated, all of that to make sure that the signals don't get interfered with, 00:20:24.560 --> 00:20:28.880 on its way to whatever you need to do. And that stuff is a that stuff is a half. 00:20:28.880 --> 00:20:35.680 Like, wow. Now, the last question that I'm sure people are going to be asking is, 00:20:35.680 --> 00:20:38.800 this project obviously raised your profile a fair bit. 00:20:38.800 --> 00:20:46.240 Have you gotten any interesting job offers? Yeah. I can't disclose much, but I did get more job offers than the number of my hands, 00:20:46.240 --> 00:20:50.560 which is great. I'm super grateful for that. Yeah. And I got to make a video with you. 00:20:50.560 --> 00:20:53.360 Well, I mean, yeah. That's the best thing I got. Sure. 00:20:54.560 --> 00:20:58.240 Yeah, the guys who work here can see how excited they are about it. 00:20:58.960 --> 00:21:04.800 Wow. But I bet whoever gave them to him doesn't dance around topless like a firefighter. 00:21:06.240 --> 00:21:11.440 It's a little traumatizing. I can send you the design files for the circuit boards, 00:21:11.440 --> 00:21:15.040 because a lot of people wonder how you make circuit boards like this. 00:21:15.040 --> 00:21:18.560 Pretty much anyone can get a circuit board made. This costs at $60. 00:21:18.560 --> 00:21:22.640 $60. Yeah. Like it is shockingly affordable with this out of the way. 00:21:22.640 --> 00:21:27.360 What's your next big project? Yeah. So I have two projects that I'm trying I'm trying to get to right now. 00:21:27.360 --> 00:21:31.520 One is a super, super light mouse that doesn't have a battery. 00:21:31.520 --> 00:21:34.800 And I'm going to leave it at that. So it's super light. There's no battery, but it's wireless. 00:21:34.800 --> 00:21:41.520 Okay, no spoilers. You'll have to subscribe to this channel. What's the other one? I hopefully in the future I'll get to making a second revision of the laptop, 00:21:41.520 --> 00:21:46.960 or I'm going to have a better ship, better everything, and maybe, maybe get to making some kits. 00:21:46.960 --> 00:21:50.240 Yeah, that would actually be really cool. I mean, you've open sourced all of this, right? 00:21:50.240 --> 00:21:54.800 That's right. Everything you see on this table is completely open source on my GitHub. 00:21:54.800 --> 00:21:57.840 That's super cool. So we're going to have that linked in the video description. 00:21:57.840 --> 00:22:01.760 I love this keyboard. The keyboard, dude, this is really cool. 00:22:01.760 --> 00:22:06.400 This is a really cool showcase piece. You really like the keyboard. But this is, this is, this is a product. 00:22:06.400 --> 00:22:09.360 This is, that, that's, that's very cool. 00:22:10.640 --> 00:22:16.800 And you know what else is cool? If you guys enjoyed this video, then you will enjoy Byron's deeper look, 00:22:16.800 --> 00:22:21.920 which as I admitted before, I have only skimmed, but now I get to watch fully. 00:22:22.720 --> 00:22:29.120 And I'm really excited for that because he goes into a little bit more depth on some of the individual design choices, 00:22:29.120 --> 00:22:32.800 as well as like the specs, which we kind of glossed over here. 00:22:32.800 --> 00:22:35.840 So guys, you're going to want to check out his video. You're going to want to check out his GitHub. 00:22:35.840 --> 00:22:39.040 Is there anything else you want to shout out since you're here? Thank you to everyone for supporting me. 00:22:39.040 --> 00:22:42.880 Hi, Mom. Thank you for having me. Oh yeah, my pleasure, dude. 00:22:42.880 --> 00:22:43.200 All right. 00:22:50.000 --> 00:22:52.320 I'm really nice to meet you, man. Nice to meet you, guys.