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By acehigh
#44116
Ok, I have an idea to create a pc within 2 sheets of cardboard paper. I was looking at my razrv3 and noticed that without the case, the components are very thin, even the battery. now a phone is similar to a pc correct? I assume inside one of those it has a basic motherboard, processor, ram, hard drive and all that stuff on the little circuit layer. There are 2 screens back to back in a quarter inch space and i assume there is a chip layer in between them. The keyboard seems pretty simple and im sure i could find like a pda type thin keyboard to embed. Now if you were to use pretty much all of the components in a cellular telephone you could do this fairly cheaply by purchasing spare parts or similar parts. I was looking at sparkfun's site and it looks like i can get a few parts here cheaply. Now, all I would want the computer for is internet. and only to connect to wifi networks.

Now, my other idea would be to just add one 20 second video loop with an on/off button. What would I need....A screen, battery source, a cell phone circuit layer could be used if it could be hacked.

and if you have any knowledge of how to put this together either post here or send me an email at tj.reece@gmail.com Im probably going to need help with this for a concept design and it needs to be as low budget as possible.
By Andrew02E
#44139
Are you talking about designing something from scratch or disassembling stuff (cell phones, PDAs, etc.) and reassembling parts to make a Frankenstein type of device?
By denisbest
#44150
I think you'll need to be a huge professional to design computer platform with such a small size. You can eventually create a working prototype, but not as small as Razr phone. At least for another couple years.
By AdiCPT
#44156
That depends on what you see as a computer. A mobile phone is a computer, it reads spreadsheets, plays games, plays music, and even hd movies on some high end devices, 20 years ago this is what defined computers. Now it is what 3D card you have and what games you can play.

The only real difference between a desktop computer and a mobile phone is the generic nature of the OS, and some of the hardware, giving you what seems like endless access to what ever you want to do.

What acehigh is recommending is very doable if you make a Frankenstein machine, e.g. get a PSP and hack it…

The other option is to look at all the hardware out there capable of running Windows CE, and usually on physical larger hardware XP embedded. The Microsoft embedded website is a good starting point. I am not recommending M$, you can run a Linux kernel on most ARM processors, but they do make things easy to start with.
By trialex
#44157
acehigh wrote: within 2 sheets of cardboard paper
tHAT ISN'T VERY DESCRIPTIVE. i CAN GO DOWN TO THE LOCAL STATIONARY SHOP AND GET TWO PEICES OF THIN CARDBOARD THAT WOULD BE BIGGER THAN 1M X 0.5M .

(sorry about the caps)

You could easily fit a normal PC in there.

If you mean paper like A4 size, you could stil easily fit a Via mini-itx board in there.
By acehigh
#44184
trialex wrote:
acehigh wrote: within 2 sheets of cardboard paper
tHAT ISN'T VERY DESCRIPTIVE. i CAN GO DOWN TO THE LOCAL STATIONARY SHOP AND GET TWO PEICES OF THIN CARDBOARD THAT WOULD BE BIGGER THAN 1M X 0.5M .

(sorry about the caps)

You could easily fit a normal PC in there.

If you mean paper like A4 size, you could stil easily fit a Via mini-itx board in there.
like for real it could even be construction paper provided it doesn't tear and staple it together on the ends...use some type of adhesive to put it in place. I mean like take a greeting card for instance. You know those ones that you open them up and they play music. Could you make one to play a video? Like take the razr v3... It has a camera, 5mb storage, java, web browser, usb, bluetooth, mobile broadband, keypad, and a lot of other cool features. And they sell the razr for what 60 bucks? How much do you really think they cost to make? So you mod up that product, add in the fact you're only purchasing one prototype, and you should be able to easily make one for 150-200 and then the mobile service. But what about putting like a little wifi access card that it can only receive service for free at wifi hotspots?