This ‘Minimum Viable Computer’ Costs $15—and It Can Run Doom

We strive recommending the most effective devices to our readers, particularly people who supply the best worth. Still, anybody purchasing for a laptop computer or telephone will have to be ready to spend at the least a couple of hundred bucks—even when that machine is a Chromebook or a funds handset. What if there was one other means?

Developer Brain Benchoff (who was previously an editor at HackADay) needed to learn how a lot he would wish to spend to construct a useful laptop utilizing the most cost effective obtainable elements. His creation, the “Linux Swiss Army Knife,” is a “minimum viable computer” that prices simply $15 to make, Benchoff says.

Before you go promoting your XPS 13, let me warn you that “Swiss Army Knife” is a reasonably beneficiant description contemplating the Linux-based laptop is simply able to working a command line and connecting to USB gadgets. It doesn’t have any radios and there’s no plan so as to add a graphical person interface (GUI).

It, can, nevertheless, play Doom because of Buildroot, a software used to create a Linux setting. And although you gained’t be streaming Netflix or enjoying Halo Infinite on this miniature laptop, some fundamental processing, and a useful 47-key silicone membrane keyboard open you to the infinite prospects of the Linux command line—heck, you’ll be able to code it to be a crypto pockets or software-defined radio, for instance.

As for the specs, the pc runs on an Allwinner F1C100s system-on-a-chip that consists of an ARM ARM926EJ-S processor working at 533MHz and 32MB of DDR reminiscence. The IPS TFT display is 2.3 inches with a 320 x 240-pixel decision. There is a USB 2.0 enter, a microSD card slot for 64GB of storage, two AAA NiMH batteries, and a USB-C for energy and charging. All of that is housed in a two-piece plastic enclosure that snaps collectively with none instruments.

The whole invoice for these elements plus a couple of different bits comes out to simply $14.16 with the costliest half being the $2 printed circuit board. Better but, all the things wanted to make this tiny laptop is on the market regardless of the continued part scarcity attributable to the pandemic. There is a few effective print, although: that worth is provided that you purchase at the least 10,000 of every part and get some heavy bulk pricing reductions within the course of.

This first try was extra a proof-of-concept than something however Benchoff says there are many methods it may very well be improved, like including a bigger display, an even bigger keyboard, and tinkering with the USB ports. He needs to make this mission obtainable to people sooner or later however hasn’t specified when or how.