Show HN: I Made an Open-Source Laptop from Scratch
60 comments
·January 22, 2025snake_doc
Okay, I'll help him humble brag:
Bryan is in his last year of high school.
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Keep building!
chuckwfinley
This is incredible work for anyone, let alone a high schooler. Seriously impressive!
I hope this turns into something I can buy (maybe a diy kit), in the future!
Hello9999901
Thanks! I've been considering it (or enough detailed instructions to build one) since starting the project. I need to get a working model first though ;)
GardenLetter27
You study quantum mechanics in High School in the USA?
Hello9999901
We discussed wave functions, probability, fermions/bosons, did calculations for particle in a box, the Schrödinger model, and went just up to deriving the hydrogen atom. Nothing super fancy, but it was one heck of an experience!
rafram
It's more possible than you'd think! The options are basically:
- Go to a fancy private school like Phillips Exeter
- Really luck out and get into a great public STEM magnet school
- Homeschool and take private classes / have very smart parents
rafram
Oh, or:
- Concurrently enroll at a community college (a really great option that I think every country should have)
2muchcoffeeman
Can't tell if this is sarcasm.
mattnewton
Some do- He thanks Phillips Exeter at the bottom of the project page, which is a very fancy private highschool, probably the best in the US.
macNchz
I went to a peer school that had at least a couple of math teachers with PhDs—my friends at the time who took their classes were, if I recall, nationally competitive in math olympiads.
govg
Not all high schools but the US has some schools which allow you to take very advanced material / even get a head start on your college credits.
mschuster91
We had a cursory introduction at least about 15 years ago in Germany, it's not that far off.
d3rockk
HOF HN post.
lxe
This is one of those special HN posts that demonstrates outsized excellence on the author's behalf. Watched the video and I'm very impressed.
Hello9999901
Truly appreciate it thank you so much!! I poured my life and soul into this haha.
petsfed
This is really cool!
There are some obvious next steps for improving the polish on this, would you say you were more resource constrained, time constrained, or skill constrained?
For instance, did you put any thought into making flex PCBs to make the cable routing easier?
I also think the concept of a laptop with a removable wireless keyboard is brilliant, and I think your implementation is a lot cleaner than e.g. the Surface or the iPad's case-keyboards. If I had a laptop that did that, it would be my go-to travel machine. One less thing to cart around.
Hello9999901
Hey! Thank you for the question. For sure, it's not a polished product and I don't mean for it to be. It works surprisingly well. (I've used it as my daily driver for school) With college apps and school work, the time was tight. I'd say that was the most limiting. Of course, resource and skill played its role. I did consider flex PCBs, but I didn't have the time to follow through with all the ambitions (i also wanted an FOC input sigh).
I'm honored that you think my keyboard implementation is nice! I put a lot of thought into it — truly. Oh btw the keyboard works just as well as a solo device. I've used the keyboard more than the computer in some ways. Thanks!
nashashmi
Looks good. Could be a small step to my vision for a dock dependent palm sized pc with high powered cpu connected by a single USB C with no other ports except for micro sd. And backed up by a mini battery for power stability on low watt chargers.
Hello9999901
Thanks! Have you taken a look at the Khadas Mind [1]? Super similar to what you're talking about with the handheld PC.
chironjit
I actually spent quite some time trying to build a custom driver for a custom screen for my Framework 13, only to burn the screen driver.
Very impressed by what you have done here. Kudos to you on achieving designing and building a whole laptop!
Hello9999901
Thank you so much! If you'd like to discuss further, please let me know! My email is in the website. I have a Framework 16 and have tons of ideas. Never got around to it though. (I also burned a few screens, and had 3 as backup haha).
aio2
my guess is when doing college applications, you figured you had to do something special to get into a good college, so you decided to do this lol
Doesn't matter why, pretty sick. I'm studying physics myself, so its pretty inspiring to see you do this
Hello9999901
Thank you so much! The story behind the laptop was quite interesting — my friends and I were going to an athletics event far away, and he brought up the idea that I should make a laptop for my senior project as a joke (our school offers 1 free class for a "project", graciously funded by the school). I said "hell yeah." That's pretty much how this came to be, college didn't play much of a role imho. And best of luck studying physics!
mschuster91
Holy. That's an achievement very few people can claim. Wonder if HN has a "hall of fame", a worthy entry.
You did the smart thing there with the SoM (for the uninitiated: power sequencing to individual parts of an SoC and its external components is an epic hassle to get right and that's assuming you actually have proper documentation - without it it's an utter pain), but how in hell did you get the high frequency stuff working out on what was likely your first or second try? This is IMHO where your work really shines.
USB-C, DisplayPort (at 4K to boot) and PCIe at modern speeds are all but black magic to most, this isn't digital any more, this is good old analog circuitry and physics at work that most people don't even learn in university any more.
Hello9999901
Thank you so much — yes, that was the hardest part of this entire project! I spent 2 months getting eDP working (second PCB thankfully).
I had the honor of learning high speed signaling from the best. I met some super cool people from Silicon Valley and research universities (from past work, like the MUREX Ethernet Switch). The ZMK Firmware community too!
mschuster91
> from past work, like the MUREX Ethernet Switch
Just looked it up... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40694254 for those who want a direct link.
Jesus. Wish I had had even a fraction your talent at that age. Most impressive.
Hello9999901
I truly appreciate your encouragement. I can only imagine how successful you are! Thank you!
j3s
VERY impressive. the laptop looks great. wish you could manufacture and sell the thing, i'd consider one :)
Hello9999901
Maybe, depending on reception! I geared it so it could be manufactured at a semi-small scale. Unfortunately, I don't have the capacity to make them myself :(. Thank you for the interest!
junon
This is so, so cool. Reminds me of Clockwork Pi stuff. Thanks for sharing :)
andrewmcwatters
Sick! Finally someone posting something that puts the “hacker” in HN.
Love the parts research you did.
Hello9999901
Thank you so much!
amelius
I'm curious how the USB-C connectors are made to the outside of the enclosure.
What I've found is that it's a bad idea to use USB extension cables; these can introduce bit errors if e.g. you copy large amounts of data (order of terabytes). It's much better to insert a USB drive directly into a carrier board, but this is not always physically possible.
Hello9999901
It's almost standard to have the USB-C have extra wiggle-room (around 1mm or so). Then, the housing is 1mm past the USB-C connector. That's how the casings are made so that when you stick the connector in, it's flush or nearly so.
I agree with USB extension cables concerns too! The error would increase depending on the quality (impedance, power, etc.)
amelius
> Then, the housing is 1mm past the USB-C connector.
Yes, this is often the case but sometimes the USB-C connectors are on the same side of the board where you also need to plug in some cables that you need internally (maybe even other USB devices). Thus the option of letting an USB-C port stick out on one side of the enclosure is not always available.
> I agree with USB extension cables concerns too! The error would increase depending on the quality (impedance, power, etc.)
Yes, and the user of your device (who doesn't see the internal cable) will assume that they can plug in their own cable, so you'll have two cables.
camtarn
Genuinely incredible work. Looking forward to seeing what other cool projects you do in the future.
Hello! I'm Byran. I spent the past ~6 months engineering a laptop from scratch. It's fully open-source on GH at: https://github.com/Hello9999901/laptop