Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2019/02/02/functional-rigor.html
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7 Likes
Looking at that and I am a sysadmin by trade. NO.
I would take a hammer to that if I had to use is just from the tiny ass ugly keyboard alone. Though I pretty much get annoyed at all laptop keyboard layouts for being too damn small unless you have beast with a 17"+ screen.
I get wanting a nicer keyboard on a laptop but unless you are out and about all the time you should have a much better proper external keyboard to use anyway.
Ditch the VGA port and and let me have just HDMI. I would rather have extra usb ports.
Also maybe I am in the minority but I really don’t like the clit mouse. Give me a trackpad that I can set to disable itself if I plug in a proper mouse.
16 Likes
Me too, I prefer the many multi finger gestures I can use on a trackpad. Much more versatile.
3 Likes
A portable combined keyboard and display is something I’ve wanted in my machine room for a while. Some of the racks have KVM switches in them, but not all, and sometimes you need to talk to a system from the back.
This thing looks like a step in the right direction, although for a network-admin device, it’s a bit surprising to see only one network port – fine for a laptop, but sometimes network troubleshooting involves coming at the problem from both sides.
8 Likes
And the keyboard is perfect for our Made Great Again America.
4 Likes
I appreciate the effort here. I use a redesigned keyboard layout when editing (all the shortcuts I need are on the left side of the keyboard maximizing efficiency - right hand never has to leave the mouse.)
I make the layout available and talk about it here:
4 Likes
In the linked article (Figure 2.2), there are two network interfaces, one on the right side, and one on the rear.
5 Likes
Corey, check out the Dell keyboards on the Linux machine first…ugh. I’ve got a Dell Latitude 5280, runs Ubuntu great, and I don’t hate the keyboard. Crazy battery life, reasonable size and weight. I too miss real Thinkpads!
3 Likes
This laptop reminds me of something…
16 Likes
Mmm serial ports. Now if one or both can be configured for RS485 that would be super sexy.
5 Likes
I love the idea of this thing, But will stick to a Macbook air and some usb-c serial/network/video dongles in my laptop bag for situations when I need them. Because then I can be seen in public with my computer still, not just in datacenters. 
7 Likes
Not only that. But how often in the current computing world do we really need physical access to the server. Outside of initial setup of lights out you don’t need to touch the box, even then the data center had carts with monitors, keyboards and appropriate dongles so you didn’t need your laptop for that. Seriously for nigh on 10 years the only boxes I had to physically touch were for decoms where the lights out connection was b0rk3d.
4 Likes
It looks nice!
For a admin laptop this one also seems nice:
This also isn’t out yet but their previous model is, and is reviewed well (for what it is).
4 Likes
That looks a bit like the last work provided Thinkpad T series I had. It was more than serviceable.
3 Likes
I’d love this. I was a huge fan of netbooks, and would love something in that form factor - an android tablet with bluetooth keyboard is not an acceptable alternative. The old hardware of netbooks are my only issue. I don’t need too much grunt, but an Asus eeepc from 2006 doesn’t cut it!!!
This would be perfect for me
3 Likes
Cool idea, but I hope they don’t forget that every computer, no matter how specialized, is only as good as the software it runs.
12 Likes
I get it. I’d buy it if the price was right. I doubt this will see the light of day as a viable product.
I’ll made do with what I have:
2 Likes
I bought a Dell Precision 3520 with Ubuntu preloaded with employee discount before leaving Dell. It’s got a trackpoint and touchpad, though the touchpad is small and lousy at palm rejection so I never use it. External mouse FTW. Works great. I’m typing this on it.
New job (Pure Storage) gave me a MBP, which puts me in the odd position that I love the keyboard and hate the touchpad on the Dell, but hate the keyboard (key travel? What’s that?) on the MBP but love the touchpad.
2 Likes
I work in the cloud. A Mac or Linux laptop is fine. There are a few good mobile apps too. I think we are past this.
This is superb. That COM2 interface with I2C, SMBus, SPI, JTAG, UART kills it (er… in the good way) - in my experience interfacing to these requires any of a number of dangley vendor specific bare pcb pin-header boards precariously suspended in a web of de-bug wires. (That said - realistically speaking the 1/10" header used for this on the back might not be the best choice, since the weight of the wiring could easily pull out unexpectedly).
Along with the accessory attachments for awkward working environments (inbuilt 1/4-20 tripod mount!) - I’m seeing this thing as not-so-much a datacenter, roving server configuration station, but rather as a field weapon for performing idiosyncratic technical work on oddball (often custom) hardware, in unusual environments.
The “cloud” exists somewhere, the physical relay nodes through which it’s accessed exist throughout our urban and non-urban geographic environment. Nowadays many technical people can rely on more and more abstracted interactions, but the fact will always remain that someone somewhere has to build, install, maintain, upgrade and innovate invent the physical infrastructure hardware layer.
5 Likes
