A self-powered computer in actual credit-card size (~1mm thick) | Hacker News Reader

A self-powered computer in actual credit-card size (~1mm thick)

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100 pointsgnabgib13 comments

Reminds me of the REX PDA.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/REX_6000

I still have one. Sadly, not really useful anymore.

I really wanted one in the late 90s. They’re still available in sealed boxes on eBay, amazingly enough.

I’m tempted to pick up one and see if I can reverse engineer the serial protocol, to make it interoperate with something more modern.

The protocol was reverse engineered. I remember a Tcl program that sent calendars and schedules to the device.

There's much more information in the linked github repo at https://github.com/krauseler/muxcard

It even includes an eInk display as well as the battery.Insane, but really impressive.

Slight clarification: It’s battery powered and has no energy generation or harvesting capability.

If we're going to gatekeep "self-powered" this hard, might as well clarify that energy cannot be created.

Let be honest though. Do you really consider something like your phone "self powered"? I know I wouldn't. My light switches that are powered by the click, those I would.

Pfft, this thread got derailed rather quickly; Lets get it back on track! I welcome our new Credit Card sized computer overlords.

I would pay dearly for a credit card sized eink display, that could feed HN, from Wifi, and even with a 2Lb lead acid battery, it would be a joy, and head and shoulders above my current ball and chain type android cell phone.

Make it so.

I thought it was going to be like a solar powered calculator

I feel like “slight clarification” and “gatekeeping … this hard” are at opposite ends of the pedantry scale and I didn’t say it wasn’t “self-powered”, I merely clarified its capabilities.

Now just needs an x86 simulator port.[0]

[0] : https://86box.net/

Doom runs on ARM.

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