Richard Sutherland's Framedeck Is a TRS-80 Model 100 Inspired Open Source Portable PC
Taking its cues from the past but with very modern innards, this eye-catching portable houses a Framework Mainboard SBC.
Richard Sutherland has put together an impressive fully-custom portable computer, inspired by laptops of the 1980s and early 1990s, with an ergonomic mechanical keyboard, trackball, transparent housing, and powerful Framework Mainboard innards: the Framedeck.
"It's my take on the slab style computers that were somewhat popular before the world settled on clamshell designs for portable computers," Sutherland explains of his retro-futuristic design. "I really wanted a TRS-80 Model 100 when I was young so this sort of design was a big influence."
The project began when Framework, fresh from its launch of the modular laptop which bears its name, was preparing to release the laptop's motherboard as a single-board computer dubbed the Mainboard. "They emailed me to see if I'd be interested in a collaboration of sorts," Sutherland explains.
"They would provide one of their laptops and some additional modules for me to build something unique with the only condition being that I released the designs for public use. So here we are!"
The portable system is housed in clear acrylic with brass, laser-cut and built up in layers. Inside is the Framework Mainboard, a powerful Intel-based single-board computer, and the official battery pack; to the top of the casing is a 7" full-color IPS display connected via a USB Type-C to HDMI cable, a repurposed Logitech trackball, and an eye-catching custom-built mechanical keyboard, which uses an angled and split ortholinear layout and an Elite-C microcontroller.
"The Mainboard is a great little unit, being a full Intel based system on a single board with great storage and memory expansion, decent on-board graphics and full power management," Sutherland notes.
"Since it was designed to fit into the laptop first and foremost, some of the connectors are fairly specialized, but with the pinouts available there are a lot of opportunities for expansion. The board also has four standard USB-C ports which provide many possibilities without even trying any of the other on-board connectors."
Sutherland isn't the only maker who's fallen in love with the Framework Mainboard: Last week we looked at Penk Chen's Mainboard Terminal, which uses the same single-board computer and an ortholinear keyboard but places it inside a very different 3D-printed housing with unusual circular display panel designed to mimic old computers built around CRT oscilloscope displays.
True to his word, Sutherland has published all parts of the project — from the bill of materials to laser-cut and 3D print files for the housing and Gerbers for the custom PCBs — to his GitHub repository under the permissive MIT license.