mntmn @mntmn@mastodon.social

MNT Reforms going out tomorrow

notice

the above calculation doesn't include any downtime due to holidays, life events getting in the way etc. problems with parts have to be worked around quickly, consumables restocked and the shop run; existing customers supported, R&D continued.

we also ship other products, like an amiga graphics card, in parallel. it requires a great deal of resilience to pull it off. your patience and support goes a long way to make this all work!

now consider that the money coming into the crowd supply campaign is already spent, because crowd supply have pre-purchased a number of laptops to make the scale work. margins had to include enough runway for us to be able to actually survive while making and shipping them.

you might think we're slow, but think again! (1/3)

if we want to ship 25 laptops/wk, it means (simplified) with 2 people working on this 40h/wk each and one 20h/wk to cover all required skills to assemble, flash, test, package, export: each unit can get max 4h of attention so everything has to go smoothly for this to work out.

the MNT Reform campaign just cracked $400k. thank you for your incredible support everyone ;_;

we are working hard on assembling and shipping these in a team of 3. we completed a bit more than 100 devices so far.

MNT Reforms ready for testing and soon going out to non-EU countries

made some weird music today

with latest mesa from git (without any additional patches), 3D rendering in KiCAD is now perfect on MNT Reform/i.MX8MQ. the last missing feature was GL_ALPHA_TEST support.

cyber

work in progress on Kintex-7 FPGA based module with 2GB DDR3 and PHYs/transceivers for DSI, HDMI, Ethernet and USB3/2 (and PCIe via GTX). the last 20% are, as always, the hardest/most time consuming part.

amazing work: Genode Sculpt OS running with graphics on MNT Reform https://genodians.org/skalk/2021-06-03-mnt-reform

Ana created the industrial design of MNT Reform. Greta and Magda are both fashion designers by training and are currently working on assembling all the devices. Greta was heavily involved in getting all parts production ready and designed the sleeve. Magda made all sleeves.

Pocket Reform prototyping session with ana

from left to right: Magda, Ana, me and Greta of the MNT Reform team in Berlin. (and Tina the dog)

this thursday and friday (june 3/4), MNT Reform and its prototypes will be exhibited by industrial designer Ana Beatriz Dantas as part of Berlin Design Week at MotionLab Berlin: https://berlindesignweek.com/event/berlin-design-week-21-at-motionlab-berlin/?lang=en

(negative COVID test required at entrace)

btw there are already many great hints & tricks regarding MNT Reform at https://community.mnt.re/

always worth a look!

MNT Reform Kintex-7 FPGA module work-in-progress

RISC OS is the first alternative operating system i booted on MNT Reform after Linux. it was the OS originally developed for ARM processors by Acorn. as you can see, it can still run BBC BASIC from 1989! thanks michael grunditz for making it possible a few months ago.

here are 1500+ uncensored "behind the scenes" photos and videos of our work at MNT Research (some stuff going back to 2015) including MNT Reform and Amiga graphics card prototypes. the first bunch are unsorted (no date), but then reverse chronological https://photos.mntre.com/s/3rxfu2qu3t/aqtnzge3l1zz410l