ARM motherboards

[Sameer Verma]

On Tue, Sep 4, 2012 at 9:43 PM, John Watlington <wad at laptop.org> wrote:
>
> On Sep 4, 2012, at 10:47 PM, Sameer Verma wrote:
>
>> Hi gang!
>>
>> http://blog.laptop.org/2012/09/04/are-you-working-with-xo-laptops-that-need-an-upgrade/
>>
>> So, is there a minimum number of motherboards that one has to buy?
>> Pricing?
>
> Both answers should be available from the email listed in the blog:
> countries at laptop.org.
>
>> Any other details?
>
> We've supported this from the beginning by design.   Kits have been available
> as spare parts for deployments to purchase.  Upgrading an XO-1 to an XO-1.5
> or higher motherboard requires the insertion of a small metal bracket to hold the
> WLAN card.   The XO-1.5/1.75 chassis are mechanically identical.
> Upgrading an earlier laptop to an XO-4 motherboard will require a
> small rubber piece inserted to change the size of one chassis hole
> from USB to micro HDMI.
>
> Unfortunately, the mechanics of XO-4 Touch mean it cannot be retrofitted.
> You can get the higher performance by upgrading to an XO-4, but sadly
> no multi-touch support.
>
> A kit includes all the parts needed to upgrade a particular laptop model.  In
> addition to a motherboard (if XO-4 with an internal connector missing)
> this generally includes a new heat spreader, a WLAN card (if needed), and
> conductive foam/tape as needed to improve the ESD shielding of the earlier
> chassis.   We do perform some testing of older laptops upgraded to each
> new motherboard design in order to construct appropriate upgrade kits.
>
> Cheers,
> wad
>
>
>

Thanks for the details.

I was walking through a replacement workflow in my mind for my Jamaica
and India projects, and I realized that if/once the upgrades are done,
one would be left with several older working motherboards. What's to
become of these? If someone could design a chassis to hold a bunch of
boards together...imagine a Beowulf cluster of these! (sorry, couldn't
resist).

"Is that a lunch box? No, it's my Beowolf cluster. Can I compute
something for you?"

cheers,
Sameer