Multiarchitecture Framework Laptop

Two years ago, I had a delusional dream of an OpenPower Framework laptop being released one day. As expected, ARM and RISC-V architecture overshadowed the enthusiast market with a RISC-V by DeepComputing and now an ARM by MetaComputing mainboard being released for the Framework 13 Laptop. Yet there has been no progress to an affordable enthusiast POWER nor SPARC laptop and desktop. The PC NoteBook project that I have been supporting financialy over the years has made some positive progress after shifting their focus to a working desktop first. By focusing on a working desktop, it allowed the team to reduce the problem to just having a working PCB. But alas, no affordable modern POWER machine will be available in the near future.

Watching Jeff Geerling’s video for the ARM mainboard made me think it would be a perfect project for hardware interns + newhires of IBM and Oracle respectively to task them to make a working prototype for the Framework 13. I definitely was not thinking of this as I passed IBM on my way to work. Though that campus has no relation with the IBM POWER and Telium design team if I recalled correctly. From what I recalled, IBM Canada was purely software work particularly in databases. data analytics, compilers, and other software services.

On another note, I recently found out that s390x and Telium chips run on Mainframes, not POWER, at least not any modern mainframes. POWER are used in servers. All these years I thought POWER was also used in mainframes … I told many folks the wrong information … oh well at least I now know.

Though to be realistic, I have no use for an ARM, RISCV, nor a POWER system so it would be more of an expensive collection rather than something I would use. Thus its probably better for my wallet if I abstain from my temptation to collect any decently powered alternatives to AMD64 (x86-64) systems. I never used my collection of Raspberry Pi for its architecture anyways. Also if I was to buy an alternative to AMD64, I would prefer it to be big endian by default. Many architectures have shifted away from big endian including POWER due to software compatbility reasons but I think that would be the reason I would consider buying one. Not that I have much money as a student …

On a random note, Framework released two new products that interests me, the first being the Framework OCuLink Dev Kit which allows one to connect a desktop GPU to the laptop, and the other being a Wireless Touchpad Keyboard. I definitely had a need both at home and at work to debug issues and having 2 in one solution would have been useful for debugging purposes. Though these are products I would not purchase with my student income obviously.