I've wanted to build a modern M100 for a long time.
The big obstacle I always ran into was that there were no displays even
close in dimensions to the M100's.
Well... I just found a display on newegg. It's built into a sun visor,
however.
The overall dimensions are given as 14" x 5 3/4"... but that's for the
visor. The displays (there are two) are claimed to be 10.2". That means
probably about 9.34" wide x 4.5 - 5" high; maybe as little as 4" high.
This is a lot bigger than the original M100, but the M100 had its bezel
around it. A custom-built case (maybe 3d printed) would only have to be
a bit larger vertically to accommodate such a display. But it could be a
lot thinner, or carry one huge battery pack.
The display's resolution is 640 x 480, meaning a distorted aspect ratio.
But, it's 640 x 480; 80 x 25 text easily. It's refresh will be faster
than the original M100's.
So I'm thinking, cannibalize the M100's keyboard, build custom case, use
raspberry pi as replacement motherboard, maybe add an SSD. And a custom
UI based on the M100's shouldn't be too hard to cobble together for
Linux's text mode The most important things to me are the M100's slab
form factor, and fantastic keyboard.
Anyway, here's a link to the ad on Newegg. Maybe some of you hardware
gurus can take a look at the ad and share your opinions of such a project?
Car Sun Visor Monitors
<http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA1B12FH5133&cm_re=lcd_driver-_-9SIA1B12FH5133-_-Product>
Thanks for any knowledge you care to share!
