Hi all ive been looking for a project to keep me busy and id love to have an ipad so ive decided to make my own tablet pc from scratch. im not sure about how to go about it, ive made pcs before but not one to run off a battery and also i dont know how to configure a touchscreen screen. it would be cool aswell if anybody had some info on setting up an accelerometer so it would rotate the screen. i have other questions but lets start with this thanks in advance
hi that's a cool idea! i too was thinking of making something like that... initially i thought it was going to be easy: just get indivisual parts like processor, touchscreen, blah blah... and integrate them, but later i realised that it's going to take a lot more than that. what should the estimate price be? something like $200 should be reasonable...
you can buy one which works way cheaper.. "a processor" .. have you looked inside a computer like ever??? start with an old laptop.. get a touchscreen gel and reverse the screen over the keyboard (interface????.. doubtful.. might find a usb one) .. there.. 90% done.. then install an operating system with touchscreen capabilities..... as for your estimate.. $200 .. a screen alone will cost that .. more like $500-700 .. you can't buy parts at anything like the prices manufacturers can.
You are talking about a very large, slow, expensive unit if you want to build it from scratch. Also, you say you have made PCs before...if you did not solder your own mainboards together, then this is a whole other game. You can get touchscreen add-on parts for most netbooks. You could get a netbook, add one of these, and then make a custom case that is essentially like having the netbook closed, but with the screen flipped the other way.
Good to see there are other like me... I too wanted to build my own tablet PC and I'm getting there... Check out my blog: http://kcsraju.blogspot.com/2011/01/mytab.html I used Gumstix overo as the processor, storage and WIFI and built an expansion board for it. It's not cheap though, i haven't done the math yet but certainly doesn't work out around $200!!! Now, I'm thinking of making a case for my tablet from scratch as well... just don't know where to start yet.
This will be really time consuming for you and likely to cost a lot more than simply buying a new one, however it will definitely keep you busy if thats what your after, good luck with the project!
This will be really time consuming for you and likely to cost a lot more than simply buying a new one, however it will definitely keep you busy if thats what your after, good luck with the project!
