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Framework Laptop 16

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Re: Framework Laptop 16

#341

Post by kmeisthax »

JoshTriplett wrote: post #233
kmeisthax wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's been discussion of multi-port cards for a while. The main problem is how many different things you can shove on top of USB-C: - USB 2/3 - Power delivery - DisplayPort[0] - PCI Express - Analog audio - USB4 You need some kind of chip that can negotiate two ports' worth of that nonsense and appropriately multiplex them into the correct set of altmodes on the interior port. Some of them have readily available an…

A USB-C plus USB-A expansion card would only need to support any of those on USB-C. That'd be substantially simpler.

So, there isn't enough internal volume to fit an A and C port in the same slot. Ports require more volume than they appear. But I'll interpret this to mean: "why can't we have one USB-C port with all the altmodes and another with just USB 2 or 3, no altmodes, no power/data role swaps, etc".

USB 2 is possible, for some really dumb reasons. USB-IF actually prohibits repurposing the USB 2 pins for other purposes in USB 3.x capable connectors; effectively making it a separate bus from everything else. So you can route the USB2 pins on both C connectors to a hub chip and route everything else from the "privileged" port to the inner port. You will still need some kind of power mux so that the USB 2 port still gets power regardless of what port holds the power role.

This technically breaks the USB-IF rules[1] because you aren't supposed to disassociate the USB2 and 3.x pins like that. In practice as long as every device sees either just 2.0 or both 2.0 and 3.x pins, it's fine.

USB 3 onwards is a problem because of altmodes. The 3.x pins are officially referred to as "high-speed lanes" in the USB-C spec, because there's two of them and they don't have to carry USB 3.x. Every altmode[0] exclusively repurposes the high-speed lanes for some other kind of traffic. So USB 3 is effectively an altmode in and of itself. If you put a USB3 hub on those pins, then you lose altmodes, unless you have that magic hub silicon that doesn't exist that I mentioned in the parent comment.

[0] The USB2 lanes are forbidden to be reused by altmodes. Which is why VirtualLink is incredibly cursed.

[1] Yes I actually have mentioned this sort of thing in the Framework forums, no they won't actually sell a card like that. Consider it an EE exercise for curious Framework users.

Re: Framework Laptop 16

#342

Post by tamirzb »

kuschku wrote: post #146
Snuupy wrote: post #83

for the 16": - I would love an option to have upwards firing speakers where flex/numpad space goes instead (one on each side). - please improve the bass in the speakers. according to notebookcheck's review, framework speakers have poor/near 0 bass output. - please offer either a 1080p or 4k screen option on the 16". 1440p-ish screens with DPI scaling hackery is no fun and often leads to blurry UIs.

> DPI scaling hackery Under X11 with KDE, or under Windows, that's no problem whatsoever. 144dpi isn't any more hacky than 96dpi or 192dpi. It's only macOS, Gnome and Wayland that require 1x or 2x scaling (which is absolutely mind-bogglingly ridiculous, and anyone that contributed to that or encouraged that should be banned from ever touching UI code again).

I'm not sure what issues in Wayland you're talking about. I've been using sway with fractional scaling for a few years now and never really had any problems.

Re: Framework Laptop 16

#343

Post by ris58h »

wkat4242 wrote: post #295
ris58h wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unpopular opinion: we shouldn't use F-keys at all except for old software like Midnight Commander. Alphanumeric shortcuts and Key Sequences should be used instead. http://xahlee.info/kbd/banish_key_chords.html

I totally disagree. I think direct shortcut keys without difficult to remember combinations are much preferable to me. And also much handier (e.g. when drinking something you can press a single button with the other hand). For this reason I also use the big old 100% keyboards with numpads, and I remap the entire numpad to other functions such as a 3x3 desktop switcher. For me there can't be enough dedicated keys. By…

Dedicated keys (F-keys or numpad keys) are harder to reach from homerow. There is limited number of such keys and usually that number is less then number of available functions/commands so not-enough-keys problem persists.

Re: Framework Laptop 16

#344

Post by JoshTriplett »

kmeisthax wrote: post #341
JoshTriplett wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A USB-C plus USB-A expansion card would only need to support any of those on USB-C. That'd be substantially simpler.

So, there isn't enough internal volume to fit an A and C port in the same slot. Ports require more volume than they appear. But I'll interpret this to mean: "why can't we have one USB-C port with all the altmodes and another with just USB 2 or 3, no altmodes, no power/data role swaps, etc". USB 2 is possible, for some really dumb reasons. USB-IF actually prohibits repurposing the USB 2 pins for other purposes in USB…

Thank you for the detailed comment!

You'd definitely need a smart hub chip, yeah. But I don't think you need all the altmodes. No analog audio, for instance. Primarily Thunderbolt, and power.

I'm interested in the volume question; what makes USB-A and USB-C unable to both physically fit in the space no matter how creative you get?

Re: Framework Laptop 16

#345

Post by anotheryou »

anotheryou wrote: post #325

I want a stand-alone qmk ultra flat chicklet keyboard! Does anyone know what the protocol they use is? I'd assume for the keyboard it might be usb. So maybe all I'd need is to solder a flex-adapter to a usb plug and 3D print a case.

Looks to be standard USB 2.0, just a special connector and a few extra pins I'd probably don't need.

https://github.com/FrameworkComputer/InputModules

Re: Framework Laptop 16

#346

Post by jareds »

microtherion wrote: post #336
jareds wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who's blind and wants a lot of CPU performance but doesn't care about the GPU I appreciate this. I'm torn between a desktop and a laptop when replacing my current 8 year old desktop. I'm hoping that I will be able to configure this laptop with something more powerful then the current Framework CPU's. Given the fact that I only travel two or three weeks a year it would be nice to have this act as a desktop…

I don't know anything about your specific situation, needs, and preferences, but GPUs are not self evidently useless for blind users. In some systems, they can contribute to higher quality speech synthesis. They could also have a role to play in vision support tasks (e.g. determining whether you're properly positioned in front of your webcam in a video chat, or recognizing and describing something you're holding up t…

Can you post info about them contributing to speech synthesis? I use NVDA as my screen reader with the built-in espeak synthesizer. I've been using synthetic speech so long I find I don't want natural sounding voices, I prefer more robotic sounding ones since I can listen to them at a faster rate. Vision tasks is a good point but not something that applies to me. I almost never use a webcam on my personal computer. I use my iPone for OCR although I could see a webcam being useful for OCR in some cases.

Re: Framework Laptop 16

#347

Post by jareds »

lostlogin wrote: post #335
jareds wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who's blind and wants a lot of CPU performance but doesn't care about the GPU I appreciate this. I'm torn between a desktop and a laptop when replacing my current 8 year old desktop. I'm hoping that I will be able to configure this laptop with something more powerful then the current Framework CPU's. Given the fact that I only travel two or three weeks a year it would be nice to have this act as a desktop…

Are you able to explain what and how you use your laptop? I saw someone blind using an iPhone one and it utterly blew me away - I also had no idea what they were doing, as they were hitting buttons before text yo speech had finished.

I use https://www.nvaccess.org/ to read what's on the screen in synthetic speech.

Re: Framework Laptop 16

#348

Post by Aachen »

zerocrates wrote: post #259
Aachen wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What 16:9 is good for? It is inconvenient for any work: for coding, reading articles or working with documents more height is better. Is it? Gee, I wonder why it's the only screen ratio I've seen people use since we moved away from CRT screens until a few years ago when 4k and friends became popular and there was suddenly no standard resolution to expect anymore. Curious that we're all using this inferior ratio for…

Hmm, is that actually true? My recollection of widescreen PC monitors and laptops is that they all started at 16:10, and the shift to 16:9 came later (and is now reversing somewhat).

You may be right, I don't have good memories from the late CRT / early flat-screen era (I must have been 13 or something). Now that you mention it, I think my first flat screen monitor might have been 1440x900 / 16:10. I'm sure that my screen has been 1080p "full HD" since ~2007 because I still use that screen as my primary monitor. Whether I had one in between those two, I don't remember.

Re: Framework Laptop 16

#349

Post by joombaga »

BadBadJellyBean wrote: post #283
mymythisisthis wrote: post #281

I like having 2 drives. This seems to only have a slot for one drive? It doesn't take too long until you end up with TBs of stuff.

You can put storage in one or more of the 4 expansion slots on the sides.

There are 6 slots on the 16.

Re: Framework Laptop 16

#350

Post by wkat4242 »

ris58h wrote: post #343
wkat4242 wrote: post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I totally disagree. I think direct shortcut keys without difficult to remember combinations are much preferable to me. And also much handier (e.g. when drinking something you can press a single button with the other hand). For this reason I also use the big old 100% keyboards with numpads, and I remap the entire numpad to other functions such as a 3x3 desktop switcher. For me there can't be enough dedicated keys. By…

Dedicated keys (F-keys or numpad keys) are harder to reach from homerow. There is limited number of such keys and usually that number is less then number of available functions/commands so not-enough-keys problem persists.

True but at least 10 (or more on many keyboards!) important functions can be reached without hand gymnastics.

Frequent used functions like copy/paste should always have had dedicated keys for example.

And the home row thing is not something I care about. I don't type so much that it really matters.

But anyway like I said these things are really about preference.

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