Minicomputer in Lego format: James Brown with other creations

Minicomputer in Lego format: James Brown with other creations


from Valentin Sattler
James Brown has continued to work on new versions since he first showed a functional terminal block minicomputer in June. There is now, among other things, a touch control variant and a completely new design with better graphics.

Clamping blocks, such as those offered by Lego, have always been an invitation to do handicrafts. But while most people use the bricks to build pre-designed or their own constructions, James Brown, who is active on Twitter, adapted the bricks himself without further ado. As we reported back in June, he built a tiny OLED display into a 2×2 Lego brick to bring the well-known Lego computers to life. But that was not the end of the project: since then, Brown has been working on other creations.

Control, Mark 2 and Grayscale

In June, Brown expanded the mini-computer with two electrical contacts on the two upper knobs, which act as a capacitive sensor. The built-in microcontroller can thus recognize when one of the knobs is touched and either exchange the animation shown on the display or operate a simple game. A few weeks later, Brown also showed three of the mini-computers side by side: two in a blue and one in a black brick.

In mid-July, Brown finally presented the “Mark II”: A redesign of the existing design, in which the inner frame is formed entirely of printed circuit boards. A new feature is a USB socket with which the device can be programmed without much effort. Existing features, such as the connection via battery socket and capacitive touch control, are still included – and additional improvements include better display control, which now also enables the display of gray values.

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Brown is still working on the mini-computer at the moment: just two days ago he showed a prototype that displayed a black and white image. Where the journey will take us in the future is not yet entirely clear – but theoretically it would also be possible to produce a larger number and thus sell them. At least for now, Brown doesn’t want to sell the stones. According to him, the building block is not yet mature enough, and there are also legal problems to consider. At least the Lego lettering, which was still visible on the knobs on earlier prototypes, would certainly have to go for a sale.

Source: via The Verge



Reference-www.pcgameshardware.de