<story><title>Balthazar Personal Computing Device, a 13” RISC-V laptop</title><url>https://balthazar.space/wiki/Balthazar</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>duskwuff</author><text>In case it wasn&amp;#x27;t clear to anyone: this is a product &lt;i&gt;very&lt;/i&gt; early in the planning phase, to the extent that many of the features are unspecified (no processor has been chosen, they aren&amp;#x27;t even certain on whether it&amp;#x27;ll be RISC-V or ARM), underspecified to the point of being unintelligible (&amp;quot;detachable USB gender-changer dongle&amp;quot;), or outright ridiculous (SSH-based communications between the keyboard and CPU).&lt;p&gt;I wouldn&amp;#x27;t hold my breath waiting for a product here. This does not have the smell of success on it.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>mkl</author><text>Yes.  While it sounds impressive, it seems more like a fantasy jumble of every desirable feature they can think of than an actual plan.&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;Keyboard is QUERTY&amp;quot;.  How do you misspell &amp;quot;QWERTY&amp;quot;?  Yet I&amp;#x27;m hoping they did.&lt;p&gt;They seem to be hoping for a Pixel Qi style screen (but self-developed?), but describe its reflective mode as: &amp;quot;A non-reflective - a button driven backlight “off” monochrome mode for very low-power use in sunlight&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;Confusion between trackpoint and trackball: &amp;quot;track-point ball&amp;quot;</text></comment>
<story><title>Balthazar Personal Computing Device, a 13” RISC-V laptop</title><url>https://balthazar.space/wiki/Balthazar</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>duskwuff</author><text>In case it wasn&amp;#x27;t clear to anyone: this is a product &lt;i&gt;very&lt;/i&gt; early in the planning phase, to the extent that many of the features are unspecified (no processor has been chosen, they aren&amp;#x27;t even certain on whether it&amp;#x27;ll be RISC-V or ARM), underspecified to the point of being unintelligible (&amp;quot;detachable USB gender-changer dongle&amp;quot;), or outright ridiculous (SSH-based communications between the keyboard and CPU).&lt;p&gt;I wouldn&amp;#x27;t hold my breath waiting for a product here. This does not have the smell of success on it.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>arduinomancer</author><text>There&amp;#x27;s gotta be some reasoning behind those but when you put it that way it sounds like some hilarious marketing speak.&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;We&amp;#x27;re putting blockchain technology in the trackpad&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;Machine learning in the power button&amp;quot;</text></comment>