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This page describes one possible design for the Includer, the LaptopMotherboardIncluder.
By Ricardo June 6, 2008 10:26 CET (see my profile page for links to my other pages)
Concept - A Desktop Computer using a Laptop Motherboard 
Fig 1 - The Parts: A Laptop Motherboard, to go into a Desktop PC case.
The concept is, that the LaptopMotherboardIncluder would look like a Desktop PC, built from a Desktop PC Case, containing a low-power Laptop Motherboard.
It has the advantage that people without mains electricty could use it. It would run on battery power. The motherboard could be powered by a laptop battery or car/motorbike battery.
The Laptop Motherboards are light-weight (maybe 100 - 200 Grams) and therefore they're cheap to post from Europe, if not available locally in Africa. Posting just the laptop motherboard would be much cheaper than posting a compete complete 3KG laptop at $40 per KG.
The case can be an ordinary new/old desktop PC case, without the expensive and heavy 240V AC/DC Power Supply. If neccessary, it could use a homemade wood/metal/plastic case, to reduce the cost.
The laptop/car/motorbike battery could be taken to a place with mains electricity for re-charging. Alternatively, you could use a small solar re-charger at home/office (about $40). A small, low-cost solar panel may take all day (10 hours) to recharge the battery, to give 1 hours use, but far cheaper than a large solar panel.
This Includer could be used Offline, read/writing files to flash-drive and using a Sneakernet service for communications. Alternatively, it could be used online. For internet-access, it could use a GPRS phone like any PC/Laptop. The Laptop Motherboard PC Card/PCMCIA slot also makes possible the use of a laptop 3G/GPRS/EDGE Modem Card ($60 in the UK). You just add a local GPRS-enabled SIM Card.
I think this design meets all the Includer requirements :-
- It allows people to read/write text-files (and much more).
- It has USB Host Capability, to control peripherals (like any laptop or PC).
- It can read/write files to/from USB Flash Drives (for Sneakernets, where people don't have or can't afford GPRS internet-access by phone).
- It's fairly cheap (not 'calculator prices', but it could use a lot of old, cheap second-hand parts and even a homemade case).
Customers People would see this as a 'Real Computer', so the customer-base could include the same sorts of people as buy PCs and Laptops :-
Some users may want it for the low power aspect to save money on electricity, keep working during power-failures, or to operate in areas with no mains 240V electricity.
Assembly Work This design could provide a little 'light-assembly' work for local people, building cases and fitting all the components together. No doubt there would be a lot installation and maintenance work too.
- The assembly-workers could go on to learn about Laptop Repairs.
- Profits from sales could pay for computers for social-projects.
I think this is a project that MS members in Africa could take a 'lead design role' on.
The design is highly adaptable, like Desktop PCs. It's an 'Open Design', like the original IBM PC XT was. People in Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda, etc, can easily change any part of the design, to use whatever parts are available locally or appear in adverts online each month.
You aren't limited to laptop components from one manufacturer, like Toshiba, HP, Dell, etc. You can use common desktop components and include USB peripherals externally or fitted in the case driver-bays.
The design work doesn't require a lot of electronic-design knowledge. It's at the level of 'plugging modules together'. That's something many computer users know already, could learn quickly from the internet, or ask friends about.
Changing the design doesn't need professional electronic design engineers, like a PDA-style Includer might need.
Remember that the Includer idea isn't a competition with one winning Includer design and the other designs rejected. Two or three designs of Includer can be developed and marketed at the same time.
Most of the items are the same as Desktop PCs and therefore locally available, so that keeps the shipping cost of component-parts down. For example these items are availble in Tanzania/Kenya/Uganda etc.
- PC Cases (with front/back panels for USB, sound, etc).
- CD/DVD-ROM Drives
- USB Keyboard
- USB Mouse
- Hard disk
If there are big price differences between Africa and Europe, some of the lighter-weight items could be posted to Africa, without too high a postage cost.
Most laptop motherboards have integrated sound-card, graphics, and ethernet, so you don't need seperate cards for these.
Monitor You may ask "Don't we need a Laptop LCD display for a laptop motherboard?"
These can be big, expensive and fragile-to-ship.
Actually, if we choose the right laptop motherboard, many of them, in addition to a connector for an LCD display, also have a standard SVGA Monitor output connector (for a CRT or LCD monitor) and some have TV-Out too (composite video), if you want to save money by using an old TV as a display.
The Composite Video TV-Out signal connects to modern TVs or you can add a small, cheap modulator box to convert it to an ordinary RF TV Signal, for TVs that only have an RF Antenna/Aerial Input.
If money is very, very limited, the SVGA or TV-Out signals could go to a small 10cm - 15cm LCD panel, like we researched for original PDA-style Includer, or to a Digital Photo Frame with TV-In (3.5 inch, 5 inch or 7 inch display). Any monitor/TV mustn't require mains electricity. It must run from re-chargeable batteries (the laptop battery, car-battery or it's own AA/AAA re-chargeable batteries).
Shipping Charges for the Laptop Motherboards A major reason for suggesting this design is that laptop motherboards are quite light-weight, so it's cheap to ship them from the UK/Europe to Africa (maybe $10 by airmail for a 0.5KG motherboard). All the other components are available locally in Africa.
In contrast, it's quite expensive to ship complete laptops from Europe to Africa (say $120 for a 3KG laptop by airmail).
Parcels under 2KG are $20 per KG by Royal Mail airmail, but parcels over 2KG have to go by Parcelforce airmail at twice the price, $40 per KG.
Diskless Workstations that Boot from Network To save money, a network of these LaptopMotherboardIncluder PCs could be built as 'Diskless Workstations'. They would boot up their operating system from a Server PC's hard drive. The BIOS just needs setting to 'Boot from Network' (using the laptop motherboard's Ethernet Interface). This saves the expense of a Hard Drive and CD/DVD-Drive on each PC, they could all use the resources of the server PC. After boot-up, they look just like any other PC. File's would be stored on the server hard drive, in a logical drive (reserved area of disk) D:, E:, etc, for each PC.
 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_booting
Cost The cost would be about the same as a refurbished PC or building your own PC from old parts. The reason for building it is not to save money, it's to get an ultra-low-power PC that works from batteries, for people without mains electricity.
Laptop Motherboards are available by mail-order from major cities in Africa or internationally, from the UK, Europe, USA, Taiwan, etc.
Although new laptop motherboards may be quite expensive, 5-year old, second-hand motherboards area available for about $40, some including the processor at that price. A typical board has a 700Mhz to 1GHz processor and 128MB or 256MB RAM, adequate for Windows XP.
The motherboard may include RAM or you may have to pay extra for it. This may be obvious, but you need check prices for RAM before buying the motherboard. New RAM modules are quite cheap, but RAM for old laptops can be difficult to get hold of, and expensive.
It may be possible for Computer Recycling Organisations/friends/partners in USA/Europe to salvage laptop motherboards from non-working laptops and ship them to Africa. Laptops are often sold with adverts saying 'for spares and repairs only'. They don't work as complete system, but the motherboard may work.
Perhaps these organisations could ship 'kits of parts', not a full set, just the laptop motherboard, battery, charger, etc, that aren't available locally, and are light enough to ship at low-cost.
eWaste We don't want to ship electronic waste from USA/Europe to AFrica (non-working or untested parts), as facilities for safe disposal may not be available. So, it would be a good idea to have a test-rig to test laptop motherboards and batteries before shipping.
- EndeavorLeader=Ricardo
- EndeavorTeam=
- EndeavorSummary=To describe the LaptopMotherboardIncluder, a variant of the Includer in the form of a Desktop PC case and Laptop Motherboard. It provides a Desktop Computer that works on battery power, for areas without mains electricity.
- PageByRicardo=To describe the LaptopMotherboardIncluder, a variant of the Includer in the form of a Desktop PC case and Laptop Motherboard. It provides a Desktop Computer that works on battery power, for areas without mains electricity.
- FlashDriveEditor=A variant of the Includer in the form of a Desktop PC case and Laptop Motherboard. It provides a Desktop Computer that works on battery power, for areas without mains electricity.
- FlashDriveEditorTask=Think through the LaptopMotherboardIncluder design and try it out.
Sat, 07 Jun 2008 05:20:36 UTC AndriusKulikauskas: Ricardo, your wonderfully creative! Thank you.
Wed, 11 Jun 2008 12:48:53 UTC Hi ricardo,this idea is wondrful,let me see what i can do
Fri, 13 Jun 2008 19:21:41 UTC JosephatNdibalema: Hi Ricardo,you really impress me with your wonderful ideas,good work
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