The Ben NanoNote (officially the 本 NanoNote)[1] is a pocket computer using the Linux-based OpenWrtoperating system. An open-source hardware device developed by Qi Hardware, it has been called possibly "the world's smallest Linux laptop for the traditional definition of the word."[3] The device is also notable for being one of the first on the market made of entirely copyleft hardware.[4]
The computer takes its name from the Chinese character běn (本), translated as "an origin or the beginning place."[5]
History
Originally the hardware was developed by a third party as a digital dictionary. After the effort of several Qi Hardware developers, the design was freed as open source hardware while using free and open source software.
The product used to be manufactured by Qi hardware and Sharism At Work Ltd. As of 2011, more than 1,000 units had been sold.[6]
Software
The device is shipped with the OpenWrt software stack; the custom compilation includes a graphical menu called gmenu2x, with other graphical and command line applications available from the menu.[7]
After the 2010 Ben NanoNote introduction, reviewers praised its small size and low cost (US$99), but also criticized the device for its initial lack of networking and for its extremely modest data storage and random-access memory (RAM), relative to other contemporary devices.[4][12]
Product development
Because the device lacked wireless connectivity, implementing this was one of the first goals for the Qi Hardware movement. This add-on, the Ben WPAN, was developed by Werner Almesberger,[13][14][15][16][17] and consists of mainly an IEEE 802.15.4 subsystem, made of two boards: a USB dongle (ATUSB) connected to the computer and another card connected to the SDIO port of the device (ATBEN).
All source code, documentation and test procedures, software and hardware schematics are available under copyleft licenses.[18][19][17]
As the Ben NanoNote uses an Ingenic JZ4720 processor it supports booting from USB without use of the NAND flash memory.[24][25]
Derivatives
The SIE board is an adaptation of the NanoNote. It has twice the memory and features a XC3S Xilinx FPGA on board. It is based on the XBurst JZ4725 SoC, which has more I/O pins available due to not having a keyboard.[26][27]
