AVR Laptop Pushes the Limits of 8-Bit

If you saw a device that had a laptop form factor playing sound and video, alt-tabbing over to play a game or take some notes, then back to the video …. AVR Laptop Pushes the Limits of 8-Bit. If you learned the heart of this machine was an Arduino-compatible AVR microcontroller board, you’d probably do the same spit-take we did.

Well, put down your coffee, because [Vladimir]’s AVR Laptop project really is that impressive. The micro at the heart of this amazing laptop is an ATmega2560. That’s a pretty powerful chip by 8-bit microcontroller standards, but it’s still an 8-bit microcontroller, so getting the FreeRTOS-based system and all of the functions he wants onboard took some careful coding.

The ST7920 128×64 monochrome LCD isn’t being driven by any standard library, for example — [Vladimir] built his own driver that does only what he wants. Even in 1-bit color, getting 24 fps video playback was a challenge, especially with sound, and the write-up gets into how that was accomplished. The code is pending review before release, but we do look forward to seeing how he pulled it all off.