I have a confession to make!

Posted 2023-04-22 | Back to blog index

I have a confession to make!

About a month, ago, I bought my first Windows PC…

I've bought PC parts to build a Linux server once before but this is the first time buying a PC with a Windows license

I was at HARDOFF browsing and found this laptop for 500 yen and realized I only own one computer (and a Synology)

I bought it to have something to bring when I don't want to risk my $3000 MacBook Pro (like out drinking)

It came with no RAM/HDD but those were easy to find at the same store

The lid of small white a laptop and it says mouse computer with a wedge of cheese logo and a 500 yen price tag. There is also a label that says HDD メモリなし A small white laptop opened up revealing a small screen, a Japanese keyboard, and stickers saying Intel Atom inside and Designed for Windows XP A clear plastic drawer full of SODIMM RAM sticks with price tags in the rage of 100-300 yen A plastic drawer full of IDE hard disks priced at 500 yen

It didn't come with a power adapter and it took 20V so this is the jank setup I used to try it out the first time.

A cheap aliexpress bench power supply with alligator clips to a DC jack adapter (with paper in between to make sure it doesn't short out!)

And to feed my USB blu-ray drive with enough power to read a disk I needed to feed the extra USB plug using what I had at hand

A small white laptop running the Windows XP installer hooked up to a bench power supply with a USB optical drive attached with is also attached to a massive Anker battery

The machine is a “Mouse Computer LuvBook U100“ which is really just a rebadge of an MSI U100.

Another confession is that 90% of the reason I bought this was due to this series of ads…

https://youtu.be/FcixUj6H8Oo

The rockin keytaur one is especially nice https://youtu.be/HDPZo9U29lM

For practicality I bought a 20V USB-C PD DC trigger cable so I can use it with any well-specced USB-C power supply, and got a SATA/M2 adapter to replace the spinning disk with an SSD

I installed MXLinux to make it actually usable, but it still dual-boots Windows XP in case I want to try out some retro hardware with old drivers. It also runs Duke Nukem 3D

The original battery it came with lasts around 1 hour running Linux and browsing the web/light code editing. I bring my USB-C Anker battery…

The logic board of an MSI U100 revealing a SATA/M2 adapter and M2 SSD A small white laptop hooked up to a USB-C power supply running Windows XP with the about this computer screen open showing an Intel Atom CPU @ 1.6 GHz and 2 GB of RAM GRUB with the MX Linux theme and options to boot into MX Linux 21.3 Wildflower or Windows XP Home Edition

So now if I'm going to the park with the kids, or going out to hang out at a bar but want to be able to do some (non-Xcode) coding, I bring this with out having to worry. If a drink spills into it, the drink probably cost more than the PC

In this photo it was when I pulled the kids out of daycare on a weekday to go to the park since the sakura were in full bloom and the rest of the week it was going to rain (making the petals fall ending the season) but I still wanted to get some work done

A small white laptop on a camping table with sakura petals having fallen on the keyboard

One thing I need to do is double-sided tape the SSD down - it tends to work it's way out of the socket in my backpack!

A SATA to M2 adapter with the M2 at a jaunty angle

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