Glass, screen assemblies, and specific hardware components aside...
It is doable..

the back...the body....non electronic ...non component parts ...yes
It is doable.
That is why it is called a "chassis" ..
A chassis is the body..
"the outer structural framework of a piece of vehicular, audio, radio, or computer equipment."
If you mean other than the "chassis" ...then use the according word referring to OTHER than the chassis

Also I suggest trying to read the full post.
It need not be made from an "exotic" material.
Resins are cheaper than manufactured plastics and more durable...with more option to introduce foreign products into them if desired..

I did not miss "any" point ...
"Mate"

what @paspie means is that you have to make it all, since Neo900 only provides the populated main circuit board.

This all means the plastic parts of the outer shell, what you have recreated in antler resin, plus all the other parts;

• battery and battery enclosure with connectors
• slider mechanism with all the tiny mechnical parts
• keyboard with keymat, switch-assembly and the internal parts and the keyboard PCB with backlights
• display and digitizer with the display assembly mechanical and electronic parts
• speaker and microphone parts and assembly
• connectors, buttons and switches
• etc etc ...

It is not an easy task, since some parts just are not manufactured any longer, like the display asembly with digitizer.
How are you going to solve that one, hmm?

I answered exactly to what was stated.

" There's more than that, there's the 1GHz processor which is...good enough, and there's LTE capability on top of that. And it's about as libre as mobile hardware can get, with the baseband firmware isolated from the CPU. The only trade offs are a slightly thicker phone, they want to put a spacer piece under the bezel to accommodate the parts. The device will also have to run without 3D acceleration, which means no finger swiping or scrolling.

Once this project is concluded however, the real challenge will be to redesign the N900 and produce a new chassis; the community can't survive on existing chassis' alone. "


Where in any of that...
do you read about the need for anything ....
but the need for a chassis ...juice?

I answered.


Then he piled a bunch of fabricated needed bullsh@t on top.

after the fact.

I have zero bulls@t tolerance.
It's a waste of time.

Yes, I see the problematic word here is "chassis" which @paspie used carelessly.

What he should have said is something like "it will be a huge problem when we run out of usable N900 devices to cannibalize for Neo900 parts since the project only provides the populated motherboard"

yes.

different issue entirely than the one stated.

to which the answer is....

even more definitively ...it still won't happen.

No small or large company will do it for the numbers of neo900's there will be to service...
for the expected low number of devices...
a few hundred at best...
it won't happen.

everyone here understands the industry enough to know that.
sourcing parts...the time and labour..
it just isn't feasible.

Long term ...
essentially what everyone will end up having is failing n900 parts and components ...and a very expensive ...very unique BB-esque / Pi-esque board...
to which.. folks will have to cobble whatever they can together to make functional.

I am sure that will be doable...
but in the end ..
I doubt it will be anything like a sleek and pocket size portable smartphone in shape after all the parts that will need replacing.

and that is just the beginning of the problems.

then there is the community...
what community there will be..
of at best a few hundred ...
keeping a community of that size alive..
will be well nigh impossible..
let alone keeping an os running for those numbers ..
or software devel for those numbers

If the goal is for the neo to be open and free...it will succeed I have no doubt.

If the goal is for the neo to be the next gen of n900...
yet again ...it will succeed ...
and be the last of it's kind.
On the fact that... n900 parts will become extinct.

and if the goal is for the neo to be the next gen for maemo to work on...(along with running other os's of course..)...

then it will be the last device to run maemo.

With everyone else using failing original n900's ...
and n900's cobbled together from scavenged n900 parts..
and only a lucky rare few hundred who can afford to have the next gen. maemo compatible device...
then the maemo majority will dissapear..
and the small number of neo900 end users will bottleneck the maemo platform to oblivion.

To be affordable and competitive and have a future...
the neo900 must adopt a methodology similar to the pi or the pocketchip...more affordable production ...means more end users...means a larger more vibrant and healthy community ...which sustains the desire of the enduser to stay and new folks to join.

other hopes for maemo may work....on other devices...
I do hope so...anyway.

None of what I have just said is meant to be fear mongering or defeatist...
bigger companies, more popular devices, with a larger community number base...have fallen....due to not looking at the issues holistically ..but rather singularly.

between the numbers, the stats and the odds...
and the specifics of the situation for the n900 users...
the makers of the neo900...and it's end users..
and the maemo community..
If we all don't tackle the slow-mo crisis ...holistically .. (the norm being 1 thing/ area/ topic/ being the important thing and all others being not relevant ..)...

then the situation will continue to unfold for us all...
regardless of what we have or are running.

Why? You only make yourself feel worse...if there was any perceived disdain in post #2951 it's because I find your posts incredibly difficult to read and process. You don't need so many line breaks, most of your comments could be condensed into three-four paragraphs.

I thought the language "redesign the N900" was broad enough. The blueprints of the original N900, even if they were available, wouldn't be desirable as ideally the proposed spacer would be integrated into a larger plastic piece. Either that or the internals would be completely redesigned to make the device smaller.

"perceived disdain"?
I truly don't want you put out concerning how I write..
I suggest that instead of focusing on my sentence structure and how I write.
how about focusing on your own understanding of what a "chassis" is...
perhaps take a course ...
take a few..
perhaps a couple in etiquette and manners while you are at it.

could we please stop this right now? I want this thread to stay a friendly place.

Many thanks!

[edit] pretty much all of the points in last 20some posts have been covered/answered in this very thread. Please use the forum's search function to find out before iterating it again while introducing new incorrect assumptions. Most been correct but some statements sounded ambiguous at best. Yes there's a gap somwhere from maybe 400 to 2000 N900 "mech part" sets, where sourcing N900 gets difficult and producing new parts is not economically feasible yet.. Again, please see this very thread, it been discussed comprehensively. For new Industrial Design with possibly beter hw see STEP2, which always been the (surprisingly named) planned next step after Neo900, with an option for Neo900 owners to trade in their device for a substantial rebate on next device (though I guess few will really want to do that ;-D )

/j

Given how long we have to wait for "step 1" to complete, I also guess few will want to do that (I donated November 2013, almost 4 years ago ;-D as stated in http://neo900.org/faq , the 2% monthly interest rate has already almost tripled my initial donation). I can wait some more time if it makes me get the device without paying anything more than I already have long time ago ;-D At this time, it will be just a toy anyway (I've already switched to something else for serious work, and await gpd pocket and dragonbox pyra more than neo900, as they either already delivered or have almost fully working prototypes and "see the light at the end of the tunnel") - sorry, but I had to add that.

When having to say that, you shouldn't miss to also mention that we been waiting for Pyra freeing up our original layouter Nikolaus again, which never happened since he "burned out" with Pyra. Not trying to do fingerpointing but if we had the support and funds Pyra had, from beginning, we could have kept Nikolaus busy with Neo900 and no need/chance for him switching to working on Pyra instead, to start with.

And obviously since Neo900 is the very first such project we do, you rather may compare us to Pandora than to Pyra, and I'd hope that _our_ 2nd similar project "STEP2" will not suffer same amount of delays from "first need to find out _how_, or _who_, to accomplish that" as we seem with Neo900 1st