Hackszine.com: As thin as the MacBook Air?

As thin as the MacBook Air?

One of my favorite old computers is making the news again--C|Net News.com reports that the Sharp Actius MM10 is most likely the thinnest notebook out there (seems pretty much a tie):

Back in the first years of the decade, Sharp released the Muramasas. Measuring 0.54 inch thick, the Actius MM10 Muramasa notebook, which hit shelves in 2003, came with a 1GHz Crusoe processor from Transmeta, 256MB of memory, a 15GB hard drive and a built-in Wi-Fi module. It ran 2.5 hours on a regular battery, and cost $1,499. Sharp also had a Mebius notebook in the Muramasa family that measured 0.65 inch thick.

In a strange coincidence, my XO laptop recently ordered me to install Linux on my MM10, so I dug it out of the closet, re-seated the hard drive (the case has never quite recovered from the time I installed a physically-too-large 40GB drive in it), and put xubuntu on it. What I'd like to find now is a 4GB or 8GB solid state drive in a package that's compatible with the Toshiba 1.8" IDE drive. Either that, or I need one of these: Compact Flash to 1.8" Toshiba HDD Adapter

Update: Thinnest notebook crown belongs to Sharp - Link

Here are some pictures of the MM10, including a few disassembly shots (go here if the slideshow doesn't load):

Posted by Brian Jepson | Jan 21, 2008 02:26 PM
Mac | Permalink | Comments (4)

Comments

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Posted by: jon on January 21, 2008 at 10:46 PM

http://cgi.ebay.com/CF-compact-flash-to-1-8-HDD-IDE-Adapter-for-IPOD_W0QQitemZ310015061540QQihZ021QQcategoryZ41994QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem check him out

Posted by: pb12 on January 25, 2008 at 11:50 AM

All good things to those who wait. MacBook Pro 12-inch
http://mbp12.com

Posted by: RDAC on January 29, 2008 at 7:44 PM

Hey, check out BiT Micro Networks. They make a ton of SSDs...they even might have it in that format already, plus these guys make the crazy large flash drives.

http://www.bitmicro.com/

We had a ton of the 1G Transmeta proc-based Compaq tablets back in the day, but they just didn't have the performance that we needed.

Posted by: Stuart C on May 29, 2008 at 9:35 AM

I've got an MM1110 (UK MM10) with the 1.8" CF adapter installed. I have a Lexar 300x 8GB CompactFlash card in it with Windows XP, dev tools, etc. installed on it. The fast UDMA 5 CF card makes the machine a lot more usable; compiling, loading apps, etc. are a lot faster than before. Not to mention that the machine is silent now with no moving parts whatsoever (Transmeta = no CPU fan). It's given it a new lease of life for me. I've also upgraded the Wifi to an Intel 2915 ABG mini pci for faster networking. If you find one on ebay or whatever give it a go - makes a great portable second for browsing from the sofa or working out of the office/abroad (tiny, light and powerful enough for most out of office uses). Awesome.