Kohjinsha SA5 (SA1F00)

Preamble

One of the computers I got on a whim and didn’t regret it at all. I guess it might be called a ’netbook’, but since most computers novadays are being used as dumb terminals with web-browser as the single application running¹.

Hardware

If I were to describe this laptop with just two words it would be “Cursed CPU”. [AMD Geode] is one of those strange processors that was meant to fill the low-power niche with existing x86 solutions and had to compete with ARM and VIA and I guess Transmeta too. It is a descendant of Cyrix (twice bought and removed and all that) and chasing both low power consumption and low price left it mark for sure.

As to why I’m calling it ‘cursed’ - this particular model is Geode LX was released in 2003, on paper fully compatible with x86 instruction set and having both MMX and 3DNow extensions. The problem point though is that it lacks SSE instructions set that was quite widely adopted by the time of this laptop release in 2003 since its introduction with Pentium III in 1999. So in a way this (quite fancy I would say for that year) laptop was inferior not just Pentium 4 based computers but even Pentium 3!.

Sadly lots of software of Windows XP era (which is the default OS here) was compiled expecting SSE instructions available and therefore does not work with this Geode at all.

The laptop itself was released in 2007-2008.

┌─────────────┬────────────────────────┐
│ CPU         │ AMD Geode LX800 500MHz │
│ GPU         │ yes                    │
│ RAM         │ 512mb                  │
│ Display     │ 7" 1024x600            │
│ Storage     │ 40gb                   │
└─────────────┴────────────────────────┘

What makes it worth interest is very decent screen - it has very good view angles but most importantly it is possible to rotate it 180 degrees and transform the thing into a primordial tablet! There is no touch capabilities on display but there is a trackpoint and mouse buttons available.

Port-wise it is better than any modern macbook pro: 2 full fledged USB ports, 100Mbit LAN, SD card slot, 3.5mm minijacks for mic and headphones (separate) and full-sized VGA.

Software

Windows XP is the stock OS here in all its glory; I’ve tried to use OpenBSD and GNU/Linux but anything remotely modern either required SSE or just lacked hardware support outright, iGPU being the main issue of all. So XP it is, I have enough computers around running all sorts of *nix after all.

It does run Nox and Visual Studio 6.0, which is godunov for me.

Photos