World's First RISC-V Laptop Touts A Mysterious Quad-Core CPU And You Can Preorder It Now
The last bit there is part of what makes the world's first RISC-V laptop so interesting. You see, over in China, DeepComputing and Xcalibyte have partnered up to create a mobile "development platform" known as ROMA. It's a laptop, simply speaking, but what it purportedly contains is most curious and rather unclear.
Nobody is expecting (or should expect) the ROMA's CPU to set performance records, but it may be highly-competitive within the world of RISC-V. Xcalibyte claims that it is an all-new chip that will offer "the fastest, seamless RISC-V native software development available."
The ROMA's packaging will apparently also fold into a stand.
As for an operating system, you will of course be restricted to Linux, but that's not such a serious restriction really. More challenging will likely be creating the support software for Xcalibyte's new CPU and GPU/NPU accelerator. Such software, including-but-not-limited-to drivers, will be necessary to provide the kind of user experience that customers will expect from a laptop.
The press release for the ROMA is filled with buzzwords and apparently, the first 100 customers to pre-order the ROMA will get a unique NFT. You can also elect to have your ROMA engraved with your name or company's name. Unsurprisingly, quantities will be limited, so if you're really excited about RISC-V, head over to the Xcalibyte site to put in for a pre-order.
