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2023-10-22

Upgrade for the MNT Reform

tags: hardware

The MNT Reform is a surprising machine, and I kind of like it. However, it is collecting dust, mainly because the keyboard does not fit my finger habits well. So I did some upgrades in the hope to make it more useful.

Start

The MNT Reform is a useful machine for me. It is not too heavy, and I like the metal case and the overall design. However, I did not cope well with the keyboard --- despite me being a big fan of mechanical keyboards. In my not so humble opinion, the keycaps are too large in size. I often hit neighboring keys, which is annoying at least. There is a compose key on the keyboard! Yay! But it's location is, well, let's say "disputable"? Ok, of course, I can remap any old key to something else, sources of the controller are readily available. But do I want to go down that rabbit hole? Uggghhh.

The other thing that hit me is the discharge of the batteries when not in use.

So I visited the web shop of MNT.re and found

there is an upgrade for the battery holders, which solves the discharge problem
and there is a new iteration (V3) of the keyboard. It is available as a standalone keyboard, but it can also be ordered without that case just to be mounted in an existing Reform.

I decided to give it a try.

Battery Holders

Replacing them is a walk in the park, the procedure is well documented, and since then batteries last much longer, while the Reform is just sitting switched off. So that made my life a lot simpler. The Reform is not a tamagochi any more requiring constant attention.

Keyboard V3

Replacing the keyboard is a bit more complex, but not difficult. But the big question, of course, would be "Did it help"?

There are clearly palpable bars on the home keys such that I don't need to look any more --- much better!
The compose key has been moved close to where my fingers expect it --- much better as well!
The Alt and AltGr keys have moved to their old places, good!
There is still no control key on the right hand side, which I do miss sometimes.

All in all, I can type a lot better now, even though the new keyboard is blank (no engravings). So the upgrade helped me. That being said, I cannot imagine using this keyboard layout standalone. For one I increasingly hate the staggered layout. That is not needed any more. In other words, I'm much too deep into the keyboard.io model 100, the best keyboard I ever had --- even though it requires relearning quite a few keys.

LPC firmware

While at it, I took the plunge to upgrade the firmware on the LPC controller. This controller is responsible for switching power on in the correct sequence and timing. It can report on the status of the batteries.

Pulling the sources, installing the correct toolchain (I had removed it earlier, because it looked unused), and compiling is well documented and did not present any unforseen problems. Updating the firmware requires another system, but that is to be expected. The update is smooth and quick. Did it work? Yes it did, the system came back to life, and now I can see the state of the battery in the mode line of my emacs! The package reform2-lpc-dkms provides a loadable kernel module, which enables the kernel to talk to the LPC controller. Nice!

# cat /sys/class/power_supply/8xlifepo4/capacity
98
# cat /sys/class/power_supply/8xlifepo4/status
Discharging

Conclusion

If your Reform is collecting dust, you might want to consider, if an upgrade of its hardware could be an option. I can so far recommend, what I did. However, the keyboard thing is highly individual, so your mileage may vary quite a bit.

Cheers,

~ew

mnt reform2 notebook

mnt reform2 upgrade battery board

mnt keyboard V3

keyboard.io model 100

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