Basically a NUC with no case. I guess 3D printing your own case is the "hackable" part.

Presumably also the Arduino-style GPIO, pin-out docs [1], and just overall detailed docs like the power supplies page [2]. Good docs and schematics were not unusual forty+ years ago but are probably fair to describe as a “hackable” feature today.

[1] https://docs.lattepanda.com/content/sigma_edition/IO_Playabi...

[2] https://docs.lattepanda.com/content/sigma_edition/Powering_O...

nine_k

Home computers of 40+ years ago had complexity comparable to today's Arduino boards, and often had GPIO-like extension ports.

In the first place, it was possible to document them succinctly enough.

eep_social

I mean, it isn’t impossible, just expensive and not worth much outside niche enthusiast markets. Even System76 has a mix of coreboot-with-schematics and more traditional closed hardware [1].

In theory, I would love to pay for a device which is well-documented and provides a repair and modification friendly interface at all levels of hardware and software abstraction but in practice I’ll probably buy a macbook air because they mostly just work and the air is cost competitive vs the “open” niche.

And I don’t know about System76 in particular but my overall impression of binary blob driver acceptance is that the open folks lost that battle which narrows the gap with Apple tech.

[1] https://github.com/system76/firmware-open