We are MNT Research. We develop and design at all levels of information technology: electronics, operating systems, applications and networks. We believe that computers should empower people from all walks of life and give you (not corporations) exclusive control over your data — to support your creativity, knowledge work and communication. We help make this a reality by creating our own open hardware, software and wearables. We embrace new and futuristic methods, but we also care deeply about vintage systems and which tricks they can still teach us.
This article is an update to MNT Reform, our open hardware laptop... → Read Article
In May 2020, MNT Research launched the MNT Reform open hardware laptop:.. → Read Article
I'm typing this on a MNT Reform version 2, motherboard revision 2. Almost exactly one year has passed since we finished the previous big incarnation of Reform (which we call version 1). Back then, it was powered by i.MX6 and we needed at least a full day to assemble one. The new Reform has a much simpler architecture, more power, a bigger 1080p eDP display, a keyboard with a satisfying writing experience, and it can be used to get real work done. It can be assembled in half an hour (given populated PCBs)... → Read Article
MNT ZZ9000 is the successor to the VA2000 Amiga graphics card. But it can do more than just graphics: based on the Xilinx ZYNQ XC7Z020 chip, it features not only a powerful 7-series FPGA, but also 2x 666MHz ARM Cortex-A9 cores and 1GB of DDR3 memory. All Picasso96 rendering functions are fully accelerated using custom ARM routines. As a bonus, ZZ9000 features an Ethernet connector with SANA-II support, and a USB connector for mounting an USB stick as an Amiga drive... → Read Article
During the last few months, based on feedback from beta customers and our own dog-fooding experiences, Ana and I redesigned almost all parts of MNT Reform, our libre laptop. We are now close to a concept that — we believe — will deliver on the promises of the campaign, in terms of modularity, openness, usability and performance... → Read Article
A few days before Christmas 2018, we assembled the last one of the Reform Beta units. 13 Reform laptops exist in total; 10 went out to the adventurous people who pre-ordered them, two are for ourselves and one went to Crowd Supply in Portland as the demo unit for the upcoming campaign... → Read Article
MNT introduces a new, open computer system. Launching soon on Crowd Supply... → Read Article
Not many people seem to know that you can use hardware accelerated, stock Xorg (incl. Glamor) with the Vivante GPU found in the i.MX6 SOCs. In the past, this required using the out-of-tree "xf86-video-armada" driver. Because I sometimes meet people online that are very surprised I'm using the built-in "modesetting" driver instead, here is how to do it... → Read Article
Examining conditions and contingencies of apparatuses and applications: Volume 1 of Interface Critique is now available as open access and print... → Read Article
MNT acquires the brand assets of 2000s era mobile social network aka-aki... → Read Article
A MIDI suit with wireless inertial measurement units (IMUs). Collaboration with fashion designer Greta Melnik. Finalist of Telekom Fashion Fusion competition 2016... → Read Article
VA2000 was MNT's first graphics card for the Zorro bus implemented as open source gateware for a Spartan-6 FPGA. It is superseded by MNT ZZ9000... → Read Article
Teledisko is the world's smallest discotheque. Integrated in refurbished telephone booths, Telediskos are coin-operated machines that supply you with a full-blown, short-time partying experience, complete with fog, lighting effects, video sharing and photo printing. As a contractor, MNT developed Teledisko's hardware/software operating system and graphical user interface (GUI) on GNU/Linux, SDL and Arduino platforms. Today, Teledisko is a successful, self-sustaining business... → Read Article
Interim was an MNT experiment in building a minimalist OS in which the kernel itself is a Lisp compiler / REPL and all software comes in source code form only, inspired by Lisp Machines and Plan 9 from Bell Labs... → Read Article
The "Quelltextlesung" (Source Code Reading) was a series of live readings/discussion of important software sources taking place in Berlin, Germany. It was established by Fiona Krakenbürger, Gabriel Yoran, Lukas F. Hartmann (MNT) and Sebastian Sooth (then at Wikimedia Germany). The final session took place at Re:publica 2015... → Read Article
At Vintage Computing Festival Berlin 2014, we ran a workshop on how to go online with a Commodore C64/SX-64... → Read Article
MNT's Lukas F. Hartmann was invited to the "DATENBERG" panel discussion hosted by Wikimedia Deutschland e.V. to talk about his experiences with 23andme... → Read Article
If you want to embark on a project together, questions regarding the right tools and spatial and temporal organization quickly pop up. How would you organize the team’s knowledge and the communication that is necessary for aggregating and distributing this knowledge?.. → Read Article
This is my official translation of the story I originally posted over at @mspro's blog ctrl+verlust and which received widespread attention in the German media... → Read Article
MNT Research GmbH develops open source hardware, software and textiles in Berlin, Germany. What can we do for you?
GitHub, MNT Gitea, Mastodon, Twitter
MNT Research GmbH
Anschrift: Fehlerstr. 8, 12161 Berlin
Geschäftsführer: Lukas F. Hartmann
Registergericht: Amtsgericht Charlottenburg
Aktenzeichen: HRB 136605 B
VAT ID: DE278908891
WEEE: DE 33315564