Restoring a 2024 Framework Laptop: A Retrospective

It’s hard to believe it’s been a decade since the "Right to Repair" movement had its first major hardware victory. Before our devices were legally mandated to be biodegradable gel-packs or sealed neural interfaces, there was a brief, shining moment of modularity. Last week, I unearthed a relic from that era in a sealed vacuum bag at a garage sale in Neo-Seattle: a Framework Laptop 13 (Intel Core Ultra Edition).

For our younger readers, a "laptop" was a clamshell device with a physical hinge (mechanical, not magnetic!) that you had to open with your hands. It had a screen that only emitted 2D light, and—get this—a keyboard where the keys actually traveled downwards when you pressed them. No haptic feedback plates; actual switches.

The "Expansion Card" Era

The first thing you notice handling a 2024 device is the sheer bulk of the ports. The Framework used a system called "Expansion Cards." Instead of wireless power and Li-Fi data streams, users physically plugged rectangular modules into the chassis.

My unit came with two USB-C cards (the Universal Serial Bus standard that famously wasn't universal), one HDMI card (for "monitors"—those large stationary screens), and a 1TB Expansion Card. 1TB! Can you imagine fitting your entire OS on something that small? I had to strip my local LLaMA-9 model down to its bare bones just to get it to boot.

Opening the Chassis: A Spiritual Experience

I pressed the input deck release latches. The magnets gave way. There was no glue. No laser-welded seams. No proprietary pentalobe-Z security screws. Just five captive T5 screws.

I almost cried. It opened like a book.

Inside, the layout is primitive but beautiful. The battery is a lithium-ion "spicy pillow" in waiting (I replaced it with a standard Gen-3 Solid State Graphene slab; luckily the connector pin-out is documented in the Ancient Archives). The RAM sticks are SODIMMs—you can literally pop them out. I upgraded it to 128GB of DDR5, which cost me about 4 credits at the recycling center.

Booting Up

The original SSD contained a corrupted partition of "Windows 11," an operating system famous for forcing users to create online accounts. I wiped it and installed NixOS 34.05 LTS.

The screen flickered to life. The 2880x1920 resolution looks grainy compared to modern retinal projection, but the colors have a warm, organic feel. The fans spun up—yes, physical fans pushing air! The sound is nostalgic, like a white noise machine.

Why This Matters

Using the Framework in 2034 is frustrating. It can't run full-dive VR. It struggles with local rendering of anything beyond a basic 70B parameter assistant. But the keyboard...

Clack. Clack. Clack.

There is a tactile certainty to it. You know you hit the key. In an age where our devices anticipate what we want to type before we think it, the Framework forces you to be intentional. It’s a machine that waits for you, rather than one that guides you.

Most importantly, if it breaks tomorrow, I can fix it. I don't need a license. I don't need an authorized nanobot swarm. I just need a screwdriver.