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DIY iPad is winner

Ma Junyi longed for an iPad, but the intimidating（受到威胁的） price tag denies the 19-year-old’s dream of obtaining the gadget（小玩意）. So he went for an alternative- and made his own.

The computer science freshman at Beijing University of Post and Telecommunications recently posted a 23-step tutorial on how to modify a laptop into an electronic pad. The post has become an online sensation（轰动） that attracted over 40,000 visitors in less than two weeks.

However, the job was not as easy as it appears in snapshots and captions（图片说明）. The most challenging part was disassembling the screen so that a thin touch screen could be put onto it.

“The frame is very delicate and firmly attached. It is difficult to detach（分离） and if you use too much force you break it,” said Ma.

According to Ma his skills with gadgets has come at price.

Ma’s father is a computer science professor in Zhengzhou, Henan province.

When Ma was 3 years old in 1996, he laid his hands on a computer for the first time. His curiosity about electronic appliances, such as TV sets and e-clocks, was at the expense of scattering and losing the components.

He took apart his father’s computer and found that it was impossible to put it together again. He thought he was in big trouble. But his father didn’t get upset. Instead, he brought home a second-hand computer for his son to learn how it was assembled.

“When I close my eyes, I can visualize（形象化） every detail of a computer, inside and out,” said Ma.

But changing a conventional PC into a touch screen pad poses many challenges.

Before he went ahead Ma buried his nose in the library for months looking for material on touch screens from theory to practice. He then shopped around for suitable components. The touch screen, a control module（模块） and some other parts came to 190 yuan.

Ma was short of cash to buy a secondhand laptop for his experiment, which involves disassembling, welding and rewiring. He decided to use his own laptop purchased in the new semester.

I was very nervous. If I made one mistake, my laptop was ruined, so I was extremely cautious,“ said Ma.

People are amazed by Ma’s four hour transformation of a laptop to computer pad.

In the online video showing how the touch screen works, there seems no difference between an iPad and Ma’s DIY projects as his finger slides across the screen.

Ma did not expect his work to be popular. He reckons tablet computers have a great future.

Conventional PCs will vanish in the pad era,” said Ma. ”But I can save them by changing them into touch screens.”

Ma said that the next step is to get rid of the keyboard.

“I will develop a pad even better then iPad and apply for a patent,” said Ma.

According to Ma he likes to share. In his spare time, he programs and puts them online for free. So would be share his experience with his tablet?

“I will share the technology I developed with students from not-so-rich families so that everyone can have a pad,” said Ma.