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I've used Technologic Systems' hardware for decades: http://embeddedarm.com/ Quite a selection to choose from. Fanless, -40C to +85C. Should be able to do what you need, and they keep making their products for many years, so you'll be able to get replacement parts in the future.

Nobodies Toaster needs a webserver.

But many toasters need NetBSD.

Liberate your toaster today.

Now I can stop worrying about my toaster getting hacked - no, the bread kind, not these.

It's like connecting your toaster to the internet -- pointless and not very useful.

Not useful? With this toaster running NetBSD you can program all the toaster's features remotely.

But I run NetBSD, you insensitive clod.

You've got it backwards. NetBSD runs on LibreOffice - and a fucking Toaster BTW.

(In Soviet Russia, however, ...)

And the toaster told you it means Internet of Toasters, right ?

In the keyboard: Commodore-64
In a phone: Apple iPhone
In the monitor: Apple
In a flower-pot: Apple ("daisy monitor")
In a flash drive: pendrivelinux.com
In a mouse-pad: ?
In a power cord: ?
In a toaster: http://www.embeddedarm.com/sof...
In eye-glasses: Google-glass
In undies/bra: ?
In a coffee mug: ?
In a coffee maker: http://null-byte.wonderhowto.c...
In head-phones: ?
In a hat? (red hat :-)
In green-eggs-and-ham: ?

cubieboard 1 and 2 have sata ports.

cubieboard 3 aka 'cubietruck' doesn't.

the other one i've found is "TS-7800" on here http://www.embeddedarm.com/pro...

The important question is does it scale?

No. The important question is does it run Linux? It's a given that it runs NetBSD - sure, my toaster does.

The embedded ARM boards from Technologic Systems are worth looking at also. I used a TS-7260 with a large enough SD card to install Debian with gcc and it worked great. It booted nearly instantly and consumed something like 100mA of current at 3.3V IIRC. It was quite a robust little box. There are newer and faster models than the TS-7260 at the link I provided above.

Is this your toaster, by any chance?

Not a cabinet like a kitchen cabinet, a cabinet like circuit breaker box mounted in the garage. It needs to be ruggedized so that it can deal with high dust, high humidity, occasional bumps, not ruggedized such that I can throw it off the rim of the Grand Canyon to be found in perfect working order by whoever comes next after humans are extinct.

I want people who are building small, moderate power computers to be thinking that I want a cloud in my home. I want to walk over to it periodically and replace some kind of failed storage device. But other than that I'd like the damned thing to be mostly hands off and not something I have to fit into the decor of my house.

You could buy something like this: http://www.embeddedarm.com/products/board-detail.php?product=TS-7700#

This SKU: TS-7700-IND-800 TS-7700 with the industrial grade (-40ÂC to 85ÂC) PXA166 at 800MHz has the ruggedness you're looking for.

I also am outraged that my 4-slice toaster seems to be restricted, it will NOT run Linux. This is clearly M$0ft's doing.

That's your problem. *nix isn't compatible with 4-slice toasters yet, though you can get NetBSD running on a standard 2-slice.

It's bigger than you wanted and not cheap but it does have an enclosure. It runs Linux. Boots really fast. Lots of I/O options.

http://www.embeddedarm.com/products/board-detail.php?product=TS-TPC-7390

You can also try Crystalfontz. They make lots of displays. Even OLEDs.

http://www.embeddedarm.com/products/touch-panel-computers.php

An Arm board with two SATA ports running OpenFiler would be a "proper NAS".
One of the strengths of FOSS is the ability to create systems using off the shelf hardware and FOSS software.
USB is not going to fast enough or reliable enough for anything but a home NAS.
You can get as I said two ARM boards that I know of with SATA ports. http://www.linaro.org/linaro-blog/2011/03/01/new-low-cost-cortex-a8-board-from-freescale/ and http://www.hawkboard.org/
Both lack GigaE and more than one SATA port.
Now this is an option http://www.embeddedarm.com/products/arm-sbc.php.

I tried playing WebM on my iPod, generic Bestbuy player, radio, CD/MP3 player, and TV.

Impressive. Are you a NetBSD user by any chance? You didn't list toaster, so I assume WebM does work on your toaster.

The OEM's just add a $3-$10 dollar I/O board with connectors with a simple 32bit ARM Cortex-M3 for $1 micro as an EC (embedded controller) such as an ST STM32.

I'm an OEM. If Rhombus thinks that OEMs will jump onto this product, they are quite optimistic. OEMs will be extremely careful with their product unless the card is uniquely suitable for some quick demo. Reasons being:

• It is cheaper to buy an MCU from an established manufacturer and solder it to the board than to bother with PCMCIA connectors and I/O boards. Note that the connector requires its own length of free space on the carrier PCB for card insertion. This is a huge space requirement.
• I don't think there is anything on the card that is worth paying royalties for. If you manufacture in volume you don't want royalties. Atmel has a whole eval board that runs Linux, if Linux is what you want. Often you want nothing, or maybe you want RTOS. A complex OS like Linux - that is not real-time - is not often needed.
• New architecture. Most OEMs already have an MCU design that they are using. Here I have AVR8 and AVR32, with an option for Atmel's ARM. This is important because you reuse the knowledge, the code, the compiler, the programming tools, etc.
• Connectors are trouble, always. If you can solder it, do so.
• Dependability of supplies. I have issues sometimes with giants like IDT or Micron who are behind on shipping something. Rhombus can go mammaries up at any time; should I then cancel the product line and design a new one? Major manufacturers have a specific, well defined product life policy.
• Reliability of the design. I cannot use a module if I don't trust the team that designed it. This particular team may have issues, that is evident from what they have on the Web page.
• Where are the specs of their product? What is the temperature range (-40C to +85C please,) where are vibration requirements, humidity, etc.? You can't enter the industrial market without that, and if Rhombus has any hope of selling then that's their best bet. Industrial OEMs often design unique products in small volume.
• There is a fierce competition in this market. On the high end $300 will buy you an Atom COM module that can run Windows 7 Embedded out of the box. And that board will be made by an established player. Conformal coating? Yes, they offer that; they know what it's for.
• Low price is not necessarily a good thing.

As I already mentioned, there are philosophical issues that may be relevant. For example, why do you want a Linux computer in your product? How many products require it? (Look around.) This is not something that's wrong with this board, but it is a factor in the whole business plan.

In other words, OEMs will be very careful with this product. Rhombus will have sales since their product has interesting advantages; however their competitors are numerous, and this is a race to the bottom. As an OEM, I made a few products with a Linux board inside. I know exactly what my requirements for that board were.

At this point Rhombus's market consists of only hobbyists. But no hobbyist can use their card due to the complexity of installing the PCMCIA connector. If I were in Rhombus shoes I'd sell the carrier card too. Maybe that's what they are already planning to do, I just don't know.

For that matter, are any available now?

http://www.embeddedarm.com/ aka technologic systems

http://beagleboard.org/

http://www.friendlyarm.net/

Look in the embedded market, not the FPS gamer enthusiast market.

Yeah, they wouldn't have had that problem if they were running NetBSD on that toaster.

http://www.embeddedarm.com/software/arm-netbsd-toaster.php

What the hell kind of toaster runs Linux? There's hardly any justification for a mass-produced toaster to have any logic more complex than a relay. If there's an actual consumer toaster out there on the market that has linux controlling it, I'd like to see it (and buy it)!

No, you need NetBSD for that.

The SD Card can be locked to a specific device using a password.

example:
http://www.embeddedarm.com/software/arm-linux-sdcard-security.php

An SD card can be locked using a password, or it can be set to permanent write protected mode.

Also the manufacturer of an SD card may not include the secure features in their cards (which would probably mean it wouldn't work on these phones)

From the linked article:
Technologic Systems has developed a Linux application named "sdlock" which can be used to manipulate SD card hardware-enforced password locks and set the card's permanent write-protect feature. Using a password protected SD card is a great way to ensure software security and/or to make sure your TS-7000 SBC based product cannot be used in an unintended matter once deployed. This utility is only available for the TS-7300 and TS-7400 products, which are configured with the TS-SDBOOT firmware.
Some of the possibilities include:
                Password protecting SD Cards
                Set the SBC to boot only locked SD Cards
                Set the SD Card readable only on a specific SBC
                Checksum verification of bootable SD Cards
                Make an SD Card permanently write-protected
How To Use It
Usage and command line help for this command:
$ sdlock –help
Usage: sdlock [OPTION] ...
Controls SD card lock and permanent write-protect features.
General options:
-p, --password=PASS Use PASS as password
-c, --clear Remove password lock
-s, --set Set password lock
-u, --unlock Unlock temporarily
-e, --erase Erase entire device (clears password)
-w, --wprot Enable permanent write protect
-h, --help This help

When toasters really do run Linux...

You jest, but this toaster runs NetBSD, and it's not even a recent story.

After reading Joseph Jenkin's excellent book, The Humanure Handbook (http://www.jenkinspublishing.com/humanure.html and available for free here: http://humanurehandbook.com/downloads/Humanure_Handbook_all.pdf), I've been doing a lot of thinking recently about not just human waste but the waste that comes from everyday computing.

I think what you and I want is the combination of a Beagle Board and a Pixel Qi display (http://www.pixelqi.com/). That display has been mentioned on Slashdot before. You could also start developing super efficient programs on something like a PC Engines ALIX board (http://www.pcengines.ch/alix3d3.htm) or a Technologic Systems ARM based board: http://www.embeddedarm.com/products/arm-sbc.php#ts-7800-series The TX boards come with Debian pre-installed and boot up in less that2-3 seconds. They seem to be very hacker friendly.

Of course, the other side of the equation is the WWW that we connect to. Is there anyone giving any consideration to efficient computing on the server side? Web forums vs. mailing lists; fancy web sites vs. lean, mean, and candid web design? Are there resources online where I can learn how to design a lean, mean, yet somewhat modern looking web site and run it off something like the aforementioned ALIX (500 Mhz AMD Geode) board? Does HTML help at all in this regard?

I even miss the old but lean Slashdot of long ago.

I'm pretty sure you could play a wide-screen version of pong on this

http://www.embeddedarm.com/software/arm-netbsd-toaster.php

Why link to a joke when there's a real toaster that fits that description?

You got whooshed... here's the joke:

http://www.embeddedarm.com/software/arm-netbsd-toaster.php

I've been using a TS-7800 from Technologic Systems for a few months, running it off of solar panels. It draws 4 watts and has half a gig of flash on board and an SD card socket. It runs cool without even so much as a heatsink, let alone a fan. Gig-E, 10 serial ports, 6 A/D, more digital I/O than I could even use, and USB. Runs Debian. Buy the development kit - the slight extra cost is worth it.

When will Linux realize nobody really wants a kitchen sink.
Now a toaster on the other hand...

That's because for a Unix-based toaster, you need NetBSD.

According to the manufacturer, http://www.embeddedarm.com/products/board-detail.php?product=TS-7800 boots to Linux in 0.69 second. It's a 500MHz ARM-9 based system. I haven't used this board, but I've used others from the same manufacturer; the Linux they provide is Debian-based on the boards I've used.

I not really sure how this compares to other options.
I'd be interested in the thoughts of those more expereienced.
.
US$229
500Mhz ARM9 CPU running Linux
onboard 12,000 LUT on-board programmable Lattice FPGA
http://www.embeddedarm.com/products/board-detail.php?product=TS-7800
.
US$84
250MHz ARM9 CPU running Linux
onboard 5000 LUT Lattice FPGA
http://www.embeddedarm.com/products/board-detail.php?product=TS-7500

I not really sure how this compares to other options.
I'd be interested in the thoughts of those more expereienced.
.
US$229
500Mhz ARM9 CPU running Linux
onboard 12,000 LUT on-board programmable Lattice FPGA
http://www.embeddedarm.com/products/board-detail.php?product=TS-7800
.
US$84
250MHz ARM9 CPU running Linux
onboard 5000 LUT Lattice FPGA
http://www.embeddedarm.com/products/board-detail.php?product=TS-7500

Mod parent up +insightful.

I've been programming for over 25 years, most of that at the firmware/driver level in C. I went on a hardware quest (for my own edification) about a year ago, and I did an independent study course for credit at my local university. My focus was on Verilog (because that's what's used within my company), and it was truly a different beast than programming! I definitely had to train myself to think differently to accomplish that.

There are many good boards suggested by others in this thread. I used three boards myself. The first board I used was http://www.xgamestation.com/view_product.php?id=40 - containing a Lattice Semiconductor CPLD. The board was a good starter because it was designed for education, and included a lab manual of quite a few projects. Potential downside: the lab manual and tools it comes with are not based on either Verilog or VHDL, but rather ABEL. I did everything in Verilog instead, and still used the lab manual as a source of exercises. The Mach64 board is fairly inexpensive.


I also used a board from http://www.opalkelly.com/ -- this product is a little pricey as an educational device. Their hardware contains Xilinx parts. What I liked most about it though is its USB interface -- first, you can use their tool to download your hardware description without being required to flash the board (where many other boards require you to flash the image to exercise it). Second, and more interesting to me -- Opal Kelly's boards include virtual device libraries, letting you attach hardware to USB-carried channels for data I/O and triggering to a remote application. They include a library to allow you to write a remote application to support the other end of this. I don't know if they support Linux though -- everything I did on the PC end was under Windows.


Finally, a reasonably priced board is http://www.embeddedarm.com/products/board-detail.php?product=TS-7300. This board is not centered around its FPGA, instead it's an ARM9 based CPU board. The board includes full embedded Linux support and all the typical devices you would expect to find, and it has a user-accessible Altera FPGA on board. Their linux distribution includes a tool to send a FPGA bitstream over to the device, letting you quickly test a new hardware description (like the Opal Kelly board, without programming flash). Potential downside here... the manufacturer includes a bitstream image that is used by default, which enables (among other things) its VGA port and a second Ethernet interface - and their open source Verilog for this device doesn't include those, so you sacrifice some of the board to define your own hardware. You don't sacrifice anything you can't use the board without though (there's another Ethernet port; there's a few serial ports, etc., which don't require the FPGA).


Good luck!

You can't run Linux, but you can run NetBSD:

http://www.embeddedarm.com/software/arm-netbsd-toaster.php

My NetBSD toaster was lonely. Getting him a friend will be nice.

NetBSD Toaster

and the Slashdot article

You already can boot linux in just a few seconds!

The should have just run NetBSD on it, like on the toaster

'Buzzwordy' maybe. But does it run on toasters? :)

Seeing as it has USB, I'm pretty sure you can plug a $5 USB soundcard into it.

But can it make toast?

I would be surprised if this application couldn't be made to fit on something like a Technologic Systems http://www.embeddedarm.com/ TS-7400 (which comes with a 12Mb/s USB port, cost $100 in quantity). The AC power draw for the TS-7400 plus accelerometer would be 6 watts max ($5 to $10/yr) and would pay for itself in less than a year. In addition, the TS-7600 is fanless and diskless, so there would be much less extraneous vibration.

aahh, so you're a waffle man...

True. What puzzles me is that there are so many other SBCs out there with similar power consumption, but much more capable CPUs that aren't x86. Given they already took the plunge to put Linux on the thing, they could've gone further and used an ARM-based board instead.

Example: http://www.embeddedarm.com/epc/ts7800-spec-h.htm

Yes, I know it doesn't have onboard video or 2x Ethernet, but that 500 MHz ARM CPU would perform a lot better than a Geode.

http://www.embeddedarm.com/ is far cooler and cheaper for such use.

Depends what hardware you are looking for...

http://www.dspdesign.com/products/index_html?categ ory_id=1

http://www.embeddedarm.com/

http://www.phytec.com/

http://www.gumstix.com/

http://us.kontron.com/

If it can be done on a 200MHz ARM9 processor in just over a second, anyone else can do it:

http://www.embeddedarm.com/epc/ts7400-spec-h.htm

"Why can't a computer turn on and off in an instant just like a TV?"

Embedded computers may be what you are looking for.