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There is a good Pico-ITX review at http://www.mini-itx.com/reviews/pico-itx/ "As a reminder of just how small this thing is, employees at a Japanese store got hold of an early board and put together this Pico-Gameboy. The system boots XP from a 4GB Compact Flash card, with a VGA output and 12V DC input on one side." Enjoy

Granted, no pretty packaging... but for interested parties see:

CF to 2.5in HDD Adapters from the Mini-ITX Online Store...

So for those of you who can deal with lower end capacity, but want the energy efficiency, the performance increases, or reliability and don't want to buy a new Dell, you can adapt this to your situation.

I don't know why no-one's done a bootable CD version.

If you seriously need a diskless firewall you could buy 128Mb CF card for $10 & a cf-ide adapter for $10.

For a bit more cash and a SOHO setup something like the VIA EPIA MII 12000 is the ideal candidate, it's got a CF slot, a PCMCIA slot and a PCI slot for your extra nic. Why people bother with WRTG54s I really don't know.

If you want your PC to look like part of the furniture then you can take a leaf out of the books of those mini-itx modders, the most notable 'furniture' type ones are:

The Clock
Mantle Radio
Cigar Humidor
Gramophone
Pictureframe
Micro TV
Telefunken
and for the geek, the Windows XP box (as in the cardboard box the OS comes in, but with a sly RedHat trick)

If you want your PC to look like part of the furniture then you can take a leaf out of the books of those mini-itx modders, the most notable 'furniture' type ones are:

The Clock
Mantle Radio
Cigar Humidor
Gramophone
Pictureframe
Micro TV
Telefunken
and for the geek, the Windows XP box (as in the cardboard box the OS comes in, but with a sly RedHat trick)

If you want your PC to look like part of the furniture then you can take a leaf out of the books of those mini-itx modders, the most notable 'furniture' type ones are:

The Clock
Mantle Radio
Cigar Humidor
Gramophone
Pictureframe
Micro TV
Telefunken
and for the geek, the Windows XP box (as in the cardboard box the OS comes in, but with a sly RedHat trick)

If you want your PC to look like part of the furniture then you can take a leaf out of the books of those mini-itx modders, the most notable 'furniture' type ones are:

The Clock
Mantle Radio
Cigar Humidor
Gramophone
Pictureframe
Micro TV
Telefunken
and for the geek, the Windows XP box (as in the cardboard box the OS comes in, but with a sly RedHat trick)

If you want your PC to look like part of the furniture then you can take a leaf out of the books of those mini-itx modders, the most notable 'furniture' type ones are:

The Clock
Mantle Radio
Cigar Humidor
Gramophone
Pictureframe
Micro TV
Telefunken
and for the geek, the Windows XP box (as in the cardboard box the OS comes in, but with a sly RedHat trick)

If you want your PC to look like part of the furniture then you can take a leaf out of the books of those mini-itx modders, the most notable 'furniture' type ones are:

The Clock
Mantle Radio
Cigar Humidor
Gramophone
Pictureframe
Micro TV
Telefunken
and for the geek, the Windows XP box (as in the cardboard box the OS comes in, but with a sly RedHat trick)

If you want your PC to look like part of the furniture then you can take a leaf out of the books of those mini-itx modders, the most notable 'furniture' type ones are:

The Clock
Mantle Radio
Cigar Humidor
Gramophone
Pictureframe
Micro TV
Telefunken
and for the geek, the Windows XP box (as in the cardboard box the OS comes in, but with a sly RedHat trick)

If you want your PC to look like part of the furniture then you can take a leaf out of the books of those mini-itx modders, the most notable 'furniture' type ones are:

The Clock
Mantle Radio
Cigar Humidor
Gramophone
Pictureframe
Micro TV
Telefunken
and for the geek, the Windows XP box (as in the cardboard box the OS comes in, but with a sly RedHat trick)

http://www.mini-itx.com/store/?c=16#p2620

But if they really wanted to exploit the nostalgia market that way, they'd be best advised to slap something in a repro C64 case (classic "breadbox" version, of course). In fact, if they had the case, it would probably be trivial to stick a small form-factor PC in there, with some sort of emulator onboard; possibly using the C64 30-in-one chips.

[quote]I can see the awesome retro mods dancing through my head already... [/quote]

Already done with a Mini-itx pc. Nice machine if it could get mass produced, but???

Wishfull thinking!

http://www.mini-itx.com/projects/c64/

Insert obligatory PS3 grill and George Forman iGrill here...

janus mini-itx I quote:
The "Janus Project" is the brainchild of Kyle Williams of the Janus Wireless Security Research Group in Portland, Oregon.

Mounted inside an epoxy and silicone-sealed watertight case lives a 1.5GHz C7 powered EPIA EN 15000G motherboard, 2 x four-port PCI to mini-PCI adapters, 8 x 802.11a/b/g mini-PCI WLAN Modules, 2 x 1W 2.4Ghz WLAN amplifiers, a keyboard and a 17in LCD screen. The system can scan up to 300 wireless networks simultaneously, storing and AES encrypting in real time all the data onto its 20GB hard drive.

They already make power supplies that do 12V on one side and all of the ATX voltages on the other. As you might expect, they're mostly designed to go into Car PC's, although they've got applications in robotics and other embedded applications. Anything where you might want to power a computer from a battery as a regular thing.

does this board need 250W (including hdd and dvd drive?)

That was using a MiniITX board.

Anyway, unless I was sure that I only wanted to use Windows (or some other OS that is known to work), I'd do some research before buying these boards -- no matter that they look REALLY, REALLY neat.

I actually JUST finished building a computer in an old Nintendo case. It has front USB ports, Slot loading DVD-ROM, audio/video out, and carefully placed power, network, and vga ports. I know I'm not the first person to do something like this, but it sure has been fun! I even have an ATI remote that I configured to control the Freevo menu. I also bought two SNES controllers with USB connectors from RetroZone that work great with ZSNES. The box is running Ubuntu and actually boots up pretty quick. The board is a VIA Epia 6000 Mini-ITX.

surely this is the perfect design for most slashdotters?

It doesn't have to be rackmount, if you don't have the space. Instead of the rackmount Travla C146 cases, check out the Travla C134 (http://www.mini-itx.com/store/images/c134-black.j pg) or C137 (http://www.mini-itx.com/store/images/c137-black.j pg) cases, they're really small.

As for setting up the necessary software, there's a number of projects that scratch that itch:
http://www.collax.com/en/resources/download-cbs.ht ml
http://www.openfiler.com/
http://www.freenas.org/
http://www.skolelinux.org/portal/index_html
http://www.ubuntu.com/server

All of these are really easy to install and work exceptionally well.

It doesn't have to be rackmount, if you don't have the space. Instead of the rackmount Travla C146 cases, check out the Travla C134 (http://www.mini-itx.com/store/images/c134-black.j pg) or C137 (http://www.mini-itx.com/store/images/c137-black.j pg) cases, they're really small.

As for setting up the necessary software, there's a number of projects that scratch that itch:
http://www.collax.com/en/resources/download-cbs.ht ml
http://www.openfiler.com/
http://www.freenas.org/
http://www.skolelinux.org/portal/index_html
http://www.ubuntu.com/server

All of these are really easy to install and work exceptionally well.

try looking here...
http://www.mini-itx.com/

if I want something like a really small form factor - in which case you can't beat the Mac Mini.

Well the obvious answer (at least to me) is Asterisk. If you don't want a "computer running all the time" build a small box, well.... tuff. Think Mini-ITX. You can put a small HD in in, and put it in a small case. If its only "diverting" calls it doesn't need much power or storage space at all and wouldn't draw much power (also, if you do it right - it could be all passive cooled).

Also - I'm sure no one wants to spend _that much time_ setting up Asterisk, so use TrixBox (Formely Asterisk@Home) instead.

Have you considered building a mini-itx based system running on DC/battery supply? You can get them to run off of a 12v car battery, and keeping one of those charged isn't too difficult, never mind that you could run of smaller 12v batteries.

Google for robots / mini-itx / dc power or any of the case modding freak sites. They are making a couple of motherboard systems just for DC operations, and not the kind that run for a few hours as a laptop... the kind that run like servers, just on DC power.

If your server / services are important enough to spend on a laptop, you might consider just building a DC powered server with a beefy battery system? No UPS needed, its built right in, and the thing is a server, not a laptop. You might start here http://www.mini-itx.com/store/?c=10

The other advice about not using the hard disk, adding memory, and others is good advice also. This solution allows a 7200-10000 rpm drive and plenty-o-ram options.

The modchip industry is pretty damn innovative! You have a huge multi-billion dollar company in a huge multi-billion dollar industry designing these consoles to be hackproof, yet a few guys in a garage can hack them in under a year. That is technological innovation, too, it's just not in a way that Microsoft can stifle and control. It is open innovation, published and available to all.

This is the classic dilemma of anybody doing anything security-related. If you're defending, you havet o protect the entire system against any possible hole, usually with limited man power (yes, even in the OSS world), and under a time constraint to get the software/hardware out (you may patch it later, but you need "good enough" from the start). If you're attacking, you just need one tiny little hole, and you have all the time in the world to do it. And, you're working with essentially infinite man power (while you're focusing on one hole, another attacker somewhere else is focusing on a different one). Innovation here lies in how long you can keep your system unhackable.

Integrity like scratching discs to unpreadability?

It's your own damned fault if you don't understand the physics of a spinning disk and try to reorient your Xbox 360 while a disk is playing. Maybe Microsoft shouldn't have made the Ring of Light adjust with the orientation of the console, as that would keep the sheeple from screwing up their games because they want to see the pretty lights. Not a design flaw (go try it with a PS2 -- you'll have the same problem. Nobody was ever stupid enough to do it with a PS2 because there is no Ring of Light on the front).

Quality like overheating and frequent crashes?

I can't help but think the overheating issues were way overstated by early adopters and the media. By all accounts, my own 360 is "launch window" (build date of early December, purchased mid-December), and I've yet to run into an overheating issues. Then again, I don't box my 360 up in an enclosed media center, with no airflow around the console or the power supply. You wouldn't put a PC in an enclosure with poor circulation, so why would you do that with an Xbox? There was a verified problem with a bad batch of power supplies, but you could get that replaced under warranty (but not if you modded!). Not to mention the many cases where crashes were attributed to overheating when the real culprit was a poorly-connected power supply (you have to push it in until it clicks and the little clip catches. Otherwise, you're not going to have a solid power connection and could easily crash the box because of it).

Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't it the modders and makers who designed ways to cool the power supplies and devices?

You're both right and wrong. Modders did design ways to cool the 360, though none of them were particularly innovative (if you can't cool it better than Microsoft did in the same form factor, it's not an innovation). However, those modifications are unnecessary with a little common sense, and potentially a power supply swap.

You want to talk about innovation? Okay. Go build a comparably-powered PC in the same form factor or smaller. I bet you can't do it. No, Mini-ITX.com doesn't count, because those PCs are nowhere near as powerful as a 360 (they make great media centers, though!). Even Sony can't do it. The PS3 is going to be huge. The 360 is no larger than a PS2. Don't believe me? I'll take a picture. I have my PS2 standing right next to my 360, and the 360 is approximately .5 inch taller due to the hard drive, and no wider. It's a little deeper by about 1.5 inches, but that's less than the old Xbox and much less than my cable box or my DVD player.

A 2" height restriction is going to be almost impossible in a non-laptop form factor, and almost all laptops are bigger than the 1" you're talking about.

What Mini-ITX boxes have you looked at?

Check out Mini-ITX.com. You'll find stuff like Hoojum for lunchbox-sized computers, or you can find something like the Albatrons Viiv Nano-PC that will accomodate almost all the specs you're talking about (when it goes into production).

If nothing else, buy a laptop, then take off the keyboard and screen. I've worked on Dell laptops and it's pretty simple, I don't imagine that other models would be too difficult.

A 2" height restriction is going to be almost impossible in a non-laptop form factor, and almost all laptops are bigger than the 1" you're talking about.

What Mini-ITX boxes have you looked at?

Check out Mini-ITX.com. You'll find stuff like Hoojum for lunchbox-sized computers, or you can find something like the Albatrons Viiv Nano-PC that will accomodate almost all the specs you're talking about (when it goes into production).

If nothing else, buy a laptop, then take off the keyboard and screen. I've worked on Dell laptops and it's pretty simple, I don't imagine that other models would be too difficult.

You mean like a VIA CPU ? ... It's x86 compatible (for the most part), it's very low power (15W at idle), and it comes in form factors (Mini-ITX) that are reasonable for embedded work. And it runs Windows/CE/.NET should you choose to (albiet slowly). A nice selection is here: http://www.mini-itx.com/store/?c=2#p1601

If you want freeview going through a pc (the DIY part) then get a freeview pci card or usb box and plug it in. You can use Myth on Linux, or various solutions on Windows XP such MS Media centre, Media Portal, (I was going to add Meedio, but it seems they've been bought out by Yahoo), Snapstreams "Beyond TV".

If you're on linux, then you could use the Hardware compatibility list at LinuxQuestions to help in choosing a card.

There is a nice selection of DVB-T cards available at DVBSHOP in Germany, which I have used, and they are pretty good with quick orders. They also sell Common Interfaces for some of the DVB-T cards so you can add a TopUp TV CAM and smart card and get subscriber stuff.

Ok, so you have to build the box yourself, but that's DIY for ya !

If you can be bothered, here's a list of my media centre related bookmarks -

Bookmarks

media centre

If you want freeview going through a pc (the DIY part) then get a freeview pci card or usb box and plug it in. You can use Myth on Linux, or various solutions on Windows XP such MS Media centre, Media Portal, (I was going to add Meedio, but it seems they've been bought out by Yahoo), Snapstreams "Beyond TV".

If you're on linux, then you could use the Hardware compatibility list at LinuxQuestions to help in choosing a card.

There is a nice selection of DVB-T cards available at DVBSHOP in Germany, which I have used, and they are pretty good with quick orders. They also sell Common Interfaces for some of the DVB-T cards so you can add a TopUp TV CAM and smart card and get subscriber stuff.

Ok, so you have to build the box yourself, but that's DIY for ya !

If you can be bothered, here's a list of my media centre related bookmarks -

Bookmarks

media centre

Full specifications: NVidia nForce 4 C51PV/MCP51 chipset; Supports AMD Athlon 64, Turon, Sempron 64 processors; Socket 754 with Hyper Transport 800+ MHz; Supports DDR 400 Memory up to 1GB; 1 PCI Slot; Integrated NVidia 6150 Graphics; VGA; DVI (underneath the VGA socket); HDTV (with optional cable); Realtek 6 channel Audio; 1 x 10/100 Ethernet + 1 x Gigabit Ethernet; 4 x SATA II channels (supporting RAID 0,1,5 and 0+1)

In stock at Logic Supply. In the UK, Mini-ITX.com claims to have limited supplies on hand.

  -Charles

Could you elaborate on your hardware setup? My EPIA M10000 has a very noisy 40mm CPU fan (been meaning to replace that) and the case has a pair of noisy 40mm fans that I haven't had the balls to remove/undervolt yet. :-)

Via's fans are cheap and loud. If you replace those with something decent, like from Zalman or Nexus and you'll be much happier. http://www.endpcnoise.com/cgi-bin/e/cpucomparison. html?id=CfDcrzuT

Personally, I'm using a modified (hard drive removed) Hush PC http://www.mini-itx.com/store/product.asp?sid=HUSH -MCE.

Now that you can actually buy Via's NanoITX boards, my next project is going to be with one of those.

Probably because they just happen to be manufactured that way now. Remarkable leaps forward in switched mode semiconductor PSUs lately. Take a look at this baby Mini ITX PSU
Just because this device says it will deliver 1KW at peak I don't expect that was a design parameter. Most interesting is that it fits into a 1U profile, I expect this is a tiny little beast.

Problem is this: There's a growing drive here in Europe towards "green" computing. A well designed micro-cluster of nano form factor boards can beat the pants of something like this in MIPS/Watt, that's the way forward. I think CPU manufacturers are taking a wrong road into ever more power hungry devices, pretty soon energy regulation is going to tip the cart towards the "less is more" way of thinking.

Have a look at www.mini-itx.com - they tend to stock Via integrated motherboards. That might be a good jumping-off point.

VIC20 here too, remember those big bulky cartridges? :D

I kept mine in the wardrobe (closet) for years until I took it out one day about 6-7 years ago and it wouldn't power on.
If I'd known there'd be mini-itx around in a few years time I wouldn't have thrown it away so readily and done something like this

Am I the only one who thought it would be a working PC, with the case made out of legos? That'd be a lot cooler, IMHO. The mouse might be a little annoying to hold, though...

You mean something like this? Or maybe you prefer Mac? :-)

You know what we be cool to put on that bookshelf? An Encyclomedia PC! This is by far the nicest form-following function I've seen home-brewed in a long time. I couldn't resist the chance to plug it.

You might find these http://mini-itx.com/store/?c=10#p1802 PSU and converters of interrest.

So basically you need a PC with a hard drive and a ethernet connection to be a silent web server, email server, repository, et al. You don't need a huge power supply, just something that can power those two items (maybe a CD or DVD drive).

You might as well go Mini-ITX, with the Via EPIA platform. They make small motherboards that fit anywhere (with on-board video and Ethernet) and direct-to-mobo 60W and 70W power supplies that only need a 12V external power supply brick. I have a EPIA V10000 that's running Gentoo Linux.

http://www.damnsmalllinux.org/ has a Mini-ITX store, and some ideas are at http://www.mini-itx.com/

Don't forget the PentiumM based SD11G5
http://www.silentpcreview.com/article274-page1.htm l

or you could get a 150W PSU and DC-DC Converter Kit to make your own power brick setup from http://www.mini-itx.com/store/?c=10#dcdc

Yeah, I've been somewhat annoyed with the long delay! But I spotted this recently, so hopefully that means we'll start seeing nano boards in the rest of the world fairly soon!

The main questions I have now are how much space the heat sink takes up and what sort of power supply requirements it has.

There are tons of wierd and wonderful casemods on this site
http://www.mini-itx.com/

They have a steady stream of people sending in photos of their work.

Ditto that, however, again according to the story dated November 23rd on http://www.mini-itx.com/ they've been spotted "in the wild" in Japan, heavily redesigned. They speculte early 2006 in the western world. But who knows? It gives me hope at least...

I take it that the mini-ITX stuff from Via et al is overkill / too big? If so, they are (hopefully) soon going to have nano-itx boards available that are more like traditional SBC's. http://www.mini-itx.com/ recently posted an article where one was spotted in the wild in Japan, so they might actually see light of day, finally. If you don't want to wait, there are a ton of SBC manufacturers that advertise in Linux Journal, surely one of them will do what you want. Pick up a copy of LJ and take a look.

http://www.mini-itx.com/projects/tera-itx/