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Save $150 and don't buy the Casetronic Travla's case. Hunt around the house for something else to put it in, be inventive, go for something cool(http://www.mini-itx.com/projects/coolcube/),
cuddy(http://www.mini-itx.com/projects/moocowmoo/ ) ,
or hell any old trash will do(http://www.mini-itx.com/projects/windowsxpbox/) .

Note to the weak of stomach - what they did with the Pet ITX project will make you cry, the 800MHz teddybear will make you cheer (evil ball of fur deserved everything he got).

Save $150 and don't buy the Casetronic Travla's case. Hunt around the house for something else to put it in, be inventive, go for something cool(http://www.mini-itx.com/projects/coolcube/),
cuddy(http://www.mini-itx.com/projects/moocowmoo/ ) ,
or hell any old trash will do(http://www.mini-itx.com/projects/windowsxpbox/) .

Note to the weak of stomach - what they did with the Pet ITX project will make you cry, the 800MHz teddybear will make you cheer (evil ball of fur deserved everything he got).

Save $150 and don't buy the Casetronic Travla's case. Hunt around the house for something else to put it in, be inventive, go for something cool(http://www.mini-itx.com/projects/coolcube/),
cuddy(http://www.mini-itx.com/projects/moocowmoo/ ) ,
or hell any old trash will do(http://www.mini-itx.com/projects/windowsxpbox/) .

Note to the weak of stomach - what they did with the Pet ITX project will make you cry, the 800MHz teddybear will make you cheer (evil ball of fur deserved everything he got).

You aren't looking in the right place. 800 Mhz is the fastest fanless machine off the shelf but 1Ghz is possible (hush, tranquilPC) and home brew.

Nor are you :-p

VIA EPIA MS 10000E LVDS Fanless Mini-ITX Motherboard (1 GHz)

Can't post the # anchor bit to take you straight to the board, Slashcode is munging it into a %23, bah.

The reason for doing it with VIA boards being that they generate less heat (and use less power). The 12-node (800 MHz) cluster in the link runs at 140-200 watts, apparently.

here's a quick hint for you: don't offer 'facts' if you can't check out your facts first before blathering on.

about Apple's warranty:

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=300 572/ note that they say "...should be installed by an Apple Authorized Service Provider." that's "should" not "only" by an AASP.

and http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=250 97/ "...Adding DRAM, VRAM or other user-installable upgrade or expansion products to an Apple computer is not considered a modification to that Apple product."

of course, that doesn't mean they _want_ you to do it; the case is difficult to open but it can be done if you're patient and careful: http://www.russellbeattie.com/notebook/1008276.htm l/

[rant] it's NOT just about looks: the mini target audience is for "adders" and "switchers" who want a computer that just works, i.e. they want their software to work - iPhoto, iTunes, iMovie, iDVD, GarageBand, Safari/Mozilla, as opposed to learning how to be a systems admin to care for their Windows computer. sure you can get a PC for less, but then you still have to buy XP and all the other software. and it's still XP. They're buying the whole ball of wax for the "computing experience", a consistent, friendly, useful experience, so your statement, "...most of the software that most people want to run out there runs either on Linux..." is crap, since there's no decent equivalent to the iLife suite in Linux(or Windows, provide links if you can.) and due to the nature of Open Source, there will be differences(some significant) in UI for linux apps.
don't forget, all macs COME WITH iLife - you don't have to buy it, install it and learn five different ways to do the same thing(i'm thinking of the OS file browser provided to all apps and navigating directories in Explorer)...

you do non-technical readers/users a disservice by not providing proof of your statements - and your lack of experience with the Mac shows. the mac "experience" is something you realize when the computer and the software don't get in the way of what you're doing. i've got a dual-boot windowsXP/gentoo machine i built myself and several Macs. I've been using, programming, designing and destroying software professionally since 1985; i've used punch cards, TTYs, mainframes, supercomputers, PCs, i've designed my own user interfaces when there wasn't even X/OpenGL(remember the Sun1? the DEC Gigi? character graphics on a vt100? i do.) - so i have a lot of choices, my opinion? the user experience in windows is abysmal(sp?) when compared to the mac, so i'll take the mac every time. when you can get a complete, consistent set of programs that do what is included in iLife for Linux/FOSS, it _will_ be a great day indeed. until then you're saddled with inconsistent applications user-interfaces for both linux and windows. ( p.s. i like MythTV, Gimp(especially with the recent UI hacks...), blender, firefox/thunderbird and use fluxbox, but they're just short of the integration achieved on the mac.)[/rant]

here's a review of the mini that i feel is fair and balanced:
http://www.sfftech.com/showdocs.cfm?aid=659

to sum up the mini-memory issue: there are _many_ reviews elsewhere and it has been discussed at length in many forums that you can install your own memory, it's just if you break the lid doing it they won't replace it.

back on-topic: the EPIA series are able performers if you're not a demanding user(the dual cpu board displayed at Cebit looks promising); OK, yet another flavor of linux, why?.

a great place for EPIA info is: URL:http://mini-itx.com//

There is a 1GHz fanless mini-itx board, VIA's EPIA MS 10000E. Add in a silent power supply, and then all you've got left to make silent is the hard drive (and you could make that silent too, by have a solid state drive in the silent box, and pulling everything that won't fit on that off a network drive.)

And a huge percentage of the embedded market is done with those 'pea shooters' . My point is that in the embedded market, speed/RAM size, whatever isn't anywhere near as important. Cost is.

If you wanted a consumer-grade device, there may be an argument, but embedded is (very!) rarely such a resource hog. There is also always a mini-itx type for $100->$200 depending on what you want. Ok, add $40 for 256 MB RAM, and it runs a little slower at (up to) 1GHz but you do get firewire, USB, 100-BASET (up to 4 of them IIRC), TV out, MPEG hardware decoding, LVDS i/o, general purpose i/o (important in embedded), FIR, CIR, audio jacks, and access to more disks...

Or you could pay 2-5 times the price and get a mini (with a DVD-ROM bundled).

Simon

IF you don't run too many calls at once, a mini-itx system might fit your bill. They can be very low power, and the single PCI slot is likely enough for most purposes. Look close at that site, they sell (or at least have sold) 12 power adapters, so you can use a car battery as your power supply, and have a very long lasting UPS (perhaps changed from solar panels) just like the real telcos. Well not quite, real telcos use 48volts, but I have seem some of the smaller ones use 4 car batteries to get that power.

You are wrong

Funny you should mention that...

I'm looking into getting maybe three or four of these mini-ITX systems to do stereo vision processing for a DARPA run. They're easier to work with than usual embedded controlers (since they're 99.9% x86 PC), and they're much cheaper than even the cheapest laptops out there.

These in particular might not be cheap because they're so new, but a Nehemiah 1Ghz is only £95GBP or $171USD (guess they haven't updated their exchange rates), $760.02 for 4 of 'em including shipping anywhere in the lower 48.

If you want to see what cool stuff people are doing with mini-ITX, check out http://www.mini-itx.com/. Mini-ITX is a form factor where the board is 6.7"x6.7"

That's what Nanode must have thought when they first saw the new Mac.
http://www.mini-itx.com/news/nanode/ These pics, based on a box using a nano-ITX board are from a year ago.

Yes, they aren't out yet. There may ultimately be critisisms of it's size, features, what not. But with the specs and pics announced 9 months before the Mac Mini, you can't call it the copy

Check out http://mini-itx.com/ or http://g-b.dk/bin/view/Jan/MyComputer if you're really looking to build a pc that is small, power-lean, and "just fast enough" for "normal" use.

The nanode:
http://www.mini-itx.com/news/nanode/

Some folks actually like their lunchboxes. http://www.mini-itx.com/projects/lunchboxpc/

Maybe unrelated but, there is a teddy computer.

Mini-ITX. Not micro-atx. This is Mini ITX. This "SFF" thing is larger than a Mini ITX by a long shot. Just looking at the picture of the SFF motherboard you can see huge swaiths of unused space. Try and find a single unused square cm. on a Mini itx board.

You mean like this?
http://www.mini-itx.com/projects/lunchboxpc/

I like how now every thing is in a little box, gamecubes, mac minis, the cube lan party rigs. I would be cool to make a lunchbox that looks like that.

Actually, that has already been done.
http://www.mini-itx.com/projects/lunchboxpc/

Do you mean something like this?

I've actually begun a project like this, too. I've got 3 NESs that I just dug up and have taken one apart to start. I began writing a front/backend to a sweet-ass multi-emulator program in Python/GTK.

My current plan is to fashion the front ports into USB ports, have the box run a highly customized install of Gentoo, and use the nice mini-itx Pentium4 board they now have available. I say "plan" since I don't know if I'll be able to do certain things and time/money constraints may change certain things. A 2.4ghz box may be overkill for such a project, but I have fears that the
1ghz VIA board may not have enough graphics power.

I also plan on having the machine act as a video player (and connect over NFS or similar technology to my server) as well as play CDs and DVDs in addition to GB/GBA/GBC/DS/NES/SNES/MAME/Genesis/Sega/GameGear/ TG16/etc/etc/etc emulators.

Well, here's your chance.

This will go over well with airport security.

Made me think of this mini-itx project.

Mac ITX

Do that with a Mini.

Amy

we almost slashdotted /. !
i waited nearly 30 minutes to get to the reply page!

finally RTFA and i understand what he was getting at, but seriously, if you can't be bothered to find an aesthetic and
clever way to implement an external storage system(http://mini-itx.com/news/83991250//) then it's just a half-as$ed job.

Nere's a pic of the new form factor that they will be using for the case.

"I'm curious as to why the majority of SSF PC's insist on using Intel motherboards and processors."

I think pentiums are physically smaller. I know that a socket A CPU attachment takes up a significant amount of space on a small motherboard. Mind you, attach the cooler and they're both huge - if I wanted small I'd use a mini-itx with a via chip.

This is very similar to a Mini-ITX project I saw a while ago.

The main difference is, the Mini-ITX page shows you how everything is layed out inside the picture frame. cu

And what if his next project is to install the Mac inside a guitar?

Something like this

It's cool that he did this, and of course Nano-ITX is the only way to do it with off-the-shelf parts. It would be nice to compare the Mac Mini to a Nanode, which is at least in the same league style-wise (IMHO).

But if you want to really compare platforms you need to take the processor into account, and for that it would be more realistic to put the Pentium-M up against the G4. And maybe also run BSD on it :-). I don't know if anyone does a nano-ITX mobo that would take a Pentium-M but one might hope...

As an aside, I think it's funny how the kids spammed up his comments section with FreeMiniMac MLM schemes.

Still think I'm going to buy one though... maybe when Tiger ships and someone has a sufficiently cool iKVM.

"from other computer manufacturers to George Foreman CubeGrills."

Here ya go, then! Your own iGrill!

Now, the thing that suprises me most, is that the mini ITX crowd don't all jump up here and defend the Mac Mini...

You don't have a small form factor, and I hardly doubt that it's quiet. For some people, those are important design considerations. Now if you spec out a mini ITX box (say with a VIA Eden chipset, or whatever they are up to now-a-days...), it would be more relevant.

Exterminate all rational thought. Just perfect for filing your reports from Interzone.

The via eden processors run pretty well without a fan - they go up to 600MHz I think (see more info here)

Of course, I've already build my own Mini-ITX PC, so small isn't so much of a big deal anymore. Thus I stopped tracking prices a little while ago.

You might want to check out VIA's EPIA series (both Mini-ITX at 170 mm x 170 mm and Nano-ITX at 120 mm x 120 mm) and what people have done with it. At 160 mm x 160 mm and with rounded corners, the motherboard in a Mac Mini is just a wee bit smaller than Mini-ITX, and dwarfs Nano-ITX. All a PC maker has to do is make a good-looking box to put an EPIA in, and you have your dream.

1. Speaking of which That link ought to prove it...

I call bullshit, actually it is an SODIMM.

Look at this picture. For scale, the PCI slot is along the top, and the RAM slot is to the right hand side, running vertically. It's just behind the DVI socket I think. There is no WAY that holds a normal DIMM.

It's an SO DIMM

http://www.mini-itx.com/news/98490587/

On the same site..... WAAAAAAAY cooler, or hotter, depending.

If you don't mind using one machine to collect the signal and another, smaller box to connect to the TV, you could do what this guy did and put it in a small wire box (like you would use for a paper tray).

I am (at this very minute) replacing my aging hifi PC with a mini-itx system based around the VIA EPIA Nehemiah M10000 LVDS 1Ghz Motherboard, with the fan ripped off and fitted into the passive cooling E-Otonashi Case (both available from http://www.mini-itx.com/store/).

Not one fan. The ONLY thing that makes a sound is the hard disk (and THAT's a quiet one). It's freaked me out a couple of times, where I think it's died, until I see the light's still on. With a decent-sized solid state drive, this would be totally silent.

Not to mention the VIA EPIA MII 12000 is as slow as molasses.

here's a few sites so far:

http://mini-itx.com/
http://damnsmallinux.org/store/
http://idotpc.com/
http://logicsupply.com/

so far, none of these sites(except maybe mini-itx.com) have a way to configure a complete system; mostly they don't stock all the necessary components.

oh, i forgot, "spcr.com" is actually http://silentpcreview.com/

Please, Slashdot gods, save the "Oh my god, they put a Mini-ITX board in a [insert object x here]" posts for some other site. If I want to see this sort of thing, I'll go to the site mentioned above.

Please, Slashdot gods, save the "Oh my god, they put a Mini-ITX board in a [insert object x here]" posts for some other site. If I want to see this sort of thing, I'll go to the site mentioned above.

Please, Slashdot gods, save the "Oh my god, they put a Mini-ITX board in a [insert object x here]" posts for some other site. If I want to see this sort of thing, I'll go to the site mentioned above.

Please, Slashdot gods, save the "Oh my god, they put a Mini-ITX board in a [insert object x here]" posts for some other site. If I want to see this sort of thing, I'll go to the site mentioned above.

That would be interesting to see. It's been done with the m-itx boards already http://www.mini-itx.com/projects/cluster/ (mini-itx.com), so anybody with the ambition to get 30 of these guys should do so now so we can /. them too.

Oh my, if i've ever seen the spitting image of a Nanode, it's the mac mini. More Nanode action here.

Oh my, if i've ever seen the spitting image of a Nanode, it's the mac mini. More Nanode action here.