Slashdot Mirror

That means you're really going to be doing it for the honor. In that case forget the money and rather make a "hall of fame", something like: http://armlinux.simtec.co.uk/whoswho.html . That's worth more for a good consultant and costs almost nothing to give out as a prize.

Nah, Wii guys look like this http://armlinux.simtec.co.uk/images/people/vrs.jpg

ARM Linux has had something similar in Kautobuild for some time.

Although the testing and building is limited to the ARM platform.

The site also has a whos who thats worh looking at ;-)

Three reasons as to the price. Volume, volume, volume. The first issue of these machines is set at 250 units, made in the UK. For the Mac Mini I expect that's 250,000 units, maybe made in China (is it?).

Manufacturing costs of small production runs are going to be higher. Compare with the Corel Netwinder - that was more expensive than a PC: it wasn't a mass market product so you paid more for it.

20W is the rating of the external power brick: a similar ARM board (with more peripherals) takes between 1.2W and 2.5W depending on which ports are in use.

This strikes me as being very cool for a number of reasons. The prototype is tiny (neato). picture Look at the specs closely, however. specs Unless I'm reading it wrong, they claim that the motherboard with serial, both network ports, and video running draws under 2.5 W. That's amazing. Also, it appears to be passively cooled. This is a great set of features for always-on applications.

They're old/crap even by ARM standards!

http://www.simtec.co.uk/products/EB1161ISA/intro.h tml

An ISA host AND slave mode controller...

Another reason ARM dont have too many people complaining about them is their designs go into some really inexpensive system on chip (SOC) devices.

So anyone wanting to play with the technology can have a development system really cheap like these (check out the tiny OKI modules) or even open source hardware like this

Other companies offering ARM based computers include Ionix and MicroDigital. If you have the cash anything is possible...

Other companies offering ARM based computers include Ionix and MicroDigital. If you have the cash anything is possible...

I have had some good experience with Simtecs OKI module. I have only used this in the gold config but it seems to do its job.

I think I can answer this very well. I just happen to have recently been looking around for lower-power embedded controllers, preferably running Linux. On linuxdevices.com go click on their "products" link at the top of their page. Those pages contain short blurbs from announcements. Just go looking for boards and don't overlook the little "more..." link at the bottom of the page. There's pages of announcements, but they're not all for boards.

Here's some boards that have piqued my interest:

• Axotec Phoenix-SBC-500/520 and Phoenix-ECM
• Strategic Test has some interesting embedded systems in a DIMM-module format.
• Technologic Systems TS-5300 and TS-5400, among others.
• Simtec has some StrongARM-based boards.
• A Canadian company with a MIPS-II-compatible set-top style box

Look at the Samsung 2410 board.

Well, actually I am now interested in their products. Slashdot just gave them a lot of coverage that they didn't previously have.

But I am not sure how much of a North American market they are trying to develop. I've wanted a StrongArm box for awhile, and the only one I've seen in the past that looked feasible and in the form factor I want was the Chalice CATS board in the ATX form factor, and it is an expensive 'development hardware' product.

It is supported by Linux (I'd recommend Debian) and NetBSD (ARM32 port).

You might want to give them an email or phone, because their web site seems to be a little out of date. They might even be working on an XScale board, for all I know...

Nearly perfect Crusoe board, but I need 2 PCI slots :-( - maybe I can mak Does netware definitely not run on Transmetas?

SA110 eval board - not so useful for Netware, but OK for Linux, and I'll have to use a 5v -> 3v regulator

Or just a Via C3 based socket 370 solution (see earlier posting for link).

Hmm, why doesn't anyone make an ATX transmeta board? Maybe I need a PCI board, with 2 or more PCI slots, and a PCI->PCI bridge chip on it, if such a thing exists...

I looked at these a few months ago. If you check the only distrubtor Chalice mentions, these things come in at 350 pounds bare which works out to about $527 for us yanks. Compared to x86 motherboards, that's an awful lot. (OK, it's not completely bare, it has a 32 Meg DIMM and comes with a CD. That doesn't make it worth it.)

I'd love to build a StrongARM machine, but that's more than 4 times what I just paid for a new dual-processor x86 motherboard (the Abit BP6). I couldn't justify the expense.

PowerPC processors are not well known for their sobriety. Most people willing to add these boards to their servers should seriously think about upgrading their power supplies too, especially if they also use RAID disks or whatever.
BTW, multi-processor, (Strong)ARM-based boards are also being worked upon by companies such as Simtec ; given the average power needs of an ARM processor and the low FPU based needs of a server, this is an interesting alternative (though I am not sure these are out yet).
--