Tiny PC: The Matchbox Web Server's Revenge

honkytonkyman writes "You may remember the matchbox Web server Slashdotted a while back. Since then, the matchbox Web server has been expanded with a micro disk drive, ethernet, standard vga, keyboard and mouse connectors -- all in a near-matchbox-sized package, a true PC in a matchbox. Stanford professor Vaughan Pratt has founded Tiqit to market these miniature PCs." This micro PC makes the (admittedly beefier) Xybernaut and friends look like an old Compaq luggable next to a Vaio. I'd like one with an input for use as external storage for my digital camera.

Comments

In the year 2000, I predict...

[Karmageddon]

This message is posted from the future, using microwaves and faster than light travel. BTW, we figured out why a microwave burst crosses a cesium filled cavity to emerge fully formed slightly earlier in time: to get to the other side!
Anyway, here is what http://implants.stanford.edu/ says 50 years from now in my inertial frame. If your browser does not support inertial frames, try this page:

Fifty years ago, a computer with less computational power than a modern spamfilter implant filled a whole matchbox -- no, it's true, it's hard to imagine: people used to "wear" computers in their clothing back when they wore clothing -- and ran programs consisting of something less than a few hundred million instructions.

In the intervening decades, computer hardware has continued to shrink, though physicists assure us that we will soon reach the limits of silicon chip physics and will need start using "quantum computers" and "optical computers". And, software functionality has continued to grow, or at least, code size has, so that today we can fit the whole <drool>Beowulf cluster</drool> used to drive this simple webpage into a World Wide Web server farm the size of one grit. Still no room for Propaganda, though.

so

[jbarnett]

the dam thing get slashdotted enough, thanks CmdrTaco. (joking).

suprised no one has committed on "a cluster of these". Have 200 cpus cranking away (even if they are 486) would be kinda need.

So is that a cluster in your pocket processing ray trace or are you just happy to see me?

They did install Windows and Linux on it, that is pretty cool. Since it looks like a "standard" pc, I bet you could pretty much throw anything on it, as long as it supports a 486. OpenBSD could be cool, just so you could say "I got 12 differant types of encryption in my pants, you want to guess which kinds and where?"

Or load up the thing with Metallica MP3's, stick it in your pocket, grab it from the out side of your pants and shout "HEY LARS I GOT YOUR MP3'S RIGHT HERE"

There is so many fun things you can do with this. Portable web cam, portable mp3 player (might have to tweak it out a bit, cpu wise) 300 Megs in the world of mp3 players is nothing to laugh at, hook up a zip or extrenal hard drive for extra storage.

Ever seen those LCD screens about the size of a tab of LSD? They are like 1(2??)CM square, small enough to put into a part of sunglasses. Hook up on those up to your shades, slip the match box computer into your pocket and you can watch down the street and have the "Terminator Bulls Eye" on everyone you meet. Or just want down the screen and have a slide show of Miss Portman pics, no one would ever know.

Man, this things has so many uses, anyone see the price his company will be offering these for? The site is slashdotted and could tell if they said or not.

Those are the good things, the bad things about this: You might accdentily drop it in the crapper if you aren't carefull. Plomp.

Sorry if this post seems long, I don't care, I just though of something else.

Being this small, you could (if you had the skill) implant one of these into your body somewhere (you pick the best spot).

Seriously I could imbed a matchbox size devices into the back of my neck, in my arm or maybe my legs with nothing more than the devices, a really sharp and CLEAN knife, a sharp and clean switching needle and a case of the cheapest beer you got.

If anyone wants to buy me one of these and a small LCD screen (2CMx2CM for example), I WILL embed this into some part of my body (which ever is the easiest and less painfull). Seriously I WILL give my body to science for this, if anyone wants to foot the bill for the matchbox computer and workable LCD screen. But the only thing I would require it to run either Linux or *BSD. Having a BSOD inside your body doesn't sound like fun.

I am not joking around here, ship me one of these and an LCD and I will self-insert this into my body for the "advancment" of science or the "curiously sick" side show expeirnce. In exchange for this, I will give you free banner ads on any web page/server I run out of this for the life of the unit.

people will probably think I am fucking around here, this is not a joke. Ship me one of these units and I will self-insert this somewhere into my body somewhat permentably (for the life of the unit or the life of me, or if there is a upgrade avaiable with more cpu, etc). On the creepy side, what would happen if I died with the unit still on, "Hey you got the check out slash dot, they have a web server running from inside some dead guy"

Seriously I am going to get one of these, one way or another and insert it into my body, that would rule. Doom2 24X7, nonstop, dool...

but wait...

[geekpress]

I'm just waiting for someone to make small computers that look like Campbell's soup cans, like the kind you can hide valuables in. You could have a whole network in your pantry cleverly hidden from anyone with a warrant.

Okay, so it's a bit absurd, but what isn't these days.

-- Diana Hsieh