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Run LinuxPPC In A Spare Drive Bay
Knobby was one of the several people to point out a really neat piece of hardware. He writes: "Total Impact just announced (a few days ago) their 'briQ'. It's a PPC G3 or G4 machine measuring 5.74 X 1.625 X 8.9 inches with a single 64bit 66MHz PCI slot, integrated 10/100Mbit networking, a 40GB HDD, and ships with LinuxPPC.. The press release on the page doesn't mention it, but the announcement I received mentioned a starting price of ~$2500.. Note: These are the same folks making the quad G3 and G4 processor PCI cards mentioned in an earlier article."
I've long wanted a computer in which the processor / motherboard / memory were as easily removed and replaced as a hard drive, this sounds quite close to that ideal.
"Everything that can be invented has been invented."
--I assume full responsibility for my actions, except the ones that are someone else's fault.
The only reason I submited this article, was to counter the "PPC is nice tech, but where can I get it other than Apple" comments.. The point here is not the size, or shape of this board. The point is that someone other than Apple is shipping a PPC machine.. I realize there are a lot of good, small x86 boards out there..
In all honesty, I don't think a $2500 box with a single G4 processor, a 10/100 adapter, and a 40GB HDD is worth the cash.. Especially, not when I can get a Dual G4 box from Apple for considerably less.. Hell, even the cube is cheaper, and it ships with a DVD
I have a passive backplane 386 processor card somewhere in all my old junk. It has integrated I/O and drive controllers. I used to use it plugged into a two slot backplane. I believe I ran Slackware (probably kernel 1.2.13...) on it for a time. It was awhile ago...
Hay thar.
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"This is highly unlikely to result in all sorts of people going out and buying these sorts of machines; it's just not economical unless there's a compelling need that justifies paying a couple grand for a pretty small server."
... Still interesting to know we should be waiting for it.
The point is that they are available. The $2500 is, in all likelihood, the introductory price based on "how many people want these things?!"... Once a few are sold, I'm sure the price will drop considerably.
In time little grass-hoppah.... in time....
Another important thing to note is these machines probably have better heat dissipation than larger machines [I'm basing this on the idea that 1) heat disipation would have to be improved to even offer them, and 2) If they are smaller, they are easier to cool; because moving air can be directed at and away from them with less energy (ie: the diff. between a cpu fan and a case-fan)].. In the least, they would be useful for applications where heat is a problem. I'm sure big bizz. will be buying into them so us little guys can reap the price drop in a year or two.
Ace
Before Apple put AGP on their towers, they included one 64bit, 66MHz PCI slot and stuck a video card in it. With the introduction of 2x and 4x AGP on Macs, it's gone away.
-jon
Remember Amalek.
And the idea of a cpu being on a slot really isn't a bad idea (I think pci would be too slow personally). But why oh why would you need a completely different computer in a drive bay (thats assuming you have any available).
This is a variant on a design concept dating from the "Big Board".
For those not familiar with it: The Big Board was a CPM-era machine. In those days when your basic PC was a desktop box the size of a mini-tower, with a front panel full of blinky lights and switches, a pair of EXternal 8" floppy drives. 8080 or Z80 processor, up to 64K of RAM. Alphanumeric dumb terminal or teletype for a console. Brand names like "Altair" or "Imsai" and maybe you assembled it yourself.
As complex-function chips improved a company had a great idea for a cheap process controller: They built a computer-on-a-board. It had a Z80, 64K (the max) of RAM, RAM-window alphanumeric video generator, two parallel ports (one for the keyboard, one for machine control), a serial port, a boot/monitor ROM, a floppy controller, and all supporting circuitry. But that's not all:
The board was exactly the same form factor as the electronics card on the floppy disk, right down to the hole placement and power connector. You just bolted it on top of the drive's board (with longer screws and standoff bushings), powered it with a two-drive power supply, stuffed in a floppy, and you had a machine controller. Plug in a monitor, a keyboard, and/or a network connection if appropriate for your application. Program it with the inexpensive CPM development tools.
Of course what ACTUALLY happened is that the hobbiests got hold of it and used it as a small, cheap, powerful CPM machine for home-computer use. (A little later Xerox licensed the design and built it into a monitor cabinet, to make a CPM machine the form factor of a monitor as their entry into the PC business.)
But the basic idea remained valid. As drives shrank (physically) and processors advanced to X80s you continued to see strap-onto-the-drive single-board computers ("SBC"s) for industrial process automation.
This looks like a variant on the idea: Put it in the slot next to the actual drive on a multi-drive bay (or put two drive mounts into your industrial machine), add power and some interface cables, and you're in business. No one-of engineering to automate your industrial machine, so your engineers only have to design the machine itself. The programming environment is the same as the desktops, so you can use off-the-shelf development tools.
You don't have to reinvent the whole wheel. Just tweak the trim for the new model year. B-)
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
...need to get with it and get that PPC support out the door.. :-)
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
according to the press release:
:>
"The briQ also allows the flexibility to run any PowerPC based Linux distribution available."
i assume that means yellowdog, etc
SPARCplug
Take one of those old CD-ROM towers and make a cluster. Seriously, tho, get one of those 7-bay towers, load it up, sticky-tape an 8-port switch in there, hook the uplink to a jack on the back and you've got 7 fairly powerful machines in the space of mid size tower case. Takes up less space than 7 1-U rack systems.
One neat use I'd like to see would be in labs for O/S classes. Recompile your kernel, download it to your other box and run it. If it crashes, no problem -- it won't interfere with your development/monitoring box. And it might make it possible to do a "remote" crash analysis for debugging.
Just junk food for thought...
If x number of PPC CPUs generate y amount of heat then y is directly proportional to x as such having more PPC CPUs would generate more heat. Fitting these processors into a smaller space (less potential surface area and less air volume) means you're going to end up with heat flow problems. 10 G4 Macs are going to radiate generated heat better than 10 of these little boxes stacked on top of one another due to the fact the G4 towers have the physical capacity to circulate more air.
I'm a loner Dottie, a Rebel.
Yay, finally some news on more people making PPC boxes! I can now rest. Lots of people have been pointing out that a couple years ago you could shell out 9k bucks for a non-UltraSPARC box that could fit inside a PC or that Cubes and G4 towers are cheaper. Who the fuck cares. The cool thing here is more people than just Apple are selling PPC boxes. All the stories of this catagory that get posted always end up bashed because everyone points out Apple and then when Apple actually does something they get bashed. Oh well.
I'm a loner Dottie, a Rebel.
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- 1 - 66 MHz PCI Bus with one PCI Slot which accepts a 66 MHz 32-bit PCI card.
- 1 - 33 MHz PCI Bus with three PCI Slots which accept 33 MHz 32-bit or 64-bit cards.
That's not the same as 1- 66mhz pci bus that accepts 64-bit cards.-Daniel
PS it did sound plausable and interesting though
Damn it, man! did it never occur to you that they might just need companionship. Have you not an ounce of compassion in your body?
8oP
http://fsfeurope.org/
Who needs a Mac in a drive bay when you can stuff a SPARC in there! I remember seeing a "SPARCPlug" by Ross Technologies a few years ago. Wonder what happened to them....
I've long wanted a computer in which the processor / motherboard / memory were as easily removed and replaced as a hard drive, this sounds quite close to that ideal.
Also sounds like quite an expensive solution to an already-solved problem. There are a number of manufacturers of passive-backplane systems that provide just that level of convenience. Basically, the passive backplane consists of a long board with something like 6 PCI and 6 ISA slots. This backplane installs in the case in the same position as a traditional motherboard. The CPU/RAM/Chipset "motherboard" is actually just a big PCI card that does bus mastering, and all your other peripherals sit in the slots. You can even get split backplanes, where more than one "motherboard" can coexist in the same case.
Nice thing about this design is that if any card fails, including the "motherboard", you yank it out and replace it - the backplane itself is so simple it basically never fails. And ventilation is usually better, since all your hot components are in the middle of the case rather than on the bottom or side -- a lot of these cases have a row of big 120mm fans across the entire front, so everything is well ventilated.
Most of the ones you'll see out there are fairly large (a little bigger than an old-style AT case), but I've even seen and used passive-backplane minitowers. The nice thing about these is that the form factor allows for a lot more room for slots in the case and therefore more peripherals.
At $1000, they would be a pretty good value.
At $2500, Californians care about the power consumption this week, although if things stabilize in a month, they may not care so much.
For the rest of us, such pricing is daunting unless there's a really compelling application that needs the exact form factor provided.
This is highly unlikely to result in all sorts of people going out and buying these sorts of machines; it's just not economical unless there's a compelling need that justifies paying a couple grand for a pretty small server.
If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate.
Like a SPARCplug ?
Bad Apple, Bad! Why don't you name your freaking gifs so people who don't surf with images can navigate your site? You gotta wonder how blind people navigate trash like that. Hate that site.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
If each developer had their own server (albeit, in their own worksation), they could offload processes to it (have it compile while you're busy fragging), or just use it as a server to test things on. You could also give novice admins their own server to learn with.
The main thing is, the marketroids have already figured out who the audience is, and have figured out they can make money. It's up to us to come up with new/novel uses. Like, an overly expensive MP3 player for your car.