Paperweight or Computer? You Decide!

Swaza1 writes: "While looking for something else I came across this embedded system at Web Techniques, which looks a lot like a paperweight I have on my desk. Good golly ... Intrinsyc included 10BaseT, serial, and USB ports on it and it comes in Windows CE or LINUX flavors. When can I get a system in the shape of Snoopy-sleeping-on-his-doghouse desk lamp for my kid?"

Comments

Pictures of Boxes That Small

[dew]

I went to the RSA 2001 Conference up in San Francisco, and the Embedded Systems Conference was just across the street, so I dropped by with my digital camera. I managed to take several pictures of these boxes in various form factors. You may (or may not) be interested.

• box in hand
• cute red thing running windows
• the guts of the box
• the backside of the cute red box
• box and board
• backside of cube (fuzzy)

David E. Weekly

Re:Why not both?

[edhall]

Curious though why it only offers Windows CE and Linux, and not the full blown version of Windows.

Probably because Windows only runs on the i386 architecture and not StrongARM. WinCE, like Linux, does run on that chip (as does NetBSD, though probably not on this specific box).

Maybe it's slow enough that loading something other than CE might turn it into a real paperweight

Actually, I'd expect it to be pretty snappy, probably about as fast as a 200MHz Pentium. Of course, 32MB RAM and only a 16MB Flash as a storage device keeps it from being generally useful, but the StrongARM is a pretty powerful chip, especially considering its low power requirements.

-Ed

Yay.

[mindstrm]

Abuse of the word 'embedded'.
$500 is a wee bit pricey for something with no real power.

Embedded systems does not mean 'small'.... you could think of it as a computer inside something that is not a computer. This is not an embedded system; this is a small PC in a tiny box.
An embedded system is the computer in your car, the computer in the alarm panel, the circuits that run the elevator, the controller in your Boomslang 2000 mouse, and the guts of your digital thermostat.

Watchout for that USB

[victim]

That USB is a `B' type connector. In other words you can plug it into your host computer as a peripheral. You can not plug USB devices into it. It is not a simple wiring difference.

That will rule out all those nifty USB peripherals that you might want to plug into this device. So long to cameras, printers, audio devices, keyboards, controllers....

I suppose it could be useful for initial programming, but I suspect the only reason it is there is that it is on the SA1110 chipset (which is aimed at handhelds). I also recall that the USB implementation on the SA1110 has (or had) some sort of congenital problem. I believe you would find more in the LART archives. (Which is also available now, but at something like twice this price and no cool aluminium box, but a fully open sourced hardware design.)

(Ok, against all slashdot culture, I have done my own research and looked up the aforementioned USB problem. It is the SA1100 which could only be used as a slave, and it had to be the only device on the bus for it to work as documented in the errata. I don't know if the SA1110 has this problem or not. Intel app note here.)

A monochrome iPAQ only costs $399

[Russ Nelson]

A monochrome iPAQ only costs $399. Add $40 for the CF sleeve plus $60 for Ethernet, and you've got one of these puppies PLUS a display and digitizer. For no additional cost. Could somebody explain to me again why this product is so wonderful?
-russ

Re:A monochrome iPAQ only costs $399

[istartedi]

Well, while your at it... an old 486 costs $20. It probably consumes a lot more power, but hey I live in Virginia where electricity isn't a problem. So, if I wanted a cheap server, I'd be scrounging through the parts store. Actually, I wouldn't even have to do that. I've got a P-75 just sitting on the floor in the next room doing nothing. Hmmmm... I wonder if I'm contributing to the tech slowdown. Yes, umm... the little cube thingies are great. Buy them by the truckload, then hire me.

Hey, shove it up a stuffed penguin's butt.

[twivel]

I'm serious, would be cool to have a linux one with the outside being a stuffed penguin. Since it's the size of a paper weight, it wouldn't be too difficult to do the fitting.

Pricing question

[GrEp]

Why is the Linux version the same price as the WinCE version? Is M$ giving CE away for free, or am I missing something?

bash-2.04$

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[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Potential core for a robot?

[dstone]

Cut the power cord and add some motors and wheels. You could plug the little guy into your LAN and telnet into it (sorry, SSH into it) for programming, etc.

Re:Why not both?

[janpod66]

With 16Mbytes of disk space, it isn't large enough to hold even the software necessary to run Notepad. And with 32Mbytes of RAM, you wouldn't want to.

Add a 6GB micro drive to this thing

[zelbinion]

IF you could get more storage into this thing, it might be interesting:

Drop in a 6GB IBM micro drive, and you've got a halfway decent small-bandwidth web server.

add some mp3's and a PCMCIA sound card, and have it play They Might Be Giants all day long.

NFS mount to another box and make it a really cool dumb terminal. (that's REALLY dumb, with no monitor...)

put a usb camera with it, apache, and a wireless network card -- instant portable voyeur-cam!

network a bunch of them together and make a beowul... er, never mind, bad idea.

paint it black/green, install an IRC server and use it to assimilate/control all of the windows CE versions of the cerfcube with IRC bots -- send it to Steve Gibson. Put it on a string and swing it around your head and make engine sounds--The borg cube lives! Resistance is mostly futile!

Plug 400 of them into your home network, and use them to DDoS your internet-enabled weather-forecasting toaster. (of course, only if it supposed to rain today)

Just wait 6 months...

[Hungry Hungry Hippo!]

... If it's not a paperweight now, it will be!

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