Build Your Own Mini-Computer

Bored in Chattanooga writes: "Tom's is running an article reviewing a Shuttle mini-computer. Seems to have everything the average computer user would need, minus a nice 3D graphics card. Perhaps the standard large ATX-size computer cases will cease to exist and be replaced by these "mini-computers." I find these gems cuter than any iMac I've ever seen!"

Comments

better mini computer

[MathJMendl]

I'd rather have one of these...then again, it might be kind of hard to upgrade.

Re:better mini computer

[SecretAsianMan]

Yeah, well I'd rather have one of these, which is what I think of when I hear "minicomputer". Nyah!

Re:better mini computer

[searleb]

Last week people were complaining about slashdot killing the lisa web server. This time the direct link to the microchip server wasn't even posted and the "machine" is already down. In fact, it's probably on fire right now.

Re:better mini computer

[seanadams.com]

The Ipic is almost certainly a hoax. This guy should *not* be taken seriously until he either:

- Posts some technical details as to how he managed to pull it off.
- Publishes his source
- Sells a product based on this
- Sets up a convincing demo

Having spent the better part of a year writing a TCP/IP stack for the PIC, I can tell you with certainly that the features and RFC compliance he claims are simply impossible to fit into the 12XXXX parts. The ROM space certainly isn't there, even if everything is tightly hand-coded in assembler. the more obvious limitation however, is RAM. He claims to be running full TCP on a part that doesn't even have the space to hold a minimum-size packet in RAM for checksumming. I could get into a zillion other impossibilities of this project, but it's easier to just show you this page, a commercial PIC TCP/IP stack), which shows exactly how much RAM/ROM it takes to fit a tight TCP/IP implementation into the PIC. There's just no way you could fit this much into the 12-bit PICs.

hmm... haven't we progressed from minicomputers?

[red_crayon]

Why would I want to bulid a minicomputer?

PCs blow away VAXes. A modern PC has way more computing power than a VAX 11/780.

Move along, people, there's nothing here unless you're still using your VIC-20.

yes, unfortunate misuse of terminology

[nomadic]

Why on earth would a supposedly tech-savvy site misuse a term like that? I seriously thought they were referring to wardrobe-sized computers...

What about heat?

[evilviper]

Of course a major problem with mini-computers is that there's just nowhere for the heat to go. Aluminum cases may help a small bit, but certainly not enough to accomidate an Athlon, Fast hard drive, etc. The air-circulation methods we've been using for so long just breakdown.

If small PCs are to catch on, manufacturers are either going to need to make low-heat devices their bread and butter, or case manufacturers are going to need to realize that they can just add a little extra metal and actually CONDUCT the heat out through the case, instead of the much less effecient (although for some reason exclusively used) convection method.

Re:What about heat?

[Shanep]

Of course a major problem with mini-computers is that there's just nowhere for the heat to go.

As far as my thinking goes, the smaller the case, the better, provided that there is a strong enough air flow. Reason being, that with a small enclosure, there is less air to displace. A fan that can extract at 10 cubic feet per minute is going to fully displace the air in a 10 cubic feet case once per minute, yet this same fan will displace the air in a 1 cubic feet case 10 times per minute, giving better cooling. The air flow around components tends to be faster, but this depends on the physical layout just as much as a larger computer.

The problem with small cases are the small fans, not the small cases. Small fans don't tend to scale down well. I like to put a large fan into a small case, at an angle, with the output side ported out of the case unrestricted, with the efficiency of the fan lost at the sucking side, inside the case. This might be inefficient compared with the abilities of the fan, but tends to be much better than a small fan working at it's best.

A little reality check...

[toupsie]

Seems to have everything the average computer user would need, minus a nice 3D graphics card.Perhaps the standard large ATX-size computer cases will cease to exist and be replaced by these "mini-computers." I find these gems cuter than any iMac I've ever seen!"

The "SpaceWalker" is no way as cute as the Apple iMac. Plus the iMac comes with a NVidia GeForce 2 MX 3D card and 15" LCD monitor. The iMac has DVD-R/CD-R burning compared to the CD-RW of the SpaceWalker. Also, the iMac only has a 10.6" foot print. From what I understand, that is smaller than the FlexATX board.

The SpaceWalker is more a diamond in the ruff compared to the polished Apple iMac.

Re:A little reality check...

[2nd Post!]

You have to remember that Bored in Chattanooga wants less functionality, pay less for a machine, keep his hands warm, and keep his books from falling over.

He really does want the firewire, USB, tv out, compact size, built in audio, built in networking, everything the iMac offers, and the iMac does, as you mention, come with a GeForce2 and LCD screen. Except he doesn't want to pay for it and he tacitly acknowledges that look matters. Isn't that ironic? Saying that he values cute PCs, the iMac isn't cute enough?

Re:A little reality check...

[skullY]

I think I still saved $500, and I have a computer that will fit on a shelf, and run the latest games reasonably. I guess the final decision (whether you'll pay about $500 premium for the 'sexy' Apple case) is one of taste.

Ah, but you also get an 800mhz PPC chip, which is roughly equivilent to a 1.4-1.6ghz x86 chip. And you can run OSX on it, which is a dream to run and happily beats the pants off anything you can run on intel. Finally, I can buy the new imac for $1800, plus shipping. You have to buy your barebones system for $250+shipping, from somewhere else buy the chip, drive and ram, for another $250+shipping. Next you find the DVD-R from the one place that has it at the cheap price, but makes up for it by having all the rest of their stuff be really expensive. Same deal with the video card and LCD. Or you can bite the bullet and buy it all at the same place, and do some research to figure out where you can get the best average price.
At the end of the day, I spent 15 minutes deciding whether or not to buy a new imac, and you spent all day finding the best prices for your stuff so you could save $400. In 3 weeks when we each finally have our machines (The imac's aren't shipping for another couple weeks) I'll have mine setup and playing UT in 15 minutes. You'll have to first assemble yours, so maybe an hour later (If you're good with hardware) you have a working machine.

I dunno, to me, the $400 is worth the reduced agrivation, work, and the benefits.

It's in the car

[Sauron23]

Bought one. Works great for browsing, running Morpheus. Didn't read Tom's article. Did he mention you can have 3 ATA100 devices? Use the floppy slot for another disk. Yes you can use standard cables, yes the power supply has enough watts to do this. Sound is good for MP3 quality, graphics suck, go buy a PCI card and use that one slot, such as a 64 meg MX400 which does the trick for me as it has the TV out. Don't ask it to copy 10 gigs while your watching a DVD and you'll do fine. Add a 300 watt inverter, wireless keyboard, touch pad and small lcd and throw the whole thing in the car. Add GPS, cell phone to match your needs. Now go buy one. I want more cases like this. The cappacino PC almost made my list but lacks that important ingredient, versitility, which this has.

My house isn't shrinking?

[scott1853]

So why should my PC? I have 9' ceilings. Saving 10" on the vertical height of my computer is not a problem.

Besides, where will you put the flourescent light and glass window?

Uh oh, conflicting geek factors... smaller vs. pointlessly cool... arghh.... losing... precious... karma...

Re:Notebook?

[2nd Post!]

Feeding? You make it sound as if the manufacturers are parasites.

DIY cannot make an iMac or a Cube. DIY cannot make PowerBooks or iBooks.

Rather, you can take the point of view the DIY *do* make these machines, but they happen to work at Apple.

Also, I dunno if you own a Mac or not, Macs are more than just the hardware. There's the OS and the addon software that makes it far from standard. We (me) feed Apple in order for Apple to continue producing the iPods, the iMovies and iTunes, the FCP, and the OS X for us.

I own an FV24!

[2nd Post!]

It's running W2k right now.

I stuffed it inside an old, old, $10 Mac LCII case. Yeah, you know, those 1.4", smaller than 1U case. I haven't finished it, yet, as I have to hack at the case for the power supply to fit; the power supply is like 50mm and the free space inside is only 43mm. I have to carve up some plastic.

I'm seriously considering stuffing an old iMac mobo into one of those as my next project, and then pop in a fast 800MHz G4...

Re:I own an FV24!

[WasterDave]

One upped, a mate of mine did it with a Mac classic and a 9 inch monitor.

http://www.cooljazzmotherfucker.com/PCMods/

We played rocket arena off it (serving) for several hours the other day. It rocks.

Dave

Build your own minicomputer?

[geojaz]

Isn't that so like... 1983?

Slow graphics?

[c.r.o.c.o]

This question begs to be asked. Why isn't any company creating something like this but instead of the very, very slow S3 chips, use an Nvidia Nforce?

The Nforce is fast enough graphics-wise, as far as I'm concerned. I mean, I'm playing RTCW on a dual Celeron 466 w/ TNT2 32Mb... Yeah, I can't have all the special effects, and it only runs at 640x480, BUT IT WORKS! I've spent far too many hours playing it at this cappy resolution and I loved it. Granted, and Athlon XP2000+ w/ GeForce3 would blow my computer away, but it is also a few thousands more expensive. So on an Nforce, coupled with a newer CPU would be significantly faster.

Not to mention the fact that the Nforce has good sound capabilities too. And it supports the Athlon, which is also faster than the P3.

Honestly, I'm just waiting for the day when they're going to come out with this very same computer, but with an Athlon w/ the Nforce inside, and I'm buying it. I hope SpaceWalker is listening to me...

Re:Only one PCI slot??

[atam]

A radio or TV card?

You can plug in a radio or TV adaptor to the USB ports.

More USB ports?

That is what a 4-port USB hub is for.

SCSCI card?

Well, you can use it on the only 1 PCI slot. Besides, it has Firewire ports so you could possibly plug in external Firewire harddisk, tape drive, etc instead of using equivalent SCSI devices. OK, I concede that this Mini-PC is not as expandable as regular PC, but the expandability is not as bad as you think.

Stupid

[seanadams.com]

I'm just amazed by the number of posts along the lines of:

* What, only one PCI slot? Stingy bastards.
* No on-board 3D video, wtf?
* All the peripherals are integrated - what if I want a 3com NIC instead of Realtek?
* How am I supposed to fit my three CDROM drives into this?

Guys - this is EXACTLY THE FRIGGIN POINT. Believe it or not, there are other people in the world besides you, and many of us have been waiting for exactly this kind of integration in commodity PCs for quite some time. Not everybody wants to spend weeks building the Ultimate Gaming Machine - some of us have real work to do and we just want a reasonably fast machine without all the hassle. Small is great when you need several machines in a rack, or you want to stash the machine neatly behind your monitor. This machine is perfect for me - I have several Linux and Windows workstations, plus a couple of FreeBSD servers, all with empty slots and drive bays, so this would be a much better replacement for all those bullky mid-towers.

If you want five PCI slots, a $400 video card, surround sound, 1TB of hard disk space, etc, then this product is not for you. It's not designed for you, it's not being marketed to you, so why are you complaining that it doesn't fit the bill?

I'm surprised it's taken this long. Large cases date back to the days when you'd need a separate card for your serial/parallel, IDE, VGA, etc, and a bunch of drive bays for a pair of 5.25" drives, a newfangled 3.5" drive, and so on. There are still plenty of uses for that space, sure, but not so much in "mainstream" PCs any more.

Re:Stupid

[NeuroManson]

In the Mini PC business, note that most of the systems are geared towards the Japanese market... Where a studio apartment on average is smaller than some folks' bedrooms, an ultra compact PC is ideal...

Re:Stupid

[tempmpi]

The article is by tomshardware, sure it says build your own machine, because most if not all of the readers of tomshardware build their own machines. But I also the that these case has really chance to enter the "aunt, uncles and newbie" market. Barebones are really great for small computer stores. Just add a CPU, some ram and a harddisk and you can sell a complete computer. Sure that wouldn't be as successfull as selling it at fry's, but it would be a start and I think the sv24 is already clear success for shuttle.
Also you ask if geeks would buy that barebone. You said they wouldn't buy it because it is too slow and not upgradeable. I think you forgot something here, sure geeks wouldn't buy it as their main working machine but it is a really good case for every geek that wants to build a small pc for a special purpose like a small fileserver or a mp3 player, or just a pc to surf the web in the living room.
I think this is a great computer for both the newbie and the geek.

Subpar Video?

[x136]

Well, if you don't like the video, make use of the PCI slot. Ditch the sound card. ATI just announced a PCI Radeon 7000 for the Mac, so I would imagine it's either already out or coming soon for the PC. Sure it's PCI, but it'll still spank a Savage4. Plus, the Radeon 7000 has a DVI port, so you could hook up a nice LCD display.

Having said that, I'd love to see one of these slightly taller, with either 2 PCI slots, or a PCI and an AGP slot. Then there wouldn't be much to complain about! (Actually, I wonder if there would be room for another card with the floppy gone? I mean, who needs a floppy anyway?)

As others have pointed out, it isn't nearly as attractive as the new iMac, I wouldn't mind having it on my desk next to one. :)

Another similar, but better looking case

[Nerant]

Soldam also has something similar. Pandora

not good for a/v component

[tap]

I've got one of these at work to make an X-terminal out of. It comes with three fans, a 60x10mm fan on the short heatsink that sounds like a jet engine, a rather noisy 60x25mm fan as the case exhaust, and a tiny 25mm fan in the power supply. Even without a hard drive, it's a very noisy machine.

In order to quiet it down, I got a low power VIA C6 CPU for it, the 800Mhz samuel2 1.6V model. I couldn't find the C3 ezra 1.3V cpu for sale anywhere at the time. The small heatsink wasn't enough to cool the chip without the fan. I've ordered the Alpha PAL6035 heatsink to see if that will cool the C3 ok without a fan. There isn't much space in the case to put a large heatsink in. The intel OEM PIII heatsink is too wide, so is the Alpha PAL8045 and Thermalright SK6. The Swiftech MCX370 should fit, and I think the Zalman heatsinks can fit if you cut and bend some of the fins and don't have a harddrive.

Ok, someone went and changed the definition...

[Sycraft-fu]

...of mini computer. Last time I checked the computers we normally used were "micro" computers. Minis are the thigns that are bigger than that, but not big enough to be a mainfram yet. A good example would be the Sun 10000 we have at work. It's huge 8 processor server with a ton of disks, in a rather large box. Too big to be in teh same category as the desktops, but not as big as the supercomputer up stairs (a mainframe). So it's a mini.

power and heat problems

[tempmpi]

An nForce in this case would be very nice, but I think that it wouldn't be easy to solve the heat and power problems of this combination.
Now the case contains a 145 w power supply, when you want to add a athlon and nforce you would need at least 250 W.
Also needed is a special cooler, because there isn't enough space in the case to mount a standard athlon cooler. I think that these problems aren't easy to solve. I think they could maybe solve these problems if they find a good way to use the case as a heatsink.

I needed a display stand...

[TicTacTux]

...so I bought this and that. Not as geeky as the shuttle thingie, not as fast as the bleeding edge, but a tad cheaper... Most important: Everything is supported under Linux, hehe.

Two changes...

[TheSHAD0W]

Two changes to this configuration would make it perfect, IMO...

No onboard video and an AGP slot on the opposite side of the board...

And for the case, a separate power supply module.

The result would be even more compact, and the components would be even smaller. Swap the A/C power module for one supplied by 12 volts, and you've got the perfect box for your vehicle.

Bad Concept, Period.

[Bowie J. Poag]

1) Who on earth is going to buy a stainless steel case, and then mount drives with BEIGE faceplates inside of it? Talk about ugly, sheesh.

2) It may take off elsewhere, but this is America. Bigger is better. Most people want a machine that kicks ass and takes names, not something that looks a blinking vaccum cleaner attachment.

3) Design thats pleasing to the eye will take off. Not this crap. I'm still waiting for a company with some balls to produce a nice black pyramid shaped case, an oversized corner slab or monolith-shaped case.. Those things would take off hardcore.

Cheers,

Hell Yes

[soupforare]

Mount one of these bitches on there (whee, Svideo), hack up a custom battery and you have one *hell* of a quake2 mobile rig.
(Good for trash-talking bastards:) "Man, I'm the fucking best DM'er ever! My sk1llz are t3h best, rar!"
'umm, right, so, ok. Here's my box [*grunt*] Bring it'

Screw you guys with your fancy-ass video cards, poor people *tweak* baby! I had a P200(nonMMX) with a Savage4 and I got it to play UT.
I currently run a G400(guh) and I run Counterstrike in OpenGL 800x600x32 at a consistent 70fps, it spikes to 99+

So when is the shipping company getting off it's ass to bring me mine? :D

Re:So, how is...

[Chris Johnson]

Well, those of us (like me) who find this really cute aren't really thinking in terms of cost and usefulness. I'm a mac user myself, I'm not _expecting_ this to be really competitive. I'm looking at what it is. It's a tiny, _elegant_ arrangement of generic hardware that could potentially be really cheap to buy, and will get more so in future- it's an aluminum case, not a tin can (I like that especially, it's part of the cuteness though it adds cost)- and I can't look at it without picturing it running WindowMaker or maybe even just console or some fascinating, alien hybrid. It's like there's the possibility for it to go off in totally other directions from the computers we're used to, simply because it's really a very generic device, and because it LOOKS different than most PCs do. With such a compact arrangement it blatantly suggests a different path from the usual windows huge morass of cab files and 'look how many junky game sound cards you could buy if you wanted'. It makes me think of focus, of getting rid of waste and coming up with some elegant little workspace to live in that resonates with the elegant little looks of the tiny thing. Like I've said, the first thoughts that come to my mind are- ballbearing fans and underclocking, and getting special low-noise drives for it, so it could sit on the desk and be whisper-quiet despite the lack of space for sound absorption inside it.

That's something I know about as my current desktop and work machines are already whisper-quiet- but they are PowerMacs without need for CPU fans, and they are tower or short tower cases with space inside for acoustic foam. Handled right this little machine could be as quiet and unobtrusive...