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Build Your Own Mini-Computer

Posted by michael on from the no-not-that-kind-of-minicomputer dept.

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!"

12 of 324 comments (clear)

  1. better mini computer by MathJMendl · · Score: 5, Funny

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

    --


    "I have not failed. I've simply found 10,000 ways that won't work." --Thomas Edison
    1. Re:better mini computer by seanadams.com · · Score: 5, Interesting

      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.

  2. What about heat? by evilviper · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.

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    1. Re:What about heat? by Shanep · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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.

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      War crimes, torture, lies, illegal spying... Would someone give Bush a blowjob, already, so he can be impeached?
  3. It's in the car by Sauron23 · · Score: 5, Informative

    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.

  4. My house isn't shrinking? by scott1853 · · Score: 5, Funny

    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...

  5. Re:I own an FV24! by WasterDave · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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

    --
    I write a blog now, you should be afraid.
  6. Stupid by seanadams.com · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

  7. Subpar Video? by x136 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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. :)

    --
    SIGFEH
  8. Another similar, but better looking case by Nerant · · Score: 5, Informative

    Soldam also has something similar. Pandora

    --
    Be kind. There are too many mean people out there already.
  9. not good for a/v component by tap · · Score: 5, Informative

    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.

  10. Ok, someone went and changed the definition... by Sycraft-fu · · Score: 5, Insightful

    ...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.