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NEC Launches "PowerMate Eco" Green PC
jdstahl writes "NEC has just released the PowerMate Eco, billed as the world's first environmentally-friendly PC. Based on a 900 MHz Transmeta Crusoe (thanks Linus!), it is ultra-compact, ultra low power, and nearly silent. Its motherboard contains no lead, and the case is made from recycled plastic. Its expandability is limited, so this is probably not a geek-box, but it seems like an appealing choice for Joe Desktop."
Get your own!!!
Now with 500 hours free.
We no longer have "Tree Huggers," it's "Eco Computer Huggers!"
...for ENCOURAGING those freaky greens.
While I'm sure this definitly does produce much less heat then an average PC, the lack of a fan kinda scares me. Especially when used in an office with a bunch of other computers, people, during the winter when the heater is cranked on.
Is it biodegradable?
I wonder how many watts it consumes?
I'm never going to achieve Nirvana with my Karma
Ok so the motherboard is lead free as is the tft boron free. So what about all the nasty chemicals used to build components? what about when the machine reaches end of life? where will it go? Sounds like marketing FUD to me, although hopefully this is a step in the right direction I doubt it really is a "green" pc.
Does anyone know how to recycle a used and discarded CDRW? Seriously. How many of these get thrown out yearly now and are they just sitting in landfills taking up space or are they recyclable?
Also applies to all those AOL CDs.
42 - So long and thanks for all the fish.
is it organic?
It seem like a good idea, esp. for environmentalists. If it packed more expandability and more up-to-date features, it may be a pretty good idea/seller.
No self-respecting environmentalist would buy anything but a Macintosh.
24" CRT monitor! Sure, the lights still dim when I turn it on, but Man, I'll bet bluecurve will look mighty perty!
My sig hates me. That's ok, I never cared for it much anyway.
I was under the impression that there's more than lead that's a problem in motherboards.
ship them to you "postage due"?
1. Create enviro friendly PC.
2. Pray to god, rich Green Peace Loving geeks didn't all buy MACs.
At $1600*, I don't see this being for "Joe Desktop" either. Maybe corporations will buy them for energy and space savings or your average home user will like the "green" aspect, but there a lot of other, cheaper options. Hopefully it does well, but it's the old "too expensive for the non-enthusiast, too limited for the power freak" problem.
* Price from PCConnection here.
"When it rains, it pours." --Morton's Salt
How am I ever going to upgrade my 500Mhz sticks and mud computer to compete with this thing? I know! More rocks!
Thats a cool concept from a cool company(NEC) only thing not to like is that CPU. That thing gets terrible performance. So when you think about it, it can take longer to do things and in the end might not be as econmical as "Joe Desktop" bargined for. Am i right?
Everyday You see me is the worst day of my life -Office Space
Slashdot's gayness never ceases to amaze.
It looks like the cpu is in the base of the monitor. When the CPU is outdated, can I use the screen with another computer? If I can't then it doesn't seem very evironment-friendly.
Are Transmeta microprocessors manufactured in a particularly environment friendly way?
Why is NuCycle plastic good?
Read Epic the first RPG novel.
Please, somebody tell me:
1. Where I can buy a Transmeta CPU
2. Which motherboards is it compatible with
3. Just how good is it, (roughly, I don't want a benchmark flame war - just how fast does it compile a kernel compared with, say a 1 gig Duron).
Well for CD's in general (apart from the usual drink coaster option), they're great for agricultural use with regard to scarecrows... string loads of CD's on one and they move in a gentle breeze (as well as the reflectiveness of them) and frighten off any birds.
Although the scarecrow to CD ratio may not be enough to deal with a minute amount of those damn AOL CD's floating around the planet.
Are you local? There's nothing for you here!
So this PC is environmentally friendly. IMHO, that's a Good Thing, in fact a Very Good Thing. A higher cause than free technology.
However, I understand that the Crusoe chips use patented technology. How would someone more zealous than I react to this clash between environmental protection and technological freedom.
Would the consensus be simply that being environmentally friendly is a good thing, but that a more open design could be made even more environmentally friendly due to peer review?
#define sig "Every social system runs on the people's belief in it."
But I do like the ecofriendly aspect.
CfkRAp1041vYQVbFY1aIwA== RV/hBCLKKcSTP5UFK3kqsg==
Q:Will an average American pay more money to be environmentally sound?
A:Rarely. Sales of SUV's greatly outnumber sales of hybrid vehicles.
This item will experience low sales volume.
Dr. Joseph Hairston
Superintendent, CCBC
You engineer software for Transmeta, but what the hell, we'll just give you credit for creating their processors too!
(Saying thanks Linus is about as absurd as thanking your local mechanic for the sleek body styling on your new BMW.)
.. for work. I do a lot of reading, emailing, and PHP coding. Frankly, this thing'd be easier on the eyes *and* it'd take up a lot less desk space than what I have now. $1,600 seems a little pricey for it, though. I could get a comparable laptop for that, plus I wouldn't need a UPS for it.
This'd be a killer item at half the price.
Why are you thanking Linus? Does he actually have anything to do with designing the processor? I thought he was just helping on the OS side of things from Transmeta. There are probably other Transmeta engineers who deserve more thanks for that hardware, eh?
:)
Not that Linux doesn't deserve help for starting Linux!
Cheers,
Vic
Heres a mirror
sure. my dual proc setup is full of nasties, but i'll sell it someone after two years who will use it for another five at a quarter of the price of a green pc which will be outdated quicker and wont be able to be expanded.
price will always make or break just how "Enviromentaly friendly" something is. atleast how seriously people will take it
-- botsex is {grep;touch;strip;unzip;head;mount}
This PC is pretty cool, but it doesn't have much kick and it can't run my favorite GUI wrapper for OpenBSD. I love enviromentally friendly stuff, but I'm not interested in sacraficing the power I need (read: nead as in I don't need an SUV, a huge house, but I do need a potent computer). Still very good for your e-mail and word prossesor type.
Help I'm a rock.
At $1,599. Not exactly cheap for "Joe Desktop" I'm afraid.
Call on God, but row AWAY from the rocks!
well this would make sense, considering that being allowed to put whatever you want into this thing you could easily make it less environmentally friendly
They don't even bother to mention the other waste by products that are created from the manufacture of PCB's.
Flux wash cycle comes to mind. Sometimes some really nasty chemicals are used after a PCB or a fully assembled board goes through.
THere's some companies like culligan that provide negatively ionicly charged microbead epoxy balls to clean the flux wash of the flux and any other impurities that come out. What happens to those?
Another item to consider is the ventalation stacks coming from these pcb wash machines, most of the time they are just there for "ventilation" and do not have filtering systems on them.
I know these things because I have worked around the Dixon Landing road exit off of the 880 in Fremont CA in a number of consulting positions to these companies. Whenever you're sitting at the desk of some salesguy trying to fix his "insert windows issue here" they cannot resist telling you in great detail about the process and how wonderfully enviromentally friendly their shop is.
This is how bad it is in USA, I don't even want to think about what my wife saw in Malasia and the phillipines where these things are probably manufactured(shudders)
So can they release an ATX Transmeta compatible motherboard now?
Environmentalism ought to almost be made illegal. It started off okay (it was actually a conservative cause to begin with) as conservationism, but over the past few decades it has transformed itself into an ugly, pseudo-Communist movement that poses a credible threat to decent society. Sorry, but I don't buy the whole "humans are parasites and are wrecking Mother Earth and oh we are such horrible beings" nonsense. At least we're not pumping black clouds of smoke into the air anymore.
And what's with the anti-corporate sentiment? Are big corporations the only ones capable of polluting? How about all of these mom-and-pop service stations that dump used motor oil in their backyards? Why not demonize them? Environmentalism is more about hatred of capitalism than it is about love for the environment. NEC ought to be ashamed of itself.
Instead of spending money on one of these, I prefer spending my spare time collecting old components and making use of them by bringing life back into old i386 and i486 computers. I have a couple of these at home that I just hack around with and constant play around with different OSes (BSD and Linux). Plus I usually learn something.
Um... no lead? When you make a silicon integrated circuit chip the end product contains something like 1/1000th of the raw materials used to make it. The rest of the components, like the drives, may not be quite as bad, but who are they trying to kid?! Eco-friendly my *ss.
FYI, software is an essential part of a Crusoe.
--
If you moderate this, then your children will be next.
$1599.00 US. This includes 256mb or ram. "Both Windows 2000 and Windows XP Professional are pre-installed."
Although not completely organic (for harmful chemicals were used to make the internals, unlike say organic milk, in which cows eat pesticide-free food, free roam, receive no injections, etc...), this is still a step in the right direction. And the price is reasonable IMO.
Loomis
"The television is the retina of the mind's eye" - Videodrome
yeah, ida is a real catch.
how about, "i'da done her but i wasn't quite drunk enough"
ida is horrid. the key syllable there being "hor"
Well.. now you see what a pc with the same specs as the new iMac costs. That pc is however much uglier than the mac.
It's powered by a bicycle. Hampster models sold seprately.
I've met these guys!
They've already filled a couple rooms with CDs and diskettes. They collect video captures of people who donate large numbers for a documentary as well.
It's scary to think how little they've collected (which takes up a ton of space) compared to the landfill levels that AOL sends out each day/week/month/year.
--foolish
Marketing anything as "eco-friendly" doesn't make it all that more enticing. That's why most "eco-friendly" items that find any wide use at all are there because it is regulated to be that way.
Is it biodegradable?
... that plastic is not biodegradable, well then the Earth will just create a new paradigm: The Earth + Plastic."
"If it's true
"And like that
Who the fuck is CowboyNeal?
NEC has the right idea, but it's too bad there will be no execution on this. I hope that it garners enough interest that a real computer manufacturer like HP or Dell consider making them for businesses.
The price is way too high, but the machine would be perfect for a call center, or an office environment e-mail etc. I bet you could really see a difference in a call center of 500 people on your electrcity bill. But at $1600 you will never get around the cost.
I have seen machines like this before, but nothing that was lead-free. If it was $700 I would buy one.
The no fan aspect is really cool too. (no pun intended) It great to see a mfgr making a machine that does not follow the horespower hype. The graphics card being 16mb is probably partly to reduce temp as well.
And since nobody has mentioned it yet:
---offtopic>
Wouldn't it be cool to have a Beowulf Cluster of these?
---/offtopic>
what? what I thought we were in the trust tree in the nest, were we not?
A press release with a lot more details than the product page is here.
From the press release:
In addition, the PowerMate eco is also made of NuCycle(TM) plastic - an NEC patented plastic that is 100% recyclable. NuCycle is made of polycarbonate resin mixed with a special, flame-retardant silicone compound. Other computer plastics have flame retardant brominated coatings applied, which do retard flames, but produce harmful gases in the process. NuCycle's flame retardant is non-toxic and built-in, requiring no toxic coating.
Don't forget that Friday is Hawaiian shirt day.
"Joe Desktop" doesn't do full motion video or
audio conversion, or net games, or really anything
that you need over 500mghz for. Email, Word,
PowerPoint, the occasional websurfing.
Most office machines are way overpowered
or underutilized, depending on which end you
are on.
(besides if he really wanted to get things done,
he'd get a mac, heh!)
-milo
I thought that only Dell, Gateway, and H-paq were left. Does NEC actually think they have a fighting chance? And we all know that they are still Packard Bells at heart :)
Who is John Galt?
I've been using a Fujitsu laptop now for about 3 months and I've decided that I will probably not buy another machine with a Crusoe chip in it. The function is fine and the clock speeds are reasonable.
The problem is, it "feels" slow. There's just this little bit of latency, particularly as something starts up for the first time, i.e. as the morphing is doing its bit. The more you are exposed to it the more annoying it becomes.
Its little things like this that are what ruin companies. Transmeta needs to do something about this or they will never make it as a mainstream desktop processor.
Frank W. Miller
...surely will go down in history as the day Ed Begley, Jr. finally got e-mail.
ObSimpsonsParaphrase: "This PC is fully biodegradable, dissolves instantly in water, and is powered completely by my sense of self-satisfaction."
~Philly
and I can STILL read the content, talk about different from the norm, NEC must have some stellar bandwidth!
--fetch daddy's blue fright wig, i must be handsome when i release my rage
Everyone seems to be bitching about the components being very hazardous. They are, not everyone knows that. But we know that. But what "green-pc" has always meant in the past, is that it is low power, hibernatable. This is the first "mainstream" computer I've seen that is constantly low power, and very low power at that. So there is at least one aspect so much more green than not. Until they start making computers out of paperplates, no ones really going to be happy. But even that is unfriendly to the trees...
Given such an inane musing.
When I follow the link I come to a page where the fonts are all squished up vertically, with outliers like "g" dangling down and colliding with the next line's "P"s. Anyone else see this? Yes I run at 1600x1200 with mozilla's minimum font size set pretty high.
I almost bought a powermate with a pentium I 150 mhz back when I was 19 in 96. That was the last I have heard of them.
I forgot all about them and they have seemed to stop selling them in the retail sector. I assumed that vanished.
http://saveie6.com/
ok, I like the specs (about time the crusoe started coming out in PC's), I like the fact that that it's enviromentally friendly (although, who knows, maybe the recycling plant gave them a good deal). But seriously, why do the gateway thing and copy the new imac. Is it just me, or is everyone getting tired of see'ing new cool apple products, then months later, see copies of them coming out which would not hold the quality of the orignal (mac).
just my thought.
-isolenz
NEC PCs use genuine Microsoft® Windows®
While it is nice that there was some OS contribution to this PC, until the bit PC manufactures start selling desktops with Linux preinstalled (...again), I think we should reserve our praise.
Really, I know what I'm doing...Ohhhh, look at the shiny buttons!
Actually the lights going dim is a requirement of Bluecurve looking perty! *rimshot*
I wish those ads would at least include the MSRP or some kind of estimated price....
-- -- Warning. Do not stare directly at the sun.
This seems to be the typical response the the "environmental movement" price a rediculously expensive product that meets some sort of "green" definition, then claiming no one wants to buy it. Oh well
I have mod points and I am not afraid to use them
...but it seems like an appealing choice for Joe Desktop.
...or Barbara Streisand.
Disconnect your television. Do your own research. Draw your own conclusions. They're probably lying. Don't be a sheep.
In other news, Apple announced the release of a similar system that is being called the iMac. Oh wait, that was several years ago.
Seriously, there isn't all that much that is new with this thing.
Tired of those self righteous earth freaks and their santimonious love for the "environment?" If you are, buy one of our EcoHostile (TM) PCs.
1) Comes pre-installed with our special Cartmania! Linux distro. Whenever you open an xterm window, it hacks into that network of things they put on spermwhales to track them, and causes the tracking device to emit a lethal shock, killing the damned stupid animal and notifying the japanese of the animal's position so that you can collect your bounty. If you provide it with a list of god damn dirty hippies, it will notify them of each of the oversized fish you kill so that you can call them up and listen to them cry.
2) Uses silicon doped with enriched uranium, which has no desirable semiconductor properties, for no reason.
3) Onboard gasoline powered generator serves as an uninteruptable power supply, and runs constantly, even when machine is off.
4) Using our patented "bassmaster" technology, fan produces constant, 110 decibel throb (roughly as loud as a car horn,) at a frequency of only 175 Hz, to maximally penetrate floors, walls and ceilings. This places you in handy violation of most of those intrusive noise ordinances that red meat eating, tree hating Americans despise so much. For a small extra fee, we can supply you with special "superscreech" hard drives to supply treble.
5) Special catalytic circuitry produces extra ozone - with the fan running at full capacity, and a constant supply of ozone-free air, the mother board alone produces 25 mg of ozone per minute; that's enough to sustainably exceed the OSHA safe limit of 5 ppm in a 5,000 square foot room. Don't worry! At ground level, ozone is a deadly pollutant - it won't rise into the upper atmosphere and can't do anything to screen out the sun's deadly ultraviolet rays.
So, if you're a real american, and if you hate the earth, you should definitely try our EcoHostile PC. Building a more dystopic tomorrow!
The good and new comes from no quarter where it is looked for, and is always something different from what is expected.
Given that computer monitors need to be upgraded much less often than the actual computer, it makes no sense to build an environmentally friendly PC with a monitor build in. They're trying to pawn off an overpriced disposable monitor as environmentally friendly.
What we really need are for the $200 machines to shrink down to a 1/4 size form factor, lose all the moving parts (especially the fans), and use Crusoe amounts of power. It would be extra-spiffy if there were a better small-component specification such that they could still have components upgrated. On the other hand the only thing I upgrade is the video card for better 3D performance.
NEC is almost bankrupt.
This is not a troll.
I have an old classic II in the attic that I'm too lazy to turn into an acquarium, but using it as a bong is stupid easy.
I see more of a hukkah type of affair though, perhaps using the mouse as a mouthpiece.
So really, thanks.
come for the naked robots, stay for the zombies
Anonymous Salesman:
(plug)
I am a troll. To accomplish a successful day of trolling, I require a verry convincing attractant to my "catch". PowerMate Eco is the lure of choice for non-peaople as myself. On the most desolate of forums, even the most ellusive are unable to resist the PowerMate Eco. For the catch of the century, I choose PowerMate Eco. (/plug)
(walks out of cabin, onto a deck. Subject Line Troll, Klerck, and Lunch Lady is there) (audible cheering from trolls):
Zeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee* (*HOOKUP*HOOKUP*HE-TOOK-THE-RED-PILL*HOOKUP*).
Anonymous Salesman:
Operators are standing by...Tank, do we have any more signals?
Klerck (Tank): I...I can't tell. There are too many variations. Wait...I found him. Yes, CmdrTaco (editor) must be the real Slashdot editor.
Anonymous Salesman: I don't think...I know. This must be the real editor. I just know it..
to be continued...
Thank YOU for pointing out how utterly dense the 'thanks Linus' comment of jdstahl was.
When Linus stops suddenly, jdstahl wears Linus as a hat.
in my gas guzzling SUV!
Yes, I am a hypocrite, and I can't spell either!
Now to hit previe
| - | - |
Read'em and weep.. IBM PS/2 E was by far the first commercially advertised eco-friendly PC. Circa 1993. It used a 2.5" laptop hard drive, along with a low power IBM built 486SLC processor. The system was notable in that it had 4 PCMCIA slots, lie flat or on it's side, and had an optional TFT display. The IBM model number was 9533. NEC missed by 9 years.
e s/ps2_e_1. jpg
Here's a picture:
http://members.tripod.com/~ps2page/imag
A 900 MHz Crusoe has terrible performance. I could build a hell of a lot better system for $1600. This system would be useful for a longer period of time, and therefore, on average, use up less landfill space. Thus, this NEC pc is NOT environmentally friendly.
Vote for Pedro
"MAC"
Which stands for...what exactly? If you had said "Mac", I might have thought "Macintosh". But you said "MAC", which is an acronym. What's it stand for?
If this was a laptop, i'd be interested.
If it was also low cost, i'd be super interested.
Wow, theres a novel idea - a light, lowcost, low power laptop.
stuff
your point is taken though :-)
.... pcb's aren't exactly eco friendly.... i think in one of neal stephensons fiction books they're used as currency because of the fact that they aren't biodegradable and will be around forever.. imo this is all marketing pitch.. i mean yeah, its more friendly than the average pc, but its still guna leave a mark on the environment, quite a visible one.
First thing I wanted to know. Thanks for posting.
All my previous sigs now look like this one, I wish they were permanetly recorded when used.
If you really want to enjoy a movie, good CD, high quality Ogg's, etc in your room, the constant drone of the computer fan is an annoyance I'd gladly pay to avoid.
Anyone have opinions of DVD playback with a Transmeta CPU? (I'm currently using VIA CPU's for my desktop and the DVD playback is crap, even with an ATI Radeon videocard.)
Being able to play CD's, DVD's, Ogg files, etc. on this machine makes it a good choice, DVI output (esp. as a separate framebuffer, so you can use the main display as a control interface) would make it even better.
(I currently use a G4 with an iMic for external D2A and DVI adapter, but even the fan in this machine is noisy.)
I just wish there was more laptop technology used
in desktop components. Modern desktops, even the
simple "just office work" PCs, are too
power-hungry, too hot, too loud. If desktops used
notebook CPUs, a major problem of these computers
would be solved...
Yes, I'd love to buy a Transmeta desktop mainboard
at my local PC reseller. At present, I can only
get a developer board at high prices through
imports. I want a consumer version. Please...
------------------
You may like my a cappella music
I seem to recall...
--pay attention to normal prevailing winds direction when building generator shed. I know you probably thought of this but it's cool to make sure. We got a big diesel genny here, wind direction is critical,wind direction wrong way it gasses ya out.
maybe in north america, not the rest of the world.
I used to work at a place who helped send AOL spam CDs.
:/
Millions would go through our hands every month, and not all CDs came our way...AOL sent many more through other venues.
AOL would have numerous cd/package designs all sent out concurrently. No design ever lasted very long and I have seen MANY CDs trashed because designs are never reused. I have trashed more CDs in one sitting than nomoreaolcds has even collected so far. I wish I had heard of them a few years ago
OK, no Firewire, but there's PCMCIA slots. And it has a built-in NIC, so there's your connectivity...if you are still using a modem to surf, I feel very sorry for you. PCMCIA modems can be had for a song.
It's nice that you can choose between XP Pro and 2K Pro, but what I'd rather run on this is LINUX. After all, the Crusoe is pretty much Linus' baby, and I'm sure Linux would run well on this. Didn't Transmeta have their own distro called Midori Linux? What happened to that?
Also, this is a seriously Kawaii box. Cute, cute, cute. Definitely outclasses the Gateway iMac wannabe, and approaches the iMac2 in total cuteness factor.
However, the price is steep. Very, very steep. And isn't NEC Packard Hell? I don't remember how that particular merger went, but I distinctly remember a NEC/Packard Hell merger a few years ago. The Packard Hell name disappeared on all their products, replaced with the less tainted NEC nameplate. This makes me wonder about the quality of the box.
Ms. Geek, posting furtively from work
For those wondering, Linux wrote parts of the "x86 interperter" for the Crusoe.
I'm really surprised that no one mentioned the Microsoft tax on this computer.
I have one and there is nary a fan anywhere in the puppy! If you plop in a Seagate Barracuda IV hard drive, you'd be hard pressed to hear anything from anywhere on it (well I guess power supplies have a hum if you go up real close to them).
And it can certainly play all that you request, DVD playback: I play them all the time on my Apple DVI (ADC) screen, a beautiful experience, Ogg files: just get Audion from Panic software (panic.com).
That's my say on the matter, the Cube is small, quiet, pleasant, pretty, and eaesily runs on hot days or inside a stuffy office, it's done me well without any heat-related crashes for over a year now (lots of VERY hot days in Boston).
And I heard from a fellow who ran his G4 Cube on the same desk as his AMD fan-riddled tower in a hot cramped NY apartment, and on some especially hot days the AMD would not stop crashing, but his Cube kept going the whole time without any crashes!
oh they're just so great, yay!
Isn't this essentially a laptop with an external keyboard? Seems like a "green" laptop would be just as usable, with the added advantage of being portable. And don't try to convince me this thing is cheaper than a laptop; it's got a laptop display which probably accounts for 75% of the price.
"Freedom means freedom for everybody" -- Dick Cheney
Let's see if NEC take their "green-ness" to the next level and print the ads for this PC on recycled paper. Let's see if they're prepared to sacrifice _ANY_ of their profit and share value by making SIGNIFICANT changes to their practices/products instead of just throwing pathetic gimmicks at us. Then we'll see where their true bottom line is. You may think I'm being cynical -- I bet I'm not even 1/2 as cynical as the shake n bake CEOs at NEC. They're much more clever than we are. Wake up and smell the profits. c
I've got a 27" CRT monitor. The lights don't dim. Not even close. Just check the energy star rating, and if it isn't present, at least hook it up to a power strip with switch and turn that off when you are done (some sap electricity stupidly even when off).
mercury in their backlights
1) LCD's do not need to use fluorescent lamps, they can use LED's. Even with fluorescent lamp it's a step in the right direction.
2) The power savings of using an LCD is significant.
I suspect that this product specs are based to meet some bid requirements of various governmental organizations.
For instance, I've heard that Germany is quite adamant about 100% recyclable items, and requires all companies to accept products back after their life cycle is over. I've also heard that the California has considered mandating that all manufacturers must pay a tax on sales of computer equipment to pay for recycling of the equipment if they don't accept the equipment back for recycling.
I doubt there is sufficient commercial demand for such a green product right now, but one giant order from a government or a business that does government contracts could make the product development worthwhile.
-- Herder of Cats
And you can also recycle the Windows Operating System when you do that, because you'll be using Linux.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
Sigh. The machine's running a Crusoe, but it's packaged with Windows. LILO can fix that, but it'd be nice to save the cost of the extra OS.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
At CDW, it's priced at $1600. This is at least three times what a comparable performing (albeit warmer running) machine would cost today.
The 900MHz Crusoe is gonna perform similarly to a Pentium III somewhere in the 530...675MHz range. (A 400MHz Crusoe machine I have is quite similar to a P3 in the 233...300MHz range.) This is without enabling the max power savings mode(s) of the Crusoe.
I like the concept, but I personally would not pay this much.
So when are we gonna get some Crusoe mobos?
I have a couple labs where I'd love to stick some inexpensive, quiet, low-power systems that have decent speed.
I've talked to at least a dozen people with Crusoe laptops and they really like how long the battery lasts, how cool the system runs, and how surprisingly quick it is.
I want that on the desktop, damnit.
obviously no deficiencies vs. no obvious deficiencies
I am currently working for an education Institute. We have been investigating the possibility of embedding a computer into a desk and using the desk in conjunction with a multi purpose classroom. We have in fact built a prototype, and it works quite well. All that is visible is the TFT screen, a keyboard and mouse. I think the NEC computer is a much easier and cheaper alternative and we will certainly look into them. Do any other of you guys have similar requirements?
i have a mini itx motherboard w a 533mhz
via eden epia processor (800+mhz also available)
and the box draws 12v@4.5 amps or so, which
is roughly 50 watts , add an LCD monitor
at 30 watts and thats about 80 watts, which
is the same thing as this eco pc.
course it is not 'certified green'. and not
recycled plastic. and im not
sure the 800mhz+ cpu would run w/o a fan,
and youd have to specially find a fluid bearing
disk drive. but it would still wind up costing
you alot less than 1500 i think.
You know somebody had to ask this question...
It doesn't come with Linux?
Even with Linus' company's processory, it still has Bill's crappy anti-"piracy" message :(
All data is speech. All speech is Free.
Finally. I've been looking for this for a LONG time.
Freon. How you've been lied to by the EPA, and how easy it is to convince an environmentalist something fine is bad.
Environmentalists are nothing but a corps. toy boy. What could be better than PhDs who won't spend the extra time to verify their work? Who will "speak out" on an issue before they're 100% certain of the truth? Philip Morris showed us just how useful doctors like these can be...
I'd trust a greenie if they'd just do some fully qualified reasearch. Instead all we hear is "CFCs are bad because when they mix with ozone they harm it -- no, we don't know how they get there, we think they just do. No, we haven't run any tests, but we must be right, JUST LOOK AT THE BIG HOLE. Oh, and chewbacca lives on endor.".
I think South Park put it best (but not about CFCs, I guess we'll have to wait for that):
Doo-doo-doo, da-da-do-do-wow!
There's a place called the rainforest that truly sucks ass
Let's knock it all down and get rid of it fast
You say 'save the rainforest', but what do you know?
You've never been to the rainforest before!
Getting Gay with Kids is here
To tell you things you might not like to hear
You only fight these causes 'cos caring sells
All you activists can go fuck yourselves.
Someday if we work hard boys and girls..
There'll be no more rainforests left in the entire world..
Getting Gay with Kids is here
To spread the word, and bring you cheer
Getting Gay with Kids is here
Lets knock down the rainforest, whaddaya say?
It's totally gay, It's totally gay!
If you could be told what you can see or read, then it follows that you could be told what to say or think - BoC
Of course it should be called: GNU/Cycle :-)
expensive wannabe iMac? For that price I can get something faster, with useful ports, looks better, has better graphics card, better screen, and uses slightly more energy.
I do buy stuff out of Gaiam (enviromentally friendly products and stuff like cleaners, paper towels, etc), but PCs wont get enviromentally friendly for a long time yet, and at those prices buy a iMac.
What I'd do, if I really wanted to get into the recycling business, is as follows:
;->).
.
(1) I wouldn't recycle just one: I'd set up to grab and recycle as many as possible. From there, I'd go into computer part recycling.
(2) I'd take the thing apart into its components. Anytime you can rebuild a CD-R out of its working components, that's the best you can do. Keep the good ones, bad parts go towards trash (but not there yet)
(3) Bad parts: Sometimes, as you identify a whole bunch of bad boards (for example, they each blew a cap), you may be able to grab the boards and rebuild them. At that point, you have a good "refurbishing" business.
(4) Trashed parts: don't forget to grab the gold. Also, if the laser is good, the motor is good -- those parts you can collect and sell at Nuts and Volts, or set up your own "parts junkyard". Anyone who wants a cheap laser? $5 a pop, much better than $30 new for the conceptual prototyping. (several stages: conceptual prototype is first, followed by a production prototype, followed by a production model and first sales, followed by an actual working model...
Seriously, if you're really into recycling computer parts, I would strongly consider going to a junkyard, and finding out what software they use, and doing the same thing. They have to break cars down, and then deal with essentially parts of all the different models, list which parts are interchangeable (e.g. toyota and VW rabbit turn signal lightbulbs)
I'd ESPECIALLY like to see this done with monitors. Usually, the monitor blows a cap, but you don't know which one. So you throw the whole thing. How wasteful! On the other hand, if you could measure the capacitive properties of a good board, and your bad board, and use it to predict which cap blew (huge database I know, but if you have a real junkyard, I expect you'll build such a database relatively rapidly) then you can make about $25 profit per shot. Buy the dead monitors at $5 each, and sell them at $50 each.
Correct Horse Battery Staple: 72 bits of entropy. Enter "Correct H" into google. When it generates the phrase, that's
= Commodore 64 form factor?
Vaya con huevos, my darling.
Why bother with this new PC, when you can buy a laptop?
Let's face it, the specs *are* that of a laptop (it's even got a 'mobility' graphics chip!!!)...
Sure, it's a bit more environmentally friendly, but if you are that concerned, you would be living up a tree - where the laptop would be far more practical!!!
I just don't see why you would buy a laptop in a desktop case, when you could just buy the laptop **
(** you could argue that the iMac is equivalent to a Powerbook, but there is a big difference - the price... for the same cost of the NEC machine you can buy a *better* specced laptop...)
And most impressive: it's got a solid-metal case that's much more recyclable than any plastic, and costs one-eighth ($200) what the "Green PC" does ($1600).
$1600.00 is to much green for me.
I was being facetious.
No you wern't, you were trying to be clever and it backfired on you. Admit it, you're an idiot.
or is it just another advertisement?
When is Slashdot going to post something interesting and informative? it's been two years
since i saw any useful news here. mostly advertising and market research now, and a lame attempt at humor.
quit smoking that shit and get busy.
That would be one *smokin* athlon....
Has anyone found out where this thing is made?
To be eco-friendly a big issue is how the machine is made and distributed. Localised manufacture and assembly in different regions would have a real impact on the environmental impact of a product.
I personally like curose chips...For mobile devices...For laptops the technology is great(if it ever delivers), since it should significantly extend battery life...
As a desktop, the chip is utterly useless...Typically the cost of the morfing code its 20-30% reduction in apparent speed...So basically a 900 MHz crusoe would actually feel like a 600-700 MHz equivilent pentium processor...But this does buy you the fact that the chip is using significally lower power...Unfortunatly in a desktop, the decreased power usage really doesn't do anything for you and in no way makes up for the very poor performance....
Adding to the sad state of affairs with this desktop is price...For a third of the cost one can have themselves a machine with a processor that performs almost 2 to 2.5 faster just based purely on processor speed(the actuall performance differance is significantly higher due to other considerations such as pipelining and such)...I am not sure any fool would spend $1600 for a desk top that is clearly inferror then an e machine...(Well not counting Mac users..:-) )
Shameless self promotion : The Misadvetures of the in
if you're only going to measure the price by the dent in your bank account minus the dent in someone else's later, then sure.
but if you're at all concerned about what things really cost - to build, to buy, to use, to maintain, to dispose of - then it's not just a financial calculation. there's also your happiness, your productivity, your social standing, your ethics, your enthusiasm for maintenance. all offer costs and benefits.
individuals will vary in the weight they give to different parts of the equation, but for some people - eg me - the reduced cost of ownership and the reduced (but still considerable) damage to the environment - an asset we hold in common - will be enough to sway them towards this machine.
ps. imagine how a green a beo...
never mind.
The IBM PS/2 Model E was launched in 1993 as the 'green PC'. It has an LCD display which powers down when the machine isn't in use - amazingly, this was done by having passthrough connectors for keyboard and mouse hanging off the monitor, so it would know when there was user activity. The machine also supports the VESA power saving standard and its 2.5inch hard disk spins down when not in use. The PSU is a teeny 25 watts and there are no fans anywhere.
The single ISA slot is taken up with a PCMCIA adaptor, you can insert two PCMCIA cards in the front and two in the back. In fact the machine is really a laptop in a desktop case, but it makes a very cute (and very quiet) general purpose PC. The 486SLC2 processor won't win any performance awards, but with the onboard XGA-2 graphics hardware it's snappy enough. The machine can happily run Linux or NT, although limited by a maximum 16 megs memory.
And I don't think that IBM's effort was the first attempt at an energy-saving microcomputer, although it might have been the first hyped as 'green'. (The PS/2 E's case has a green stripe round the outside.)
-- Ed Avis ed@membled.com
$200 is a little misleading. For that price, you get a system with:
It also has no Windows license. Not that one is necessary, but it's included in the $1600 price of the eco-thing.
You're also comparing the power draw of a headless box to that of a box & LCD.
That said, I'd still choose the VIA C3 over the eco-thing. It's cheap (even after you add the above components), configurable, small, and quiet.
"It's easier said than done." ... and if you don't believe it, try proving that it's easier done than
said, and you'll see that "it's easier said that `it's easier done than
said' than it is done", which really proves that "it's easier said than
done".
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