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Smaller Than The Mini PC, The P4/2400 Micro PC
fist_187 writes "Tom's Hardware Guide has a story on the smallest PC since the Mini-PC: The MicroPC. It's a Pentium 4/2400 MHz machine, but you'd probably mistake it for a cable modem. I'm sure this trend will continue on to the Nano-PC, Pico-PC, and the Dick Tracy Watch."
Just a thought.
but at this point, this thing is basicly a laptop without any output or input devices. It's nothing spectacular. A mini pc would be good to keep arround if you are a technician and you just need a portable machine to plug a hard drive in to recover files (or something similar, you get my drift) but this is just not practical.
I am hoping shuttle makes a semi-mini pc since the mini pc is a little too small for me (I like to add pci cards). Or have they already?
A friend of mine works in the Digital Video business, and I was telling him about the shuttle systems. A couple of days later he told me that his workplace were very interested in one (esp. when I updated him with the integrated monitor).
The reason they were so interested is that they have to take a laptop and docking bay with PCI adaptors so they can show customers any demos, yet with the Shuttle they're able to completely package the system and it works a charm. The bean counters were even more surprised at the cost of the system, they thought $2500, but it only cost £330 for the shuttle and the rest of the bits were already on site (although they are still sorting the Xenarc version).
Although with the size of the Jadetec, I doubt they'd be able to fit in the custom PCI cards, pity!
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It amazes me that this guy, who posts utter garbage on purpose, can continually get modded high for his inane and pointless comments in story after story as he sits there first-posting all day.
At least he's knows he's posting garbage, you mods seem to completely freaking clueless as to what make a good comment.
Yeah, no kidding. Tiny PC goes rather nicely with a flat panel. Using an analog connection between CPU and display intrudes on the elegance of the arrangement.
Because the most expensive part of the laptop is really the screen, and when you have a micro PC, you are free of that component. (Note: I'm not necessarily agreeing with the logic here, I'm just trying to explain why people might want them.) Oh, yeah, and plus, there's the geek factor in owning a really cool looking gadget that all your nerd friends don't have yet.
"Quoting famous computer scientists out of context is the root of all evil (or at least most of it) in programming." - K
I read about this a month ago in at maximumpc.com. They mentioned that it was really quite cool, with the agp slot and everything, and is really quite stable. They also mentioned that it was very quiet do to a heat pipe for the processor. So there is a dedicated heat pipe assembly already installed for you to use with your 2.4gig proc. I wasn't able to connect to read the article on Tom's but I really doubt they didn't mention that.
I couldn't help but notice that this thing has no internal source of power. Are they not showing us the cubic foot wall wort that goes with it?
Step 1: Stack 5 or 6 of these into a tall ATX case.
Step 2: Put an ethernet switch inside the case and connect ethernet cables.
Step 3: Put a power-strip inside the case and plug in all hardware.
Step 4: Install one or two case fans in the ATX case.
Step 5: Bring the contraption to your local colocation provider and plug it in.
Step 6: Enjoy the fact that you have 5 or 6 colocated servers for the price of one!
Amazing magic tricks
Seriously, all products (used) to be aimed at a market. Since I live in a rather small and boring town, I might be wrong but isn't targetting a market essential for a product to get off the ground? Who are these people aiming for? Apparently no companies, who in their right mind would pay the (probably) insane ammount of money required for that when you can get an otherwise fine workstation for about 40% of the price and onboard graphics is the fastest way to scare away any potential gamers. Video and graphics editing people will still prefer the Mac for their job and because of horrible expandibility it won't be of any use in the CAD/CAM area either.
So what niche is JadeTec trying to fill here? Or are they going for the "I want to have something more espensive then the guy in the next cubicle/office" idea to sell their Micro-PC?
Hate me!
You know, solid state is going to very soon look more appealing then anything else for storage and even for booting a PC like OS. Read only OS on compact flash? Sure. This would not only be a good idea, but a good thing for security. Less moving parts is always a good thing. And I think that Intel and AMD both know they need to do something about the power of these beasties. 350 W, 450 W and even 550 W Power Supplies are out and mostly because of the processor and the multiple drives alot of us are starting to really gain affinity for. DVD-RW drives will obsolete the need for more then one other 5 1/4 drive (unless you want to copy a disk, but then you could always copy it down to your massive hard disk....). Eventually, soon, you may even be able to boot fully functional Windows, or a special version of it on a cd for trouble shooting. Even booting a full Linux distro off of a CD will be possible too (I know it's mostly there now, but usually the cd bootable ones have stuff missing). The 1/44 MB 3.5 inch drive will go bye bye and be replaced by the DVD-RW and for smaller yet tech, CF cards or SD cards. Apple started getting rid of 3.5 inch floppies. We could get rid of them too but they still hang around our necks like a shackle. How would you flash a bios with out a floppy you say? How about create a small, bootable iso image with Linux and then flash it that way? ASUS has Live Update and it works, mostly. Never had it fry my bios anyway. I still feel uncomfortable doing this especially since there is a risk the OS could crash during the flash procedure. MB Companies need to do something here too. Using AFLASH is becoming harder because it's getting harder to create that dos diskette. If you have Windows XP or Windows ME, with exception of ME's emergency boot diskette, you cannot create a bootable floppy with format a: /s.
In any event, these PC's along with others that finally start to look at what users want (cheap, powerful machines that can do any PC game with out having to buy a 300 dollar vid card) instead of the bottom line are what they will go for. Eventually, PC's that cost 2-3 thousand dollars will come with a screen comparable to a big screen TV. For us normal folks, we can be happy with a nice 15-17 inch screen and only have to pay about 200 bucks for top o da line..It will happen and sooner before later. IN 5 years, Hard disks could be obsoleted with the exception of those who need LARGE storage (storage like 2-4 TB Storage). Thos who need multi TB's of storage will still use harddisks, while us 100-200 GB Folks will be using CF cards.
Gorkman
They would better remove the usual COM and parallel ports - who the hell needs them now? Sure not the people who would buy this thing. It would save them one third of the back panel space and sure lots of space inside.
I will also wait till this thing gets build-in Bluetooth and WiFi, so I don't have to connect zillions of cables that take more space than the box itself.
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These and Centrury Sytems' FutureNet products have been around for quite a while in Japan, and they appear smaller than the micro computer in the original article. (But then these are server devices and don't have monitor or keyboard controllers.)
As even those of you who can't read Japanese can get from the comparison page, OpenBlocks comes with the Linux 2.4 kernel and FutureNet come with the Linux 2.4.10 kernel. (If they had a FreeBSD version, I'd retire the old laptop I'm using as a router to my cable modem. The price certainly isn't a problem.)
Going by the data and pictures this is at least as small as a laptop.. maybe a little wider but not as high or wide. It also looks like it'll take more abuse than your average laptop. Also the screens, keyboards, and mouse doodads on laptops all sort of suck. Really to me a tiny PC like this is much more interesting than a normal laptop because in theory the same hardware should be cheaper which allows me to add my own i/o devices to fit my needs and location. Why choose between a laptop or a monster box for your office when you can have this and a nice flat panel monitor and a real keyboard and mouse.
:)
The only thing I'd like to see for this is an attachable power pack. A case mod to make it wearable would be interesting too. This has real possibilities as a wearable.
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Interesting points... Summary:
Something similar to this A600, perhaps? This fits nicely with my theory that the market for home computers (as oppsed to office computers transplanted to the home) never really went away. They just stopped being produced, for no very good reason.
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