First Desktop Computer To Use Intel's XScale

Ian Chamberlain writes "Drobe, the leading RISC OS portal, has reported the release of Iyonix, the first desktop computer to use Intel's XScale processor. The XScale is now famous for its increasingly widespread use in PDA devices, used because of its low power consumption and high performance processing. The Iyonix runs a new 32bit version of RISC OS, the operating system orginally developed by Acorn, but now owned by Pace." The same site links to a pair of reviews (one translated from heise.de) of this machine. RISC OS is also what powers the solar PC mentioned a few months ago.

Comments

limerick

[bobtheprophet]

There once was a troll named Buck
Who was really a stupid fuck
He posts as AC
His pants are hot gritty
Man, ACs are always such schmucks!

Re:Why?

[sprayNwipe]

This is, sadly, very true.

My Year 11/12 computing teacher was a RISC-PC fan. He was such a fan, that he always had to have each computer room have half Windows PC's, half Acorns. Every now and then, he'd sing the praises of Sibellius(sp?) and some crappy 'multimedia' program, but we all despised using them because they were slow and horrible, and had no application support.

He was such a fan, that back in 1996 my teacher would say that RISC OS was going to take over the world and displace MS because it ran on the StrongARM. Deluded and fanatical doesn't even begin to describe it.

get a Mini-ITX instead

[g4dget]

If you get a Mini-ITX machine instead, you get something that not only runs Pentium-based software, including Linux and Windows, you also get a smaller motherboard, more ports, and much cooler cases. And I suspect the Mini-ITX systems use less power and are quieter, too.

The point of building an XScale-based desktop PC and then sticking it into such a big, ugly package really eludes me. It's not like you can add a lot of expansion boards to it anyway.

Wasn't arm the standard 32-bit processor for pda's

[Billly Gates]

I wish intel would make up their mind on which processor they will use for embedded devices. I would be nervous if I was a pda maker because of the direction of intel.