Slashdot Mirror
Small Footprint Computers
Robert Cliff writes "VIA's Mini-ITX based computers have been
covered in Slashdot before, but not by this
company. This product
is interesting because it is a SiS based, fanless 233 MHZ system measuring only
4.75 x 6.25 x 1.9 inches, and it can run off BOTH AC and DC. If you need something
larger / powerful, they have other
Mini-ITX based systems, which they claim is built "on same factory that
builds the cases for many high-end audio products". These guys seem to
be heavily promoting Linux."
They have my vote!
"VIA's Mini-ITX based computers have been covered in Slashdot before, but not by this company."
Um, this company builds Mini-ITX computers or do they cover/review them?
Or is it Slashdot that builds them or this company that builds them?
Errr, um, I'm confused.
Does that mean AC _and_ DC, or AC _or_ DC? And is pretty much useless, but or would be nice. Even nicer would be if it's capable of switching between them while it's running, as long as at least one is plugged in. Of course, I'm just an AC, and too lazy to actually read the article...
This article has nothing to do with the RIAA or SCO. What the fuck am I supposed to complain about in my comment?
Also, since I can't resist:
Imagine a beowulf cluster of these...on a BOOKCASE!
"The government of the United States is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion."
I don't think I would get near it if that gross hand comes with it.
Now I can have an answer to the age old question "Are you happy to see me or is that a computer in your pocket?"
I'm interested in placing an ad similar to this one for the upcoming release of "The Art of Computer Programming, Volume Four".
Which of your departments at OSDN should I contact to take advantage of this wonderful marketing opportunity? If I wish to purchase more than one article, is there any volume pricing available?
for one of these for some time now. I would like to put it with wifi in the back of my car and run a custom (read: linux) mp3 server. Now all I need to tack down is the touch screen LCD interface for it (seriously). A little LCD (must be at least 300 whatever brightness units to see in the sunlight of a car interior) isn't bad on it's own, but with touchscreen it's a bit more pricy. Oh, and I don't yet understand how to interface it with a normal OS like a desktop linux or windows (god forbid). Any suggestions? Anybody done anything like this? This appears to be the perfect 'puter for it though ::grin::
I haven't posted in so long, my sig is out of date.
From my experience, at least with my vid card, SiS and linux don't mix all that well...
If my enemy's enemy is my friend, what happens if my enemy is his own worst enemy?
I'm the kind of person who would like some sort of constantly running system like this (I want to implement a Cache sometime) so these sorts of systems intrigue me. I couldn't put up with the constant whirr of a full PC, but I could put up with one of these. Trouble is, this one seems so pricey, considering the minimalistic specs. For the price I could build a much faster, more capable system, albeit a lot louder (and a bit bigger - its a MATX case I've got lying about here). Are these guys just aiming for too small a market and pricing themselves out? I think they might be.
BOTH AC AND DC?!?!
That's a buying point if I've ever heard one!
I'm interested in placing an ad similar to this one for the upcoming release of "The Art of Spam, Volume Four".
Which of your departments at OSDN should I contact to take advantage of this wonderful marketing opportunity? If I wish to purchase more than one article, is there any volume pricing available?
That little guy has some potential, but that is quite possibly the cheesiest looking case I have ever seen. They should have at least put a blur filter on that picture - Sheesh! How about hitting the mold with a hammer a couple of times to knock the air bubbles out of the plastic, at least for the one you're going to use for the product shot!
666-607: 6th floor apartment of the beast
Phhsht. My toaster has a 533MHz processor, and it runs off of AC, DC _and_ chemical energy (aka toast ;)
"Victory means exit strategy, and it's important for the President to explain to us what the exit strategy is." G.W.Bush
The above post about power and tower size has no correlation to the size of my genitalia, ah who am I kidding....
In Soviet Rush, today's Tom Sawyer gets high on you.
It looks cool and all, but $400 is a little much for a 233mhz system without video. Maybe if you had a specific need for something like this. You only need to go slightly bigger (a few of them stacked on top of each other) and you can have a modern system for around that price.
Of course, this doesn't address the really issue with size: the screen.
"Learning is not compulsory... neither is survival."
--Dr.W.Edwards Deming
Wrap one of those foldable monitors around one of these, add a roll up keyboard, and you've got one hell of a portable system!!
Is there somebody I have missed that is also making the mini-itx format?
Does anybody know how well the SiS 55xx does the x86 instruction set?
...and say that Quantum Bigfoot drives won't fit in a small footprint computer box?
Am I right? Please mod me as overrated if I'm right.
Why slashdot? Why not?
this: http://www.hushtechnologies.net/
(from the site)The MicroServer supports many x86 operating systems. This includes Windows 9x, Windows CE.NET, Windows XP embedded, GNU/Linux, BSD, and QNX.
This company is really RMS in disguise!
.
is that a beowulf cluster in your pocket or are you happy to see me?
abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz
You could put one of these things in your wall and drill a hole through for the monitor and keyboard cables.
No more big, unsightly cases on my desk!
Throw two of them in a shoebox, and you've got a perfect fault-tolerant high-availability DNS and LDAP information infrastructure solution!
Put an Oracle RAC cluster in the top drawer of your desk!
Imagine a beowulf of these in your pants!
Seriously, though, Pentium 233 MMX-equivalent performance is great for my first option above (with or without the shoebox).
Healthcare article at Kuro5hin
Another company uses the same concept with more of a specialty for diskless firewall products and wireless. The have good support for OpenBSD /w hardware crypto acceleration as well as Linux and FreeBSD.
http://soekris.com/
-ez
I understand you have to give up performance for size, but do you also have to give up price at the same time? Small and cheap isn't even cheap.
-Eyston
Comparison of SPEC CPU2000 benchmarks against suitably optimized(*) Apple G5 demonstrates mATX computers are infinitely faster than Apples latest offering at both integer and floating point computations.
(*) G5 test optimized by switching it off. "Its faster that way", claim benchmarking company.
eh, try going back to the source and grabbing a woody deb disk. Worked magic from me, just don't try updating from potato to woody. Might even want to go as far as sarge, but if you want to use Gnome 2 this may be a bad idea.
"Victory means exit strategy, and it's important for the President to explain to us what the exit strategy is." G.W.Bush
If you want to build your own system, go to Advantech and choose "Biscuit SBCs". They have fanless, VIA-based 667mhz computers that are roughly the size of 3.5" Hard drives. The computers include almost everything you need: audio, ethernet, VGA, TV out, IRDA, USB, IDE, and CompactFlash support. The only things you need to do yourself would be finding/building a case and finding a stable 5VDC power supply.
Here's a question out there with all these "small, cheap machines" being talked about.
I'd like to get a small computer that I'd only use once a month on Gameday with my friends. All I really care about is that it has a good enough processor for playing Medal of Honor/1942/Warcraft III/etc.
All I really give a crap about is the AGP slot - I figure I stick 512 MB of RAM, have a "decent" processor, and 50% of the cost is the ATI/Nvidia "cool slick 128 MB piece of hot stuff" inside.
Who's got an answer for a gamer on the move and on the cheap?
52 Weeks, 52 Religions with John Hummel
Typo, should have read:
Does anybody know how well the SiS 55x does the x86 instruction set?
NorhTec's first microservers are based on the SiS 55x SoC. The SiS 55x is a x86 MMX compatible CPU that offers superscaler execution and a pipelined floating point unit. The SIS 55x has three superpipelined Inter Units. This means that for a given clock cycle, the SiS 55x can execute more than on instruction. For example, at 100 Mhz, the SiS 55x offers the same computational power as a 233Mhz MMX. In the picture below, you can see our custom designed casing and heatsink that makes the GP/GP+ fan-less.
100MHz of POWER!!!! For small embedded applications that would be fine, but MP3/Video player this is not.
My only problem with the VIA Mini-ITX solutions is that even the newer 1Ghz models that have been reviewed don't always seem to have enough power to offer a regular desktop user.
I recently built myself an NES PC, and chose an alternate Mini-ITX board that was socket 370 based that allowed me to choose a more powerful CPU.
Heck, there are even P4 based boards out there now from Commell Systems.
I guess I am just wondering how long it will be until VIA steps up the performance on their EPIA boards...
EASY, I use MPD Player Daemon. It is PHP based, has it's own daemon, works VERY VERY Well. I use an 802.11b windows laptop to talk to the web page.
NUMA
totally worth every penny for $50. Anything more than that is ridiculous.
Looks very cool, and the price is actually rather good IMHO for a little guy like that. I've always wanted to use something like this for building a robot. It's a perfect size.
But first, let's give it a real-world test: a good old-fashioned Slashdotting! I mean, what would it say if a server company can't handle being slashdotted?
Good so far.
Pack a music/video server into the mini-van and give the kids in the backseat two notebooks to play with on the way to the beach/mountains.
Jamie: "Mom, Jimmy crashed my Windows again!"
Jimmie: "heheheh"
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
haha, you borked the SuSE link too! You need to use the PREVIEW button before posting. :) Perhaps Gentoo isn't for you, but it sure is for me. Currently running 4 Gentoo boxes, 2 as desktops with Gnome. Over 5 years I've been through RH->MDK->DEB->SLACK and now I'm all set on Gentoo.
CB
free ipod and free gmail!
Simple! They don't come in Beowulf clusters or run BSD by default!
mike.
Mmmm......sacrelicious.
Caption beneath the product image of our daily Mini-ITX dose:
Have PC's really been decreasing in size all this time? Maybe instead video cards are handling higher and higher resolutions.
Don't you wonder also, "How big is that woman's hand?" (imagining they found a woman 8 feet tall with gigantic Man Hands)
(Patent pending)
/. today!) to create instant portable systems.
In which the "computer" consists of a number of bricks, assembled much like the child's toy "Lego". The bricks come in standard sizes, half-height, double-length, etc. There are bricks for computing, bricks for storage, bricks for power, for backups, and for i/o.
To assemble a "system" you simply choose your bricks and click them together. Bricks have universal connectors in each "bump" which exchange power and information.
Implementation: each brick is a complete computer, and the "system" is a network cluster. A "storage" brick is simply a PC with a fat HD. A "memory" brick being one with lots of RAM.
When I want a new server, I can simply assemble one from bricks that are lying around. When a PC gets too slow, I can replace or add a computing brick. There is no limit to the size of a system: I could plug together hundreds of random bricks to build a computing wall or desk.
The bricks are built to some specifications so that the OS can work with them easily. But competition between manufacturers will ensure that the most innovative and tasteful bricks are the most popular.
The Bricks OS has no concept of file systems. Instead user spaces are automagically synchronized between storage bricks. No backups are ever needed because all available space is always used to keep redundant copies of data.
Personal user spaces can be held on small bricks that are eminently portable and can be connected to portable power supplies and foldable LCDs (hey, I saw this in
Lastly, security. All bricks are marked with a sticker reading "Steal me and the RIAA will sue you!"
Ceci n'est pas une signature
I am very interested in these (or other) small form factor computers. Especially the fanless models (that's just sweet). But I do have a need for High-speed USB 2.0 (demonstrating image sensors). The specs sheet on the pages don't answer what type of USB the MicroServers come with. I have allready sent them a question, but if any of you readers know the answer, please feel free to email it to dam@yellowcatdesign.com.
Any suggestions about other small formfactor PC's with High-speed USB 2 are also welcome.
Thanks.
From the "Details" Page: "For example, at 100 Mhz, the SiS 55x offers the same computational power as a 233Mhz MMX."
666-607: 6th floor apartment of the beast
You don't know how close you really are.
Take a look at this device that you do put in your mouth. It will let you see with your mouth, or sense other things like G-forces when you fly and put this thing in your mouth.
You just need to run a few wires back to your computer, and write a script that listens on /dev/ttyS0.
You can play an mp3 from your script with "mpg321 foo.mp3" or "mpg123 foo.mp43". The former works better IMHO.
I have an mp3 server in my stereo the shares its file over samba, so that everyone in the house (myself and the winshit lameasses) can get files or add to them.
You can't judge a book by the way it wears its hair.
That has got to be the most subtle way of calling mac users gay that I have ever seen. Good stuff.
While I'm sure these computers will still have their uses, I would think for most people the Tranquil PC would work much better, with it's 1Ghz, harddrive, and fanless operation.
http://www.tranquilpc.co.uk/
Although I cant reach the website, its slashdotted now, Ive been waiting for such computers. I intend to replace cisco routers on many levels with these if they have available PCI slots.
I think the crashing PC prices will harm the cisco market and might spin off PC based router companies. For this reason, Cisco is focusing on management technologies that cannot be replaced by simply replacing that router. Web-frontends for management software that can manage routers and switches via SNMP and proprietary protocols, and other protocols like the CPD that will become indispensible and will make it hard to go from a $2500 router to a better $200 pc-router.
And for that reason, there is great potential for free/opensource management software as well as its cliet stubs for Linux/FreeBSD routers firewalls and other SNMP devices. Theres also great potential for an IOS emulation app for Linux/BSD.
I'm just amazed at how an operating system can run on mainframes and pdas, emulate the binaries of many OSes, have all the functions of any other OS and challenge Sun, Microsoft, Cisco and game console markets in one blow.
"Give orange me give eat orange me eat orange give me eat orange give me you." -Nim Chimpsky
I just got my first Soekris box a few days ago - haven't had much of a chance to play, but they fill the same niche as this northtec stuff *and* they take power over ethernet - very handy for remote deploys - say a router for a wireless network running the MikroTik OS
I am very easy to get along with, but I don't have time to waste being nice to people who are being stupid. -Theo
Welcome to the Crypt Keeper's House of Hand Models.
Honestly, do you think they could have gotten someone beside Doris the lunch lady??
The "Slashdot Effect" is for real... You would go broke with the number of people accessing your page, reading sample pdfs, etc...
It would be much more efficient for you to take over a bunch of different systems, have each one create a number of Yahoo! and Hotmail accounts and send out advertisements using this tool. You know, using what's in the book to promote it.
At the very least you would find out if the methods in the book works (and probably get a better handle on your ancestry to boot).
myke
Mimetics Inc. Twitter
" Wrap one of those foldable monitors around one of these, add a roll up keyboard, and you've got one hell of a portable system!!"
Oh lovely. Computers in the burrito format.
The price problem with these things is usually in the cards. I know because I've been doing a lot of research online, looking for SBCs (Single Board Computers) that I could wedge into something small enough to build my holy grail: a "white box" portable.
Why not get a laptop? Because I hate the ergonomics and the form factors on laptops, and I hate the proprietary battery tech.
The most affordable card I've been able to find is made by Wincomm. Google around for it, or just check out BWI. It's still pricey $350-$450 IIRC. You can even get a fanless Transmeta version for like $100 extra dollars if you're still into that.
All of these cards are expensive when compared to PCs of comparable performance. I have several theories as to why: 1. They cater to the industrial computing and/or embedded market. When you can get them in onesies and twosies (which isn't always the case) they are going to cost more because these companies usually deal on volume with large manufacturers. 2. In some cases they are "ruggedized" and you pay for that even if you don't really need it. 3. The market is just smaller, so they have to price higher to recoup R&D costs. 4. Hefty licensing fees from chip companies (sometimes you have to pay thousands of dollars just for the rights to a reference design using their chips).
So, until somebody mass-produces the mobile equivalent of a generic MoBo for mobile CPUs, you're going to pay a premium for small form factors. Also, you would have to have better mechanical standards for connectors and add-on cards. The barriers aren't technical, just structural (as in "business structure"). There is no strong incentive for the power players to do this--yet.
At some point in the future, somebody will break through all this garbage. When they do, we could see some really exciting and affordable portable clone technology. That's what I'm searching for, and waiting for before I buy new hardware. By then, these cards should be powerful enough for non-jerky video too. They're almost there, but not quite.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
Looking at this fugly box, it makes me appreciate the high quality, thoughtful industrial design Johathan Ive produces for Apple.
i ndex.html
It doesn't look like anything on it is particularly milled very precisely.
did you see their Panda.com
http://www.norhtec.com/products/panda/
Oy! Please stop!
I was looking for a good platform for a home grown TiVo, the GP+ looked just about perfect with its video in/out and networking capability.
I guess this ain't it.
myke
Mimetics Inc. Twitter
Check out www.n0rh.com. (if they aren't still slashdotted.) They are primarily a high-end audio company based in Tailand with a rather unique philosophy. Take a look at their speakers!
But you could, um, get one of those new G5s for the same price as your linux beowulf cluster
/ducks
[fx: resists]
[fx: gives in] Why does it need BOTH AC and DC? That's a major disadvantage, isn't it, needing both mains and battery power (or a separate power adapter)?
Erm, unless, erm, it means either AC or DC...
Ceterum censeo subscriptionem esse delendam.
That's about 12 x 16 x 4,8 cm in SI-units (for those of you who like me have troubles thinking in inches)
Currently, I have an M10000 mini-itx board installed in a $6 KMart toolbox.
My plan is to create a much smaller case and make the system into a portable DVD player (plus computer).
Tiny LCD screens can be had for $100. Has anybody else tried this?
Check out one of the other products they offer. 667 MHz, 20GB HDD, USB 2.0, and on board video. Not as cost effective as a desktop box, but if space is a premium then this is a good answer.
O.k., since this little hand-sized thing is overpriced, does anyone know if there is a reasonably-priced (200-300 USD) 1U-sized box that just comes with, say, a motherboard and Via C3? I've got spare RAM and quiet hard drives lying around. Just looking for the bare-bones, small, quiet system.
At 1.90 inches that's either Robert Jordan or War and Peace.
I seem to have developed a pointlessly geeky attitude. Quick, somebody hit me with a brick! I might yet be able to recover my productivity.
"The government of the United States is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion."
because without so much as a floppy drive, you can't really change the OS. And what would you do if the OS crashed?
I would really like to have one of these, but the fact that I couldn't recover an unbootable machine without removing the cover (or sending it back to the manufacturer) doesn't sit well with me.
The society for a thought-free internet welcomes you.
A similar machine is the OpenBrick
One difference is that the Northtec uses a harddisk, while OpenBrick uses CF cards by default.
Does anybody have any further experience comparing these two machines?
How well does the video input on the Northtec machine work?
I hope this doesn't mean you can only use it for listening to AC-DC songs.
Second, I've been using a mini-ITX design (Shuttle) for over a year now and am completely satisfied. I'm not a gamer or power user, so it suits my needs just fine and I love the small footprint aluminum case. Best of all, it didn't come with the "Microsoft Tax," either.
I think the mini-ITX form is going to become increasingly standard over the next few years. The average user does not want a huge tower case when something smaller is available. If Dell, Gateway et al. were smart, they'd start offering a very compact computer, and watch their margins grow.
IAAL
I am dying to get machines this small, but what is going on with the price? As long as the price is this high, how in the world can anyone deploy these in any quantity?
Why can't someone make a box like the open brick that does not cost as much as a regular PC with monitor?
I've been using their high performance (MicroServer HP) model for a few months. At 667 MHz, it is powerful enough for a wide variety of applications and is also virtually silent (the hard drive makes a very small amount of noise). They have a very unique heatsink solution that allows for fanless operation (I've had mine running for weeks without a problem). Definitely worth checking out.
This company actually touts "datacenter server functionality" out of a machine with a 233 MHz processor?? In a time when a "datacenter server" simply must have SMP enabled processors, gig after gig of RAM and TBytes of storage? Man, I'd hate to see the datacenters these guys have been working with, if they think this unit can provide "datacenter server functionality".
The probability that someone is watching you is directly proportional to the stupidity of your actions.
I could get rid of a dozen pc systems that are used for home firewalls that need more than 2 interfaces.
If a company would come out with a cheap mini-pc just like the one in this article(no fans, small, etc) with 3 or 4 interfaces, I bet they would sell like hotcakes for use as cheap linux firewalls that don't take up a huge amount of space and don't sound like a jet engine all the time.
http://216.239.57.100/search?q=cache:ehAs9pyFVzkJ: www.norhtec.com/products/gp/+&hl=en&lr=lang_en&ie= UTF-8
They want to much money for a 233. I don't care how small it is.
(In the meantime, if you have DHCP, I would recommend you renew your lease and get a new IP address... after all, slashdot *is* the death star, we could both be melted on a whim =).
If the individual displaying the box can wipe his/her own ass?
(The CLAWS on that hand look to be razor sharp...)
We looked at this solution when building our car mp3 players but the price vs performance wasn't there compared to the mini-ITX systems.
On the other hand Casetronic manufactures a $65 case that accomodates a via mini-itx. What makes the casetronic so unique is that it utilizes an external 55W 115 volt AC to 12 volt DC converter - so the input to the case itself is always 12 volts. With a case that's about 2.5 inches high, it makes an ideal car mp3 player. We mounted ours under the front seat. When you take it out of your car you use the 115 to 12 volt adapter. When in your car, you can just connect it to your 12 volt bus.
The cost for a car mp3 player works out like this:
Mini-ITX-2677R from www.casetronic.com $65
Mini-ITX 800 Mhz fanless VIA motherboard $94
128 MB PC 133 aprox $15
60 GB hard disk $40
used LCD display from e-bay $11
12 key pad $5
Gentoo Linux - Free
Cajun from sourceforge.net/projects/cajun - Free
Bottom line - a fully functional portable fanless car mp3 player for less than $240 out the door.
specifically in the UK.
Re your sig:
"If my enemy's enemy is my friend, what happens if my enemy is his own worst enemy?"
No problem there. You go out with your enemy for a beer, ask for a table for one, and split the beer with him.
Also, regarding SiS: For Linux, you do that best by running it on an AMD blade server, to make a steaming hot SiS-kebab.
Correct Horse Battery Staple: 72 bits of entropy. Enter "Correct H" into google. When it generates the phrase, that's
And yet, the site boasts over 8 million registered users and continues to be one of the busiest geek sites on the net, while sites like Kur5hin continue to sit nearly idle, in spite of their claims to have gotten so much right which Slashdot gets wrong.
Slashdot is was it is. Visit it, or don't visit it. If you are so sure that you know how to do better, start a better site and take away all that sweet, sweet ad revenue. Otherwise, shut the hell up.
Back on topic: I don't see much that is all that special or newsworthy of these Northtec computers. Yea, they're nice if you want a small desktop PC, I guess... But are we living in Japan or something? Is real estate so massively important that we all need teency-weency desktop computers? I mean, if you are out to save space, a laptop saves even more space, by replacing the mouse with a touchpad, and adding a hinged, built-in LCD. Otherwise, just put your tower under the desk like everybody else.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
... of course. Think of how powerful that machine must be for G.I. Joe!
:-)
Heck, most of his computers don't even boot up.
They'll think I've lost control again and leave it all to evolution. -- Supreme Being, Time Bandits
At 395$ for the dual NIC version, I think they are a little pricey. The rated power consumption of 5W is rather impressive, though ...
:wq
"Let's take some machines somenoe else makes, stamp our huge misspelled name on the front, and sell it for twice as much".
www.littlepc.com It's the smallest computer I've seen and it's even more powerful if not impossible to upgrade. All you need is a firewire hard drive and you could be all set (if you choose not to have one of those flash hard drives as an option). So it's basically a laptop in the shape of a 5 1/2 in drive bay. Beowulf that!
As apposed to it coming a more attractive, yet equally severed, hand?
Blockwars: its multiplayer, try it.
"They do not preach that their god will rouse them, a little before the Nuts work loose." Kipling, 'The Sons of Martha'
Check the website all you spelling/grammar freaks... It's a haven for typo's
Nice tech but it looks like they threw the website together in 30 minutes.
Wouldn't the world of mini-computers do well by using Crusoe based systems? Having just seen how small and full featured the Sharp "laptop" that is based off it is, why can't these micro machines be Crusoe 1Ghz based, with a fair bit of ram and a decent video card. Because there is no LCD slapped on, a whole bunch of space is saved there, with a little more effort and thought, you could basically create a micro PC that used no fans, little power, and is far better than 266Mhz.
This box is still missing digital connections.
...)
spdif, so I can digitally hook it to my 5.1 channel amp.
dvi, so I can digitally hook it to my 21 inch lcd monitor, dvi projector, or plasma screen. ( assuming that I had those things
And the system runs on AC and DC power. So tell me again, why the heck wouldn't you just get a cheapy laptop?
Trolls lurk everywhere. Mod them down.
Pffft, too big. I want a computer so small that it fits on a fly.
get it?
There is no additional PCI on that thing. Not a chance. Even with a riser card you'd have to blow the case off, and I'm guessing the case itself acts as some sort of Heatsink instead of a (HSF) combo; they say there is no fan.
I went to battle MC Escher but drew a blank
My company has been using machines very similar to these for about 8 months now. The housing is black and silver but the exact same shape and size. They are not marketed or sold by the company mentioned in the article.
They work very well. You would think there would be heat issues packing it all in that little box, more compact and together than in a typical notebook that has more displacement area, but there are none.
We use them in 35 of our convenience stores, they hold up to the dust, dirt, and other threats in your typical c-store very well.
I like them!
-- of all the things i've lost, i miss my mom the most --
i get the fact that you need a good punch in the mouth
>Software:
>We can pre-install the unit with GNU/Linux or Windows, as per your requirement.
US-UK-Israel: The real Axis of Evil
If you are trying to make a tiny computer why would you put a parallel port and serial port on them. Who the hell uses parallel printer cables any more? If you put a printer cable on one of these computers, its weight would tip the computer over.
www.lex.com.tw
Especially the new DDR RAM one coming out soon - 4 channel video capture, VIA CPU, 2.5" disk, CF, wireless and up to 3 network interfaces in a box the size of a book..
vaporware to me...
The mpeg chip only helps for decoding mpeg, the encoding process still needs the processor a lot.
Not quite there yet, but a mini-itx mainboard with a hauppauge pvr 350 in a cute small case almost does the trick. Just the decoding on the 350 doesn't work yet...
This has got to be the coolest thing I've seen in a while. Those guys are awsome! Thanks for the link. My basic stamp is obsoleted.
Still, when it comes to an in car server, it's tough to beat a full gnu/linux system. Networking, scripts make the little PC worth the extra $300. Those extras translate into ease of use with less effort. Those 8051 programming gizmos are really cool for dedicated control projects but being able to ssh -X into my car's music player by 802.11b sounds like a much easier way to program my music.
DMCA, Hollings, Palladium. What might have sounded like paranoia is now common sense.
For the units without dvdrom, I don't see a way to boot if/when the internal disk develops some problem. Would you just have to ship it back to them for reconfiguring?
- First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then ???, then profit.
On the details page it mentions that it can run on 12 volt DC -- this would make it perfect for running it a car! Now to just figure out some sort of display. Great idea for GPS navigation...
Opencores appears to be the only way.
It includes LAN, serial, 2xUSB, parallel, 2xPS2, sound, VGA (Savage4) and composite video out. There are some other wonderful options coming which I can't yet tell you about, but amongst other things it's possible to make them completely fanless if you're happy with 533MHz and can guarantee a low environmental temperature - or a single maglev fan and any temperature you yourself can stand.
The first-run unit I'll review has Flash instead of a HDD and is also capable of taking a PSU to which you can attach a battery and treat it as a built-in UPS (or potentially run it from batteries). There is a ruggedised version of the PSU which will cope with automotive voltages (and fluctuations) but more work is needed to cope with the extreme vibration inherent in outback roads (it kills show-pony four-wheel drives, you can imagine what it would do to a computer).
/me waves to Alan and Telsa.
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
While these small computers are desirable due to their size, their price is more than I want to spend. On a good day, I can pickup a desktop for less or even a Shuttle XPC system. My Linux router may be 3x as large, but I got it free because a friend was upgrading. I'd like to have one of these just like I would to have a new G5, but I just don't have the money.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
That was subtle? You must think you're extraordinarily perceptive or something.
My other first post is car post.
Or you could get a G4 Cube which will run about 10 times faster.
___ alwaysBETA.com - Hey, you've got nothing better to do.
I have a friend who is working on a project to put computers in some countries in Africa. Part of the problem that he has is that the electric grid goes down all the time. Plus there is a lot of dust. These might be great for that kind of application. You could probably run if for quite some time off of a UPS. And since it's a sealed unit, the dust wouldn't be such a big problem.
I have been looking for quite some time for a small Linux server system to be used as my DSL home gateway. It performs many tasks (e-mail, www, dns, proxy, mysql, firewall, etc..) but 95% of the time it's relatively idle.
- Silent (or at least quiet) operation when not under heavy load. The system needs to be able to control the fans to spin slowly or stop when cooling isn't needed.
- CPU Speed control. Many of the newer CPU's allow control of the CPU speed from software (e.g. the Pentium-M, and VIA C3). Ideally, this would slow down A LOT when not needed, e.g. 400MHz, and scale up to 1.5+GHz when necessary.
- Right integrated peripherals. For network gateway use, I need at least two decent ethernet ports. Preferably reputable chips, like the Intel Pro/100 or Pro/1000. A third port would be nice but not essential. Firewire ports are great for adding external storage, or allowing CD-R backups, etc.
- Low power CPU (related to the low heat requirements). If this is an always-on device, you should try to conserve power. The VIA C3, Pentium-M, or Transmeta chips are all good here.
- Small form factor. Stash it under the DSL modem, and forget about it.
My current solution is a micro-ATX motherboard, in a small desktop case, running a fanless VIA C3 CPU. It's not bad, but it could be a bit quieter, smaller, and faster.
I thought Transmeta makes very compact very noiseless very Linux-compatible motherboards. No?
Less is more !
My company wirespring uses these little P3 machines for kiosk and digital signage deployments all the time. They're only slightly longer than the nOrhTec product, and they're based on the i815 chipset (great linux support). Our FireCast Linux OS runs MPEG1,2 and 4 on these things great (and there's XV support to boot). Plus, if you can't live with a fan, you can pop out the Celeron/P3 and stick a VIA Eden or C3 in for silent running. On the flip side, the manufacturer also makes the product with a different case, and they even have models configured with P4s.
The computer will fit in the Bigfoot drive
(Just what I need a Scaschquach Computer)
Diplomacy is the art of saying "Nice doggie" until you can find a rock. Will Rogers
...to see how neat those units really are.
I attended the GO Expo in Calgary a couple weeks ago and got to see their offerings first hand--nice little booth they had set up.
YES, sometimes real-estate IS massively important. Some points you missed:
1. Take out a ruler and size out the unit, or check one out physically. These things have no keyboard mouse or display, but because of that the box is damn small--smaller than the vast majority of notebooks (at least "real" ones capable of running WinXP or a full Linux desktop).
2. You cannot easily buy a new laptop with comparable power for as cheap as the norhtec units because you must buy the drives, keyboard, mouse, display and so on. Who says you always need all that stuff? What if it is meant to act as a server or data collection device? Sometimes you need a PC in a server role but lack space(trucking industry, remote mining/drilling camps--which is the market they were chasing in Calgary and so on). Perhaps you are stuck in a Windows mentality and assume PCs actually need keyboards and monitors to function.
3. These units are FANLESS and can be equipped with solid-state persistent storage rather than regular hard drives (that was an option they were touting at the GO expo). No moving parts as well as the ability to run on DC can be a huge bonus for mobile applications (there is no AC-to-DC power supply as typically found on desktops in these units--they come with a "brick" like a notebook or your old C64 might have). These units are solid, metal cases designed to be relatively easy to mount in a variety of locations.
Here are some sample uses where the "tower under the desk" or a "space saving laptop" just wouldn't cut it, and these units would be ideal:
* MP3 jukebox for your car - whether you use flash or a hard drive you can put hours (or days perhaps) of music on it--they do have sound built in after all. They are portable and can be brought in and easily hooked up for download--or perhaps even cooler you could put a wireless ethernet card init and leave it bolted in your dash or trunk, then FTP music to it using your little linksys wireless router or whatever when the car is parked in the garage!
* SCADA, remote logging, etc. These rugged, inexpensive devices can be used to gather data at remote or industrial locations. Pumping stations at oil and gas wellsites have lots of data gathering requirements. CN and CP rail have hotwheel detectors, signalling systems and so on in shacks all over the country that rely on expensive, proprietary and sometimes obsolete equipment to work. Power plants collect data everywhere. In all of these situations I've seen instances where recording data meant an ancient serial line printer spewing reams of paper. These could be drop-in replacements.
* Mobile applications - trucking industry, police and EMS vehicles, warehousing (forklift mounted system with attached barcode scanner and very simple display connected) and so on would find these products extremely useful as there isn't much out ther at the same price with the same flexibility. This is where the no moving parts possibility would be invaluable.
Does this help you in the "newsworthy" and "massively important" departments?
Has anyone built a PVR using a Mini-ITX? The thought of a silent small pc sitting below the television is a tad more acceptable than a standard PC shoved in a cupboard and padded to hell to reduce the noise.
Any recommendations or suggestions? Is the computer powerful enough for something like MythTV? How would you deal with the remote on one of these things?
Avantslash - View Slashdot cleanly on your mobile phone.
If you get digital TV (in the UK terrestrial TV is digital), you don't need the encoder part, and a VIA solution will decode mpeg-2 pretty well. I would have built a test system, but unfortunately, the digital tv tuner card I found was rubbish...
I can see all sorts of uses for a minature board that has simply say a CF port, audio and serial or similar minimalist combinations.
It seems they are trying to minaturise a full PC which includes the kitchen sink. There must be a point below which this is no longer useful. If you want subminature servers why do you need audio and video out/in? The absolute minimum size is also restricted by the area required to fit all the connectors so such a device can't get much smaller.
So in the end you have something that is small but not revelutionarally so. That isn't particularly fast and not expandable. It's fairly pricey (can someone explain why you can't use a PDA in it's place?) It's a compromise and compromises are always the worst of all worlds.
> somebody hit me with a brick! I might yet be able to recover my productivity.
:)
Not to split hairs, but I think a brick to the dome would lead to less productivity. But, of course, IANABP (Brick Physicist), so I don't know these scientific-type things too well.
A CISCO router is essentially just a computer with a lot of intelligent ports and a much faster I/O bus. A CISCO router is also just that, a router. However, if you don't mind a performance hit, you can run other stuff on the machine such as proxies or whatever. This, you can't do on the CISCO.
See my journal, I write things there
If a company would come out with a cheap mini-pc just like the one in this article(no fans, small, etc) with 3 or 4 interfaces, I bet they would sell like hotcakes for use as cheap linux firewalls that don't take up a huge amount of space and don't sound like a jet engine all the time.
Soekris Engineering already has these. They build custom single-board PCs which are low-power and run fanless. They are not going to replace a PC for desktop use, but are terrific for firewalls, VPNs, wireless base stations, and the like.
They have several different models, with 2 or 3 network interfaces. The units with 2 interfaces have a slot to take a wireless PCCard to become a base station. They boot off compact flash, or tiny IDE drives. They can take a crypto hardware acceleration card. They can be powered by PoE (Power Over Ethernet).
The new net4801 takes the processor clock up to 233MHz. Like I said, not a speed demon, but it's a beautifully designed piece of hardware.
There's also a nice turnkey firewall package for the Soekris boxes, called m0n0wall, that's pretty functional and virtually idiot-proof. You could build a business selling these things, it's commercial quality polish.