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."
"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.
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?"
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I haven't posted in so long, my sig is out of date.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.
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.
Of course, this doesn't address the really issue with size: the screen.
"Learning is not compulsory... neither is survival."
--Dr.W.Edwards Deming
Is there somebody I have missed that is also making the mini-itx format?
(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!
.
He says AC and DC. I assume that means it needs an AC waveform superimposed over a DC bias. That seems obscure, but actually any phone jack will supply such a voltage. Therefore, I conclude that this system is powered by telephone dialtones.
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
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.
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); }
Simple! They don't come in Beowulf clusters or run BSD by default!
mike.
Mmmm......sacrelicious.
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
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
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"?
At 1.90 inches that's either Robert Jordan or War and Peace.
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'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.
The SiS chipset is the least of your worries for this purpose. You either need an MPEG-1/2/4 hardware decoder/encoder, or a > 1Ghz processor, either of which will throw your form factor off in various ways. 233MHz is pathetic for MPEG work (yes the TiVo has a proc about that fast, but it also has embedded encode/decode chips).
The guys at MythTV have discussed this at length; there is just no small, quiet, cheap, Linux friendly way to make a TiVo. Sorry.
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'
It looks cool and all, but $400 is a little much for a 233mhz system without video.
I agree completely.
I've looked around for something similar, not so much caring about footprint (though preferably not full PC-size) as fanless operation with a moderate level of performance (PII/300 level or so). Although such systems use mostly low-cost OEM parts, they always cost WAY more than their level of performance would suggest.
Someone want to make a killing? Take a system like this Norhtec GP, kill the frills, splurge a tad on form factor, and sell it for under $200. And if you can kill the HDD and make it use something like a 1GB solid-state IDE, all the better.
For some reason, companies producing tiny PCs like this seem to pretend that people might actually use it as their primary PC. I don't need USB, or 128MB of ram, or a 10GB HDD, or a high-end 3d video card. As long as it has ethernet, keyboard, maybe mouse, and standard svga, 32MB ram and enough IDE-like disk space to throw Linux on, it will suffice for what I (and most people looking for a small, easy, low power, low maintenance (ie, fanless), low noise PC solution) need. Perfect for NAT boxen, car MP3 players, test-beds for crap you don't want on your "real" machine, instrumentation frontends, cheap-n'-dirty laptop substitute, or just about anything you wouldn't need a full modern machine for anyway.
Who said you need to remove the cover? These machines support PXE, so all you do to recover your box to pull a kernel off the network and a minimal root filesystem, and *bam* you're in business, no drives of any sort needed. It's a bit tougher in Windows, but still very possible.
Marxism is the opiate of dumbasses
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..
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.