Japanese Pocket-Size PC Cube Demonstrated

rocketjam writes "The Japanese company, Personal Media Corporation, has demonstrated a prototype of a cube-shaped pocket-sized computer called the T-Cube (tentative name). The T-Cube runs the T-Engine OS, an operating system apparently being developed by a consortium of Asian companies for embedded devices and networked computers. The machine is about the size of an orange, uses a CPU made by NEC and sports a desktop written for the Chinese Market supporting Multi- and Super-Chinese Character sets. It is scheduled to ship in Q1 of 2004."

Comments

So what?

[rjstanford]

Honestly, I don't think that the size of a (not-very-powerful) computer matters beyond thresholds. Ie:

Can it easily slip into my pocket?
Yes: iPod, etc
No: cube the size of an orange

Can I carry it around easily?
Yes: cube, laptop
No: server

Does it need reinforced flooring?
Yes: mainframe
No: server

So, basically, I'm not seeing much of a reason to go minimalistic on computers. If portability is a concern, that's already solved with modern laptops - which this isn't meaningfully smaller than (I mean, can't be treated much differently than). If it isn't a concern, then you don't need the extreme small size. And if density is a concern, you're better off with more powerful systems (per cubic whatever) than smaller ones.

Just MHO, of course.

Tron, The Most Popular OS in the World

[fuck_this_shit]

It's running tron judging by the screenshots.

What is the world's most widely used operating system? It's not Windows , Unix or Linux, but ITRON, a Japanese real-time kernel for small-scale embedded systems. ITRON runs on mobile phones , digital cameras, CD players and countless other electronic devices.

ITRON emerged as an ambitious Japanese initiative known as The Real-time Operating system Nucleus (TRON). Launched in 1984, TRON was designed to replace disparate computer systems with a unified, open architecture for a "total computer environment."

[...]

The ITRON specification is a standard real-time OS kernel that can be tailored to any embedded system. ITRON already has been ported to a wide range of microprocessor architectures and has quickly become Japan's de facto standard for embedded systems. Today, the specification is used in an estimated 3 billion microprocessors.

http://www.linuxinsider.com/perl/story/31855.html

Not really an orange.

[infinite9]

Actually, it's not sitting next to oranges. They're mikans, sort of like tangerines. These things are somewhere between the size of a golf ball and a tennis ball. Very tasty too.

And that price tag is not really abnormal in Japan. When I was there, 10,000 yen was about $40. They were selling cantaloupes for that price. They would cut the vine nicely and gift wrap them in little window boxes. Now, that's about $100. Oddly enough, honeydew melons were only about 500 yen at the time, maybe $2.