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New Nano-ITX Boards Shown At Cebit
Subartik writes "The new nano-itx boards from Via have been shown at the CeBit show in Germany. It looks like it will be a suitable platform for all kinds of small form factor devices. See
VIA embedded and
Linux Devices for the specs and pictures"
An anonymous reader points to PC World articles about the Nano-ITX board itself as well as the first system which will include it.
i can finally realise my dream of cramming a computer onto my bike!
Mini-ITX has some pictures here
Saying Java is nice because it works on all OS's is like saying that anal sex is nice because it works on all genders.
Let me get this straight. We've got ATX, Extended ATX, FlexATX, WATX, Mini ATX, microATX and now Nano-ITX? How is anyone suppose to keep this straight? What a pain in the atx. I will say this, these boards are getting pretty small. The article gave the dimensions as 3.7 inches by 5.9 inches by 6.3 inches. Nanode must have invented a debigulator.
Wow! This'll open the door for much more efficient/interoperable embedded computers! Just think about it: A more advanced Big Mouth Billy Bass!
A few people earlier today were wondering why anyone would need IPv6, since IPv4 "obviously has enough address space". Developments like this should pretty clearly demonstrate that that's not the case. It probably won't be too terribly long before even your fridge will need an IP so you can program your refrigerator to know when it needs to order more groceries and the like. And that's just practical applications; toy and game manufacturers are going to go nuts with this.
It does seem to have a mini-pci slot on the bottom according to this. This could make for one cool car computer for DVDs, mp3s, and GPS navigation. Low power consumption, low heat dissapation, and good performance for audio and DVDs.
Anyone know how they plan to cool the CPU? Passive or active cooling? I am not an expert on VIAs CPUs at all. Hopefully they wont be as bad as AMDs first 1GHz...
And are there any cases ready to deliver, that support this new "standard"?
Here's some pictures and specs from the Nano-ITX PC that Mini-ITX.com is selling.
useless to me. No PCI, PCMCIA, or ISA slots? Seems like just a toy.
With built-in IDE, USB, sound, ethernet, and video, what do you need a PCI slot for? And considering the trend micro-ATX boards took, you can expect to see dual or quad ethernet and SCSI support within a few months.
Yes, I realize devices other than those three exist, but if you need them, you've probably missed the point of such a small board... Low power, passive cooling, quiet, small and portable... Loading it up with other toys (such as throwing in a high-end (and hot, and power-sucking) video card for gaming) kinda removes most of the advantages. If you want a "real" high-end desktop-class machine, you still need to get a standard ATX board.
And if you really need some expansion capabilities, you always have USB - You can get just about anything in a USB form these days.
A few people earlier today were wondering why anyone would need IPv6, since IPv4 "obviously has enough address space". Developments like this should pretty clearly demonstrate that that's not the case. It probably won't be too terribly long before even your fridge will need an IP so you can program your refrigerator to know when it needs to order more groceries and the like.
Absolutely. In fact, your fridge might demand an entire subnet. Smaller, cheaper boards drive appliance makers to a federated, modular architectures in which every new function has its own CPU. Your fridge might need range of IPs addys if it has an ice maker, RFID-reading intelli-chiller, home-message center, Kalory-Kounter terahertz sensor array, Phreshness Gas Sensor, Open-Door SMS alert sender, remote shopping list VPN website, etc.
Its just much easier to make a bunch of modules that sit on a network than create a bloatware central system that has wires for every conceivable add-on function.
Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
Here's some ideas:
-Homebrew $200 firewalls (routers, gateways, etc) with much, much greater capabilities than those little D-Link units.
-Personal NAS devices that, again, are mega-cheap and tiny
-home automation devices: c'mon, who hasn't dreamed of fully automating their house?
-motorcycle-based GPS system anyone?
-cheapass public terminal systems: incorporate one of these into an LCD screen?
-smaller tablets, laptops with longer battery life? Sure there's not much computational power, but if you're just doing surfing or doing office chores...
-add a single wifi chip/small antenna and you have instant access point. I bet Starbucks would love this idea. Instant, easy, cheap wireless internet.
Now, personally, I think these things could be great building blocks for doing distributed computing research. You could build a rather large network of these tiny things into a standard ATX tower, and have yourself a portable beowulf cluster, or hell, nice little units to experiment with distributed computing ideas. I can see it now: a couple of 8-drive HDD external bays, with each slot housing full systems!
------- "From bored to fanboy in 3.8 asian girls" ----------
Didnt see it mentioned how much these things will be.
If they are more then 100 bucks or so, they wont be too useful for the 'embedded market' they are trying to enter. ( plus they are still a tad too big and power hungry for that.. )
---- Booth was a patriot ----
As long as someone has the brains to slap two ethernet ports in it it'd make a handy firewall/router in a convenient itty bitty size. The box I have currently doing routing is an old IBM PC Server and it's so big I have to keep all my stuff away from it in case it undergoes gravitational collapse . . .
"If being a geek means being passionate about something, then I pity those who aren't geeks." - Pike65
It doesn't need DVI as it has 2 LVDS ports on the board itself.
Design a custom 4U case, and mount these blade-style in the case, each with a tiny little 2 or 4GB flash drive. I'm willing to bet that a 4U half-depth case could support 12 of these things, with a low-power redundant PSU to power the array. Get a 72U rack, fill it with these things, and you have 216 systems on a single half-depth rack, consuming ~600 watts of power.
Oh god, would I love to build such an array...oh baby...
------- "From bored to fanboy in 3.8 asian girls" ----------
Because if any free Unix (sue me SCO!) will do OpenBSD already supports that (since 3.4, and way faster support coming in 3.5).
Uh oh... now you've got me worried. What happens when a script kiddie hacks into my fridge and orders a million gallons of ice cream in my name? I suppose if it's a Microsoft Fridge (tm), it's going to need frequent patching. Or I could use an Apple Macintosh Fridge, which will be more secure but hold only a few kinds of food.
Oh, come on, get real! PCI is only a small part of the problem. I need an ISA slot for my EGA card. And no MCA slots either! Where the fuck will my token ring card go without Microchannel???
Next thing I'll hear is that it doesn't even have a way to attach it to my cassette drive.
I once had the DMA controller on a motherboard go bad on me. Do you think that I've stopped buying motherboards without replaceable DMA controllers?
:)
Just because you once blew out the onboard video doesn't mean that every motherboard will have that happen, or even any more than a very few motherboards.
Besides, you're just as likely to blow a regular video card as you are to blow the VGA on this board - and that regular video card might just cost *more* to replace than this entire mortherboard!
If anything, I've found most computer hardware to be much more resiliant and hard to "blow" than I would have imagined. I've hot-(un)plugged just about every type of PC interface there is without damaging the computer (sometimes on purpose, sometimes on accident). And if I went into the stories of things I've seen people do without damaging a computer, your eyes would probably pop out of your head.
The only thing I've had damaged by hot-(un)plugging was one particular model of monitor from one particular vendor. They weren't designed well, and they'd go "pop" quite often if you plugged them in to a running computer. However, that hasn't stopped me from doing it with some uncountable number of monitors, and no others have ever given me any problem.
Besides, don't tell me that you'd never buy an Opteron for fear that the memory controller in it would get blown, rendering the rest of the CPU useless....
steve
Oh, you're not stuck, you're just unable to let go of the onion rings.
Indeed. I'm wondering whether VIA is going to pull their finger out and actually offer some active support to the development of XFree86 drivers, for example. I've had VIA EPIA (Mini-ITX) systems for quite some time now, but it's only in the last month or so that native video chipset support has become available for them in XFree86. Presumably VIA funds the development of their own Windows drivers -- is it too much to ask that they aid in the development of X drivers just by releasing some programming specs? I like VIA's stuff a lot, but their all-too-common policy of "details on how to actually use this stuff are a closely guarded and valuable trade secret" ticks me off.
proof, n. A demonstration that a conclusion is implied by certain premises and axioms.
You do realize that many people find the dead space left from the ad more anoying then the ad itself. Ad blockers are for people who are really crazed, for most it's just pop ups that bother them. Normal ads are fine, aside from the ocasional super flashy one. And sometimes you might find them useful. Also I prefer to still have ads make websites money. I don't want to have to start paying to visit every website out there because everyone has ad blockers so sites need new money streams.
>With built-in IDE, USB, sound, ethernet, and video, what do you need a PCI slot for? And considering the trend micro-ATX boards took, you can expect to see dual or quad ethernet and SCSI support within a few months.
I'd need a PCI slot for a Hauppauge PVR-350 card for a MythTV (http://www.mythtv.org). Small size, no fan, this board would be great otherwise for building a PVR.
Standard Mini-Itx (Eden, Nehemiah, etc) are 17cm x 17cm. This board is 12cm x 12cm, which is roughly half the size.
Dude! Why don't you just read the specs ?
It's got an MPEG2/MPEG4 chip, okay ?!
Q1: Yes
All C3 "Nehemiah" CPUs starting at 1GHz can do this. I assume, since I do not use MythTV. I use the C3 on a full-fledged server and used it for KDE/Desktop work for months. I had no problems replaying standard MPEG2/MPEG4. The EPIA boards have an MPEG2 decoder, the new ones will have MPEG4 in addition. The new CPU will be faster then the one I use.
Q2: Yes. Many people use a TV card with MPEG2 encoder on their EPIA systems
Q3: Noiseless if you cool it passive
Q4: No, people have done it with the even larger EPIAs
Q5: That depends on your skills and desired features. The Nano-ITX board *might* cost around USD200-250 at introduction. Got this from a sales-guy at a Mini-ITX shop I know.
Hello?? Fred?! Is this you?
On hunting around, I found the EPIA Linux Howto, which is a January 2004 publication (apparently), and fairly nifty. In the chapter on video support, the editor interjects with a clarifying comment about hardware MPEG support, stating, "The source code is available to large OEM customers under NDA/licensing agreements. It is not available to end-users." Strike one for open source.
The video drivers for EPIA-M boards can be downloaded from their CLE266 Linuxpage. There is a note about source code at the bottom of this page. They say the following about full source code access: "Users need to sign Binary License Agreement (BLA) and Source Code Addendum (SCABLA) to obtain the source. Typically, only requests from companies developing product for sale will be approved." Strike two for open source.
But there's a more limited source release available, apparently, and for that you need to go to the VIA Open Source Developer's Data Request Form. Here you will be warmly greeted with the following notice, accompanied by a honking great form full of mandatory personal information fields.
VIA's open source support is weak at best. Maybe there are good reasons why they are obliged to put obstacles in the way of everything, rather than just providing the damn code, but their pitch as given leaves me pretty cold. I like their stuff, but I'm sick of half-baked software support.
proof, n. A demonstration that a conclusion is implied by certain premises and axioms.