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PC In An XP Box
wolrahnaes writes "There is an article up on mini-itx.com explaining how to fit a fully functional PC based on a VIA M10000 EPIA board in to a Windows XP box.
The author even explains how he then fit it in to a Red Hat box and used a sensor to tell the bootloader which OS to run based on which box it is in."
...that one of the most expensive component of the project is the box itself.
Now I just have to find an OS/2 box...
Setec Astronomy
to the wonderful world of people who have too much time on their hands!
A Windows XP box worth the retail price!
Don't believe anything I say. I crash test crack pipes for a living.
yes you are, read it again carefully. I read it the same way you did at first.
That is cool. I particularly like the little flip sensor to decide which os to boot.
I remember having seen it on /. a while ago.
Cool stuff however.
Microsoft will definitely get into trouble when they start bundling computers with purchases of Windows.
Opportunities multiply as they are seized. --Sun-Tzu
"Windows XP Box" By Andy France - Posted on 1 December 2003
;)
Slashdot: Always first with the news
Martin Brooks / Slayer99 #linux / UIN 2178117
Ok, so we all know that you can get small motherboards and shove them into odd things..
This *might* have been interesting 2 years ago, but at this point.. so what?
Anyone can do this if you want to waste the cash and time.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
I don't see how this is that great of a mod. Big freakin' deal, its in a WinXP box, someone tell Virtual Hideout....
Next on Slashdot, a PC mounted in Sun External CD-ROM?
"Good, bad, I'm the guy with the gun."
Dammit.. NEED MORE COFFEE
Too bad most Slashdotters who use XP won't actually HAVE an XP box...
Yes
The final step was to take an assembly language MBR boot loader program and modify it to read the state of the tilt switch and make it boot the partition containing Windows XP or the partition containing Linux. To those that don't know the secret of how it works it looks like magic. It boots the right O/S for the box it is in.
Is it just me, or do these guys have way too much time on their hands? I mean... what in the world do they hope to accomplish besides a (+5, HOLYSHIT) moderation?
So, Bob, what did you do this weekend?
Oh, you know, barbeque with the friends, fucked the wife, usual stuff. You?
The usual, drank a bunch of jolt, wacked off in the basement to anime and wrote an article about a useless PC mod.
TO MUCH time on there hands...
Yawn, that's nothing, wake me up when they manage to get a working PC with Windows in it.
The IT section color scheme sucks.
"Recycle Bin."
taken! (by Davidleeroth) Thanks Bingo Foo!
I'm waiting for someone who hasn't RTFA to come out trying to make some 'yes, but does it run linux?' joke. Come on, /., don't fail me now...
The Braying and Neighing of Barnyard Animals Follows.
I thought an xbox WAS just a pc in a box.... or am I missing something here..
Yup, you're missing reading the headline, reading the article description, and reading the article.
Pretty good effort all up!
What is a 'Windows XP box'? A computer running XP I would think at first glance. And they are installing a _second_ motherboard in one? I'd RTFA but it's down. So just what in the hell is this story about anyway? It far, far from clear based on the blurb.
"Gold still represents the ultimate form of payment in the world." - Alan Greenspan, 1999
Yep; this project is months old.
does he still have the orig warranty in effect? Or has this modificaiton nullified the warranty?
-Grump
Is it true that more people vote for the winner of American Idol, than vote for the president? -Ali G.
Also, even though I didn't understand it, I was thinking: Why?
Then I read the article, and can see from the picture that by XP Box they mean the box that the software for XP comes in. OK, so that's making a little more sense.
Now, considering the article that was posted just prior to this one I'm wondering if this is a fire hazard?
Not the best box to leave (running kazaa all night) unattended on.
And there is no explanation to Why, except the person is a geek, which I can understand, but most of society wouldn't.
Now the only question remaining is, why would he want to run Windows XP?
Promote Sensitivity on Slashdot, make me your friend.
The irony is that an XBox actually costs less than an XP box!!!!!
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
Moderate this comment
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Nothing to see here
still no cure for cancer.
seriously, wouldn't time be better spent on other, more worthwhile projects than building a computer in a box?
CB
free ipod and free gmail!
I thought that project was kind of dull when I first saw it. It's not improved with time. On the other hand, I really like the look of the new Nanode PC from Mini-ITX (same site), designed by Hoojum.
Take a look at this picture and the cat. Now look at your desktop PC and imagine a cat standing next to it. The nanode really is that small.
I want one.
The site with the rest of the info is here.
D.
--- These are not words: wierd, genious, rediculous
Why not use the actual box from the motherboard? They look attractive enough to me. If I had enough spare time, I might setup one myself.
Score: -1, WTF
A PC inside another PC, as in a recursive PC.. box inside a box. Guess I must not have ever actually seen a a Windows XP cardboard box ;)
THE MAGIC WORDS ARE SQUEAMISH OSSIFRAGE
At first I thought this was some kind of a joke making fun of a Windows "box" (computer) that I didn't get. I actually had to stop and think if it was April 1st already.
I didn't realize it was like a cardboard box till I went to the site. *slaps forehead*
http://evoketv.com - TV Listings 2.0
Ok, so If the switch is pointing up, it boots XP. If the switch points down it boots Linux.
What if you put either box on it's side?
/^([Ss]ame [Bb]at (time, |channel.)){2}$/
One substantial difference is that I used only the cardboard box itself as a mounting infrastructure; I didn't build a little case and then wrap the Windows or Linux box around it, like this does.
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
IAALS.
Google cache it, then follow the links as normal. The site is still very responsive. It looks like only the main page is being blocked. Perhaps they are checking referrers...
Someone puts a mb in a capt. crunch box and it starts whistling? Really, this is like the time back in high school when one of the non-techies discovered he could set up his computer so that the cpu could be seen outside the box. The big answer was: so what? It's just a stupid little square. Same here. What's next? Putting it in a carboard cut out of britney spears?
There's a growing sense that even if The Future comes,
most of us won't be able to afford it.
-- Lemmy
Well, it's not really too bad, since having a box is a sign you gave Microsoft lots of extra money. While I expect you intended to imply that some slashdot readers pirate Microsoft software, many know that they can legally buy OEM copies of WInXP with some hardware for a lot less than they would pay for a boxed retail copy of XP. In some cases that hardware can cost as low as a buck. And whatever it costs you get the same software, a legal unique ID for it, extra hardware and a lower total cost. So unless you want to display that box as a sign of shame for paying too much for the software, (or get great rebate deals on other products that effectively make the retail box free, as happened when XP first came out) why would anyone buy the retail box?
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
Where's the rest?
Hastily posted at 3am on October 25, 2003
The rest of this page has been temporarily cropped to reduce bandwidth (shouts to The New York Times, slashdot, slashdot japan, and news.com).
Iv'e seen them shoved in Pizza Hut boxes.. and cereal boxes.. and cigar boxes...
So the printing in this case says XP... same concept.. sill boring.. the entire idea of shoving a pc into a wierd case isnt really interesting at this point.
Though personally i never saw the point, but at least 2 years ago it was unique.. now its like all the kids with the annoying light kits on their stupid rice burners..
---- Booth was a patriot ----
I have to wonder why everyone thinks that paper and computers are a fire hazard. I've never seen the little stickers on my ram, cards and motherboards burst into flames.
The average case temperature is 35deg C. Paper, wood, tinder, sawdust, none of it will burn at 35deg C.
A Mac OS X Panther box would be even cooler!
Text, sans really cool pics. When he writes "Windows XP Box" he means the cardboard box that Windows XP comes in.
Introduction
I needed a small Windows XP machine and a Mini-ITX board was the obvious choice. So I decided to build my "Windows XP Box" in a Windows XP box. The external dimensions of the box are a tiny 243mm x 200mm x 48mm.
My requirements were:
* Use as powerful a motherboard as possible for the size i.e. a Nehemiah EPIA M10000.
* It must have an internal CD drive (this size eating requirement turned out be be very hard to meet).
* No bits could be cut off the motherboard to make it fit.
* The box must not bulge in an unsightly way, nor can the box be made bigger.
* It must not burst into flames when working hard (this should always be a requirement of a computer project).
Fortunately there is no longer any requirement for an internal floppy drive. That would have have defeated me.
Construction
The bits arrive and it looks like an impossible task, with too many bits to fit in a small space.
I nearly gave up and decided it was an impossible task. The Windows XP box was 3mm thinner and 12 mm narrower than the Adobe Acrobat box I had measured up when first deciding if the project was going to be possible. The challenge was to arrange the components into a 3D jigsaw, then decide how to build enough of an internal support case to get everything to stay in place.
Eventually it looked like I might have a possible layout, but the tolerances were tight. I had 6mm to spare on the long internal dimension of the box and only 3mm to spare on the thickness of the box, and this was not allowing for any thickness for the internal support case that holds everything in place.
In order to mount all the bits I was going to have to make an inner support case that would tightly slide into the cardboard box. I chose Wonderboard plastic as my construction material because it is reasonably strong and very easy to work with (it cuts with a Stanley knife). It would have been nice to use aluminium, but the cramped design made the chances of a short circuit too great.
The first construction step was to cut out a base plate the exact size of the inside of the cardboard box and double check where the bits will fit.
As the Wonderboard was 3mm thick this reduced my tolerance in two dimensions to zero. The CD drive would touch one side of the inner support case. The deep part of the CD drive would touch the heat sink on the motherboard, with the narrow bit being able to overlap it, and the far side of the motherboard touches the other side of the Wonderboard case. In the other dimension it was even harder. The top of the sound connector would touch the support case, and the underside of the motherboard would touch the cardboard box. Fortunately the hard drive can slide under the motherboard as this is above (below?) the unused PCI slot. The only place left for the PSU was above the hard drive with the bulky connectors facing down towards the CD both to the front and the back of the hard drive.
Now I could position the CD drive hard against the side and start assembling the support case. In the next picture you can see the step up between the thin part of the CD drive and the thicker part of the main body of the drive. The heat sink on the Mini-ITX board touches this step.
After much cutting and half a tube of glue the case was finished. I built pillars to support three corners of the motherboard and the power supply and added brackets to support the CD and the hard drive. In such a compact design cooling was a concern so I made fan mounting points in opposite corners of the case. To keep the CPU nice and cool I cut a hole for it it the side of the case and glued in a couple of plates to act as ducting so the CPU fan will only suck in cold outside air. The other two fans are the exhaust points. The fan guards were cut out of a metal speaker grill using an angle grinder as neatly drilling t
Never never never smoke crack before geometry class!
Use a box to build yourself a new box so you can run Box inside of Bochs on your box!
That project has been up there for a LONG time, so it's hardly news. Besides, the only interesting part is how the creator designed the computer to either start into Windows or Linux depending on the orientation of the case inside the box (refer to the article), but he didn't even explain how he did it beyond a vague overview.
Does anybody really think we'll reproduce the way we do for long?
-I am an elective eunuch.
I've got boxes from id software's legendary titles like Wolfenstein, Doom and Doom II. MUST RESIST URGE TO CUT HOLES IN DOOM BOX. Someone stop me before I commit this vile act! Slashdot has riddled me again with stupid ideas!
//Blessed are they that run around in circles, for they shall be known as wheels.
So what about the OEM users.. Paste the CD to the bottom of the itx board? Have a special sensor read the cd? hmmmmmmmmmm
There's no Freedom like UFP-dom
Stop modding this fool up! His postscript is lame and I personally will meta-moderate anyone who mods that type of crap up into the dirt.
Someone should do it with a box of cornflakes and then when they plug in their dialup modem..they will be using a cereal connection..
maybe the guy didn't fire-test the box quite as much as he should have... "There are too many connected users. Please try again later."
$cat
NetCraft confirms: j00 R teh st00p3d.
The author even explains how he then fit it in to a Red Hat box and used a sensor to tell the bootloader which OS to run based on which box it is in.
Someone has way too much time on their hands. If this guy is so smart, why doesn't someone put his brain to good use? Get him to fix the lingering IDE disk geometry problems in FreeBSD's installer or something.
<sarcasm overtone="disgust" alt="troll"> Oh, wait, that would actually require motivating the guy to do something useful that he didn't necessarily want to do. Capitalism is evil, I almost forgot. </sarcasm>
Moderator hint: a comment is neither "Flamebait" nor "Troll" if it is true.
If you put in a box labeled "Duke Nukem Forever" it travels to the distant future and surprises some eloi and morlocks.
it's boring too.
There's a freaking hardware revolution taking place before our very eyes, and not only are the Slashdot editors essentially missing it, they're front-paging shit like the XP cardboard box mod.
No wonder they've got to crapflood slashdot with OSDN personals and similar lowest-common denominator targeted garbage advertising to try to win eyeballs.
Check my sig.
How do you actually open the Xbox without loosing your fingers I mean there has to be a safe way! A 20 pound sledge might do just nicely
Ohh my spleen
Sup all This story is old. Time to move on. I think the mini-itx's are cool box's but horrible expensive. 239 $ US for a M/B with a soldered CPU, 2 RAM slots, an AGP, and 1 PCI (32 Bit) .. A bit rediculus don't you think
my comments on your sig are contained within my sig. you must have sigs enabled to read my comments.
A small fanless (or just very quiet) box with 256MB RAM, and two network ports that would take no more than 40-50W of power (this is critical as I want it to be running 24x7). Processor doesn't matter, but it has to be PC compatible. I want this all in a small package (Micro ATX or smaller) with power supply and 20GB hard drive built in for $300. Oh, and it has to be Linux and FreeBSD compatible, too. I don't care if it can't run Windows.
Wake me up when they deliver something like this.
but can he fit it into this distro's box?
Creationists are a lot like zombies. Slow, but powerful and numerous. And they all want to eat our brains.
Maybe I can swallow that motherboard and some other computer components with a cord coming out of my ass for periphials... the next generation wearable computer!
Has anybody out there successfully made a mini-ITX nehemiah-based PVR box? I'm sort of hesitant to build one, since the VIA proc/motherboard's seem to be slightly underpowered for MPEG decoding and other proc-intensive video capture and playback functions. If you have built one of these, did you have to use a beefy PVR/video card like a Happauge 250/350, or will any All-in-Wonder-esque video card do? I'm thinking of MythTV as my PVR software, and not quite sure which linux distro to use (suggestions?). Thanks, and I apologize in advance for my noob questions; just wanted to get some fellow /.ers' input before I dive into this. And no, I won't be putting this inside of an XP box.
In Soviet Russia, all our base are belong to you!
Goes right back to that thread about hot rods and PCs.
Some are interested purely in performance.
Of those, there are the straight line speed freaks, tight cornering freaks, altogethering racing freaks...etc.
Some are interested only the aesthetics of the car. Neon, bouncing and turning the trunk into a giant subwoofer.
Off in another corner, you've got those who are cooking food ontop of their engines, putting real aviation wings (to fly), turning the car into an amphibious vehicle, sitcking incredibly weird looking chasis on a vehicle frame.
With someone sticking a computer inside a software box, it certainly looks like computers have made it to the same level that automobiles have in the minds of people.
Nah, it's just makes you an arrogant warmongering gun-toting crack-smoking piece of shit. Fuck off and die americunt.
... now that would have been cool. Cardboard box, not all that cool.
Why has nobody mentioned the price drop on the XP-Box that was announced today? http://news.com.com/2100-1043_3-5181043.html
You mean Like This?
All the working bits are crammed into the PSU, the rest of the case just has a disco ball in it. Pretty neat case to have sitting on the desk with the side panel off.
That this 'mod' has been up on the mini-itx site for at least six months. We're missing a little cane icon on /. for 'Geriatric News'.
what in the world does his journal entries have to do with his post. he's displaying his opinion much like yourself. I swear, the more someone shouts something with the common grain, the more ignorant posters point the finger and defend the one being questioned.
get a grip.
There's a company that does something similar with guitar amps. http://smokeyamps.com/ They put a guitar amp in a cigarette box. I own one. It sounds pretty good.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. The story is a dupe, the topic is boring, the facts weren't checked. WE GET IT!!
Actually, that would be a neat little business - putting artwork on computer cases. Maybe Cafe Press could add it to their product line.
How many times are you guys going to run this story, anyway?
I read this article about 3 months ago or better.
Must be a really really slow news day.
snowulf.com
the home computer was built by a couple of guys wasting time in their garage.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
I read this article months ago...
...is that computers are getting small enough for that goatse guy to do his own personal "case mod" and it's only a matter of time before we have the link.
Appended to the end of comments you post. 120 chars.
Now that their servers are done being /.'ed, they've changed the page's title to "mini-itx.com - projects - windows xp box.. so good they slashdotted it twice..."
Karma: Bizzare (mostly affected by varying internal caffeine levels.)
AnandTech! Also Known as ATOT
We own THE SCENE!!
I stuffed my old Sony Picturebook into an old box in about 2 seconds.
[what?]
This one was dated December 2003.
Of course, literate geeks should know that paper ignites at Fahrenheit 451, (233 C).
Is it just me, or do these guys have way too much time on their hands?
... I'm heading out to the shop.
I'll give you a friendly little hint- we're reading Slashdot here- nay even worse we're posting to it. Why would you ever spend time posting to Slashdot except to get a +5 Insightful.
Finally I have a use for my Warp box. It's big enough (to find room for the 20+ install diskettes) I could probably fit two mini-itx systems in it.
From page 4 of the article: The problem now was that I ran the risk of accidentally booting Linux from the "Windows XP Box" or even worse, booting Windows from the "Linux Box". That would not be good. It needed to be fool proof.
He should have it set up so that it boots XP when the guts are in the Linux box, and boots Linux when it's in the XP box. That way he can wave his hand at the computer and say "That's my XP box that runs Linux", or "That's XP running in my Linux box" and confuse any local annoying computer know-it-alls (that don't).
Except, I put it in a shoebox.
It took about 30 mins, big deal.
Of course, literate geeks should know that paper ignites at Fahrenheit 451, (233 C).
You should definately be modded up for that.. I totally forgot about that book.
I believe my motherboard is set to shutdown if it reaches 110C... so I'd have no problem making an origami computer case.
That is neat, fine and dandy and all but did you see the other pics on the site and the way that cat was getting off on that thing? WTF?!? So fluffy is in heat and backing herself up to the nanode with the CD drive in full on 99x self destruct spin mode... Ugh, nastay!
In the far term we're looking at uploading ourselve to computers. In the near term, we already have artificial uteruses.
-I am an elective eunuch.
Actually, my first thought on this was that this will never gain FCC approval. I'm mean really, does no one care about RFI?
Actually, this seems to be a problem with most of the cheap plastic cases you find at computer stores, there is no metal sheilding whatsoever.
Everytime I see these small PCs I'm always a bit disappointed when they add all these new holes to the neat cases they use.
So my question is:
Why don't they use fun wireless rf input, and wifi whenever they can?
the article writer seems to be quite a techie ...
:D
:)]
but has anyone seen linux 7.1 yet ?
quote from the article
"Linux boxes that comes with dozens of manuals. In the end I was given an old Linux 7.1 box that was 15mm wider than the Windows XP box but otherwise the same depth and width."
while i'm lmao and rofl, you people should learn that
linux != redhat
[ps. as i recall 7.1 was a freaking bugversion of redhat]
[well have to wait some 20 years i think before kernel reaches such a version number
I'd tell you the chances of this story being a dupe, but you wouldn't like it.
A programmer is a machine for converting coffee into code.
This was posted on Mini-ITX.com months ago.
---- "Excuse me. Where's the children's gun section?"
No one I know with Windows XP has ever had a Windows XP Box. Maybe because everyone I know that has Windows XP has the corpfiles edition on CDR/CDRW. Actually not everyone, I know someone who brought a hacked SP1 pirate copy back from Asia.
H'mm I wonder if the popularity of Linux distributions would pickup if MS was to make their hardware activation bulletproof?
This is the most exciting mod ever.
Sure but not all are American.. So that conversion to deg C is a bit hard one if you don't remember it.
Store with salt
So if its so easy why havent we seen computer cases which tell the hard drive which OS to boot depending on which case its in?
"Posted on 1 December 2003"
It's not April 1st already is it?
> bundling computers with purchases of Windows!
:(
Now THAT is funny!
But will we laugh when it DOES happen?
.
(David Bowman, EVA near HUGE Monolithic Win-PC in orbit around Jupiter) "My God - its full of Malware!"
I was pretty surprised by the article title, as I assumed by "box" it meant "computer". It took me a visit to the article to figure out what's going on. Shows how much the meaning of the word changed, I actually defaulted to the new (geeky) meaning.