Mobo for Vertically Challenged Devices

An anonymous reader writes "VIA is shipping an ultra-low profile mini-ITX mainboard suitable for flat TVs, LCD-panel computers, and other vertically challenged devices. The Epia MS uses a minimalistic I/O backplate and SODIMM memory for a slimmer form-factor, and is VIA's first mini-ITX board available with a fanless 1GHz Eden embedded processor. The board has several processor options, but they all include the PadLock Ace hardware RNG and AES encrypt/decrypt features that are now supported by the Linux and BSD kernels."

Comments

Sounds like the mean horizontally chalenged

[kryptKnight]

Theres plenty of room in a flat screen TV if you place the card verticly, am I missing something??

Firewall? Please?

[SpootFinallyRegister]

i love the small, quiet, cool boards, but why cant anyone make an EPIA board with two network interfaces? VIA, are you listening?

Re:Firewall? Please?

[CaptnMArk]

check out CL 6000 or 10000 (I have one)

the fan on 10000 was quite loud until I used a resistor

Vertically challenged?

[SushiFugu]

Is it just me, or wouldn't Vertically challanged tend to mean something that has a hard time standing up, or something that is horizontal most of the time? Seems like flat panel monitors and the like are horizontally challanged, if anything.

Re:Could this lead

[grahams]

Being that the iMac can run Linux, I believe the iMac itself is a linux-y iMac.

darn it has the CLE266 northbridge

[enrico_suave]

I wish they'd gone with the CN400 northbridge instead... oh well maybe for the Epia MS II =)

e.

I don't understand this product...

[stvangel]

I own several of the VIA boards ( M10000's in particular ) and this doesn't seem to be any smaller than what I've already got. The size of the heatsink and fan in the pictures seems to make it about he same height as any of the other motherboards. It looks even a little bigger if you consider you've now got a separate SODIMM socket on the bottom for the memory. It looks like if you just went with a regular memory socket on the top, it'd still be shorter than that huge chunk of aluminum.

I also don't understand the "minimalist backpanel" with only a VGA, Ethernet, and cardbus connectors. Everything else ( all the usual suspects - audio, USB, TV-out, etc ) are headers on the motherboard. I'd be much happier if they made -everything- use sockets or pin headers on the motherboard. This way you could mount the motherboard and sockets separately any way you wanted, without having to have access to the edge of the board. I ran into this problem with one of my projects where I was trying to mount a motherboard flat in the bottom of a toolbox. The motherboard fit fine, but I didn't have room to plug the cables into the motherboard backpanel. This was an unusual project that is trying to be as small and unobtrusive as possible and keep all cables hidden inside the case, which is a tupperware type storage container. I would have loved to be able to plug all of them directly into the top of the motherboard. As it is, I had to mount the motherboard on edge with the backpanel facing up, because that was the only way I could get the room to plug the cables in ( VGA, USB and network ). Made the whole thing a lot bigger than it had to be.

Re:Proving Randomness

[Erik Lindahl]

Has someone really proven that the apparent quantum randomness is really random?

That depends on what you mean by random. In principle the answer is no, since there is no such thing as "random" in physics. The question is rather if it is possible to predict an observation.

The heisenberg uncertainty principle (which can be proved if you accept the postulates of quantum mechanics) means you cannot observe both position and momentum (velocity) of a particle exactly. If there are small errors in any measurement, it will be impossible to make a perfect prediction of the future motion - no matter how expensive your equipment is.

However, even if quantum mechanics is somedays proven wrong, statistical mechanics saves you, and this relies on basic mathematical properties rather than physical models: If you consider the 10^23 atoms in a gram of matter and take millions of random samples of their thermal noise (velocities) I think you'll agree that it's perfectly random for all intents and purposes - much more so than throwing a dice, which is considered random in normal life.

Nevertheless, in contrast to mathematics physics relies on models that might be incorrect, so you can never really "prove" anything in physics (apart from within the scope of a certain theory, like quantum mechanics).

Cheers,

Erik

ATX Connector

[reality-bytes]

It seems a bit daft that it still uses a vertical ATX power connecter, as once you have plugged it in, you will have the combined height of the plug and the curvature of the cable increasing the overall height.

Surely they could have come up with some means of side-mounting the ATX connector?