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Space Cube – the World's Smallest Linux PC
Barence writes "Meet the Space Cube — the world's smallest fully functional PC. Primarily designed for use in space, it somehow manages to cram a working PC with USB ports, card readers, audio outputs and proprietary interfaces into a tiny cube chassis measuring just two inches square. It runs a basic Linux front-end, which the blogger takes a look at, and there are some great photos of the device being loomed over by everyday objects like coffee mugs and cellphones. It has connections for controlling various electronics used by ESA, NASA and JAXA, but it will also apparently be for sale to the public soon, for use by amateur engineers and robotics clubs."
In terms of volume it looks bigger than a beagle board + CF card. The Beagle board is 3" square, but it can be a lot less tall than this. It also has a much faster CPU and (to me, most importantly, since it means I can actually connect it to a modern monitor) DVI output.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
Would they let you pass with that in an airport?
Analytic & algebraic topology of locally Euclidean meterization of infinitely differentiable Riemmanian manifold
does it run... oh... it does? Awsome.
I mentioned tinker-toys once in a post - now I'm modded down for life.
...measure two inches square?
I hadn't known there were so many idiots in the world until I started using the Internet -Stanislaw Lem
Too bad it's not available to the general public at the moment :(
Tie two birds together: although they have four wings, they cannot fly. (The blind man)
A cube is measured in square units. Brillant.
So how large is it really? Two inches on a side, for eight cubic inches? Or each face is two square inches, for 2*sqrt(2) cubic inches? Or the cube as a whole has two cubic inches in volume?
Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
What's the dealeo with all these ridiculously tiny "fully functional" Linux boxes coming out? Does anyone have a use for them, other than attempting to cram a distributed computing network into a backpack? A machine that needs an external keyboard, screen and power adaptor has no need to be any smaller than a midget-ITX.
Wow, this is great! Where can I get this? Looks like it's entirely passive as well. SSD/Flash... FTW! This could replace any non gamer's computer. ;-)
Not fully functional.
This thing is obviously aimed at special applications.
For these kind of things there are much better solutions than x86 chips. They are smaller, faster, cheaper and more economic than classic HW.
Take a look at TI's daVinci program, for example, or maybe some small Coldfire from Freescale or maybe some cool Arm from NXP etcetc.
Looking at the pictures (which are amazing) my big question is: is the PSU transformer in the cube? or is the power modification done in the cord? I can't imagine a CPU and a transformer in that tight of a space, without frying the other components.
Wild.
I mentioned tinker-toys once in a post - now I'm modded down for life.
It's interesting how this articles follows the one about the NASA space virus (http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/08/27/1231224)
I didn't found something funny to put here.
I appreciate that it's not meant for handling critical systems, but nevertheless, I wonder if its components are radiation hardened. In particular, what CPU has that thing got? Some sort of ARM?
And the RAM... is it SECDED?
So.. it's a blast from the past?
Nice but GBP 1500 is ridiculously expensive for such ridiculous specs (64 MB RAM/16 GB disk), too bad I wanted one...
Behold Picotux!
Or, less dramatically, gumstix.
The spacecube is cute, I admit, I'd be amused to have one; but the notion of it being the smallest is silly.
The second line of the article states that it is one of the smallest computers in the world, not the smallest.
yp.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
the Gammima.AG worm? I hear that's popular in space nowadays
This is Not a PC.
From the Manufacturer's web site, it runs a fairly standard MIPS SoC from NEC... a Vr5701. There is not x86 compatible CPU in there. Since it's MIPS, don't expect to just use RPM and install anything, and clearly it doesn't use RedHat. The OS might be derived from RedHat, but I suspect it's just bad journalism (everything Linux is RedHat, right?).
I'm not saying it's not cool, but it isn't a PC. And I think if you want a Space capable device, you'll have to deal with the radiation hardness yourself. www.gaisler.com has some perhaps more suitable chips that are rad hard (SPARC based).
I always figured that a Space Cube would at least be bigger than the Enterprise.
Ahh, so Locutus has a mini-me and this is his home. How cute!
these have been for sale in akihabara, tokyo, japan, for over a year. saw it in one obscure robotics shop in May last year. if i recall correctly it only cost about $1000, so it should definately be way cheaper now.
Imagine a beowulf cluster of these puppies! You might actually be able to run a GUI.
If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
The biggest problem is that they're selling it for US$300+ in Japan, but the University wants to sell it for $1500+
Another good idea dying on the vine caused by greed.
entering âxeyeâ(TM) brings up a pair of comedy googly eyes that follow your cursor around the screen.
Sweet Lord and savior Jesus Christ that's amazing! This little cube is going to redefine all of humanity. Barack, McCain, are you listening? One cube in the palm of very American. It's time to stop dreaming. Linux is here, NOW!
How is this special? The Nokia N810 has a faster processor and comes with GPS, wifi, keyboard and 640 x 480 screen. Storage space can be added to exceed that of the Space Cube.
DNA is the ultimate spaghetti code.
That device is $325. How about a $50 Linux PC that might not be the smallest, but is still smaller than a notebook, runs at least as fast as a P3/500MHz, has at least one each USB and PCI (but maybe no onboard VGA), and runs fanless?
--
make install -not war
Buy a bunch of them, pack them into a suitcase with some laptop batteries, Portable Cluster.
"All those, moments will be lost, in time, like tears, in rain. Time to die." Roy Batty
Who'd a thunk that the Borg would have such humble beginnings?
I have to say, it does explain their relative ease of Assimilation...
On the internet, any post with such supercilious pedantry must of necessity contain an error itself; normally it manifests in spelling flames, but it seems to hold for geometry too. I got far too taken with the lovely powers-of-two progression. The four-dimensional interpretation gives eight hypercubic inches, because the last 2 is square inches, but it's still a 2 and not a 4...
Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
Further details on the Space Cube see the translated product page (original page). To save you clicking on the link:
Flash Memory: VR 5,701,200 MHz/250MHz/300MHz
Flash Memory: 16M byte
DRAM I/F: DDR SDRAM 64M byte
Input/output: IEEE1355 (SpaceWire), RTC and CF (True IDE), XGA (1024×768), USB1.1 and LAN (100BASE), Audio (Stereo) input/output RS232C and JTAG I/F (for debugging)
Power source: +5V
External size: 52mmx52mmx55mm (the spine is excluded)
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
If this thing is meant to be going into space doesn't it need to be using radiation hardened components?
TFA states the cost is likely to be around GBP1500, that along with the size and specs of it makes me wonder if they're using commercial grade components in there. Aren't radiation hardened componentes generally around 10 years behind standard PC's? In other words is this thing actually going to be of any use in space or is is just some wierd marketing gimmick?
I have a new record minium time required for going from "not knowing something is available" to "wanting something badly."
Gumstix are tiny 386-compatible boards - although they're modular, they occupy less volume than a space cube.
Those using pirated Tinysoft signatures(TM) are a real threat to society and should all be thrown in jail.
Website: http://www.shimafuji.co.jp
Try mouse-over the third menu.
not $1500, 1500 pounds.
that's 2800 USD, and google can help you convert the rest.
Do not attribute to malice that which can be easily explained by incompetence.
Dumbass, its a "Space Cube". It should be measured in the fourth dimension as 2 square inches/sec.
No, that would make it a "Time Cube", and that would be a Bad Thing.
Some mornings it's hardly worth chewing through the restraints to get out of bed.
When spacecuube meets timecube, we're off to the 8th dimension for a hell of a party!
On http://www.pcpro.co.uk/blogs/2008/07/03/introducing-the-space-cube/ (which is linked from the linked article) they mention that the thing is about 2x2x2 inches, so each side is about 4 square inches.
This sig under construction. Please check back later.
Each edge is 55mm long, or 2.16". So each side is 4.67 square inches. All together it is 10.1 cubic inches, which would be the appropriate measurement for a cube.
-Rick
"Most people in the U.S. wouldn't know they live in a tyrannical state if it walked up and grabbed their junk." - MyFirs
Don't forget it has a Spacewire interface.
I kindof found the bulky db15 connector on the side funny, but I guess you'd need some sort of adapter anyway. But if you had a lot of them you'd probably use a kvm and at that point you could move to a proprietary, thin, small, light connection.
Cool! Amazing Toys.
Sounds like someone hasn't been watching closely. Doesn't he know that starships are principally operated by wrought-iron wheels and analog needle gauges?
If your theory is different from practice, then your theory is wrong.
Most important of all... Will it blend?
Yup. And:
Sounds like my Mac Mini!
Give people tools that guarantee their right to work with independent efficiency. - Ivan Illich
As space is clearly a factor in this endeavour, why would they use CF?
There are plenty of ubiquitious flash memory formats which are much smaller.
"What's the deal with all these ridiculously tiny "fully functional" Linux boxes coming out? Does anyone have a use for them, other than attempting to cram a distributed computing network into a backpack?"
I can think of one. A lot of flat-screen HDTVs have multiple ports, including VGA. Hang a small PC onto the back, connected via wireless and you can have your own personal media channel. The rest is an RF remote and imagination away.
Interesting shape for a PC! But for the CPU power and very high cost, its a little prohibitive.
Why can't they try something like this on the Nintendo DS or the PSP? I know there's PSPUbuntu and all that, but those are not really ported to the PSP.
slashdot rocks
...but its not quite as small as that apple.
Looks like a seed for a Borg cube.
It runs xeye! OMFG, what else do you possibly need!
You are educated stupid - and you have no inkling to just how EVIL you think.
Academia destroys your brain, your ability to think opposite. The eyes of the flounder fish were relocated, why were yours relocated? Your opposite eyes were moved to 1 corner to overlay for single perspective, but that corrupts your Opposite Brain.
http://www.pcpro.co.uk/blogs/wp-content/uploads/2008/08/dscf0094.jpg
exactly and gumstix is selling pc's now as well that are as small as your wallet.
This is my sig. There are many like it but this one is mine.
I can't wait till it becomes a real product and this story becomes a dupe.
It only takes 2 simultaneous hits to be slashdotted.
http://www.ubergizmo.com/15/archives/2006/04/the_smallest_pc_in_the_world.html
Two years ago it also came in yellow!
http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/pcs/space-cube-in-the-wild-171244.php
does it run Linux? Doh, wait! Never mind!
... is overpriced as hell
Religion: The greatest weapon of mass destruction of all time
It's the Allspark!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allspark
PWn32D!12!!!1one
But will it run Crysis?
imagine a Beow...
but does it run?...
boy... these jokes are getting old
2"x2"x2"?
I'd much rather my space computer be 1"x4"x9", perhaps in a nice matte black...
Egad, that takes me back to the old days of the Web, long before everything I read was linked through a small number of blogs with a highly focused area of subject matter, a time when one could randomly, easily stumble onto not just odd curiosities but genuine, raving madness with little effort.
Thank you for that. I think.
Your mind is clear / The things that you fear / Will fade with how much you / Believe what you hear
The CerfCube by Intrinsyc was around long before this:
http://www.linuxdevices.com/articles/AT2683549967.html
StrongARM processor, 32MB of RAM, and a USB port. Not bad for a turn-of-the-millennium Linux cube.
Perhaps I do not understand the definition of these terms?
Beagleboard is smaller and has video output, capable of running Firefox. That sounds more like fully functional.
Gumstix is much much smaller, suitable for hobby projects where you need a Linux system in a tiny space (like a tiny robot).
This cube form factor seems like the largest thing I've seen for embedded. Even a Palm PDA seems smaller. (or Zaurus if you must have Linux)
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
what a waste of space including rs-232...?? we can afford to go to space,
but we need an rs-232 port just in case we can't afford the newer USB peripherals!?!?
maybe we should include PS/2 ports in case they cant afford a USB keyboard & mouse??
imho, the ports should be:
- DVI video
- USB 2.0
- Ethernet
- Compact Flash
- Audio In/Out
- fit more RAM where you wasted space for RS-232
that's it.
Aren't we nerds here? Surely the progressive tech-crowd in America would have accepted the metric standard?
Let's not forget the previous occation when nerds forgot that metric units are standard.
You are not entitled to your opinion. You are entitled to your informed opinion. -- Harlan Ellison
This is Not a PC.
Is it not personal? Or is it not a computer? o_O
There is not x86 compatible CPU in there.
So?
Since it's MIPS, don't expect to just use RPM and install anything
why not?
I mod down anyone who says "I will be modded down for this", regardless of the rest of their comment
Why not? 200 ~ 300 mhz and 64 MB RAM is plenty for Windows 98, and I can't think of a better virus platform than that. Hmmm, the USB support might be kinda buggy though. I'd avoid hot-plugging any USB scanners, I guess.
I prefer rogues to imbeciles because they sometimes take a rest.
...A cripple soulcube from Doom 3
You're being ripped off massively.
Deleted
how is this different from the teacube circa 2004?
Instead of having to haul up screens and input devices for each specialized computer you only need one set for all them.
They could fly up dozens of these designed to do specific tasks and then hook them up to a docking station one at a time when needed.
No doubt there is at least one set somewhere in the shuttle and space station already. Why send up a monitor when you already have one available to you?
Work Safe Porn
I don't know how this cube is related, but at one point NASA was working on a computing platform called the space-cube that was designed to replace radiation-hardened processors with more-or-less commodity redundant processors. All of this, of course, in a small form factor with a nice bus for connecting to other systems and space-cubes for parallel processing. I think the real space-cube is supposed to be flight-tested on the upcoming Hubble Servicing mission.
You rang?
I find Compact Flash an odd choice, especially when MicroSD-HC can go up to 32GB (which would mean you can do something useful with it) and are significantly smaller so keeping or even reducing the form factor.
I remember the days when CF was much much cheaper but an 8GB card SDHC is currently about £20. Whereas the cheapest 8GB Compact Flash card I could find was about £35.
So SDHC wins on size, speed, dimensions and cost.
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I can see many uses if this thing supported POE...
http://www.reviewsonline.com/articles/962097916.htm
I'm suprised at you guys... I'm almost positive that I read about the Matchbox PC on Slashdot many moons ago. Anywho, at 5 cubic inches, the matchbook PC would be smaller than the space cube's 8 cu/in. I would imagine that 8 years is more than enough time to pack even more power into an even smaller PC but, alas, I may be wrong
Fifty watts per channel, baby cakes.
Wouldn't it be two inches cubed?
The bloody thing is expected to cost £1,500.(~$3,000 USD). That is absolutely fucking insane. I bought a ZipIt 2 handheld that runs Linux (and I put Debian on it) AND HAS A BUILT IN BATTERY AND SCREEN for $50 used... these morons want $3,000 for something on the same order of size, with a CPU of roughly the same magnitude?
With spending like this, exactly what are "conservatives" conserving?
As has been pointed out by many helpful Slashdotters, there are plenty of other cigarette pack-sized computers which have come before this one, but I would ask, "How many of those were built to meet space-travel specifications?"
I believe the idea behind this one, (assuming my cursory read-through of the article is correct), is that it's guaranteed to survive and perform perfectly after being blasted into space in the nosecone of a bloody-great controlled bomb. I rather doubt my monster desktop computer could manage that even under the best of circumstances. 1,500 quid is a bargain.
-FL
Does nobody remember the PicoTux (http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/03/28/2237230&from=rss) or other similar RJ-45 sized computers? This Space Cube thing is most certainly not the "smallest" Linux PC.
It's unfortunate that PicoTux hasn't upgraded their specs during the intervening years; if they could fit a 55MHz ARM processor with 8MB of RAM into an RJ-45 socket back in 2005, I'm almost certain they could do better today.
It's already fast enough to do light routing duties (plug the thing into a switch and you've got a working PPPoE DSL router), but a faster CPU and more RAM would almost certainly help.
For comparison, this thing has 4MB flash, 8MB of RAM, and a 55MHz ARM processor. The flash and RAM are the same as a current-gen WRT54G modem, and half each of the WRT54GL (needed for doing much more than basic stuff). If only they could get a faster processor on those things (the WRT54GL is a 200MHz MIPS processor, the WRTSL54G is 264MHz), you'd have equivalent flexibility (minus the WRT's onboard switch) in a far smaller package.
The T-Cube pocket-size PC is running T-Engine and was first introduced already in 2004.
http://www.i4u.com/article951.html
Plug the thing into some circuit driver modules, put some software in it that does what MegaSquirt and MegaSpark do, and you've got a tidy ECU for running any internal combustion engine. (Should be capable enough of running fuel, spark, and boost curves, as well as knock retard, and perhaps wideband O2.)
Or you could use it with a motor controller, and use it for datalogging or fine-tuning on an electric power system.
Or it could be the guts for some simple kiosk based operation. Any problems with the computer in the kiosk? Just take out one cube, and drop in another. (Although that could probably be done with a cheaper and more generic motherboard in most cases.)
Plenty of applications could use that level of computing in a small package, even though the device itself isn't that much of a computer. (You're better off buying a laptop for more typical applications.)