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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.
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So.. it's a blast from the past?
The second line of the article states that it is one of the smallest computers in the world, not the smallest.
yp.
Then again, presumably you still have to launch a mouse and keyboard and VDU for this thing, so it's not quite as great a saving as it sounds...
Depends on its job. It could be a headless device for logging/collating/forwarding sensor data, controlling a robot, whatever.
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).
Not necessarily. You could (for example) have them control all kinds of things with no peripherals attached for most of the time (that is, except in the case when a problem needs to be diagnosed).
In case of a problem if there's need for diagnostics, you can then plug some small screen+keyboard and you're set to go.
They're running linux so they should be ideal for monitoring sensors and reporting, transmitting ping/heartbeat signals for any kinds of devices, for controlling hardware, basically for anything that can run autonomously.
Tie two birds together: although they have four wings, they cannot fly. (The blind man)
Quite simply, it's one of the smallest PCs in the world, with each side measuring around 2 square inches.
*Emphasis mine
"Always forgive your enemies; nothing annoys them so much." - Oscar Wilde
Actually this stuff IS available to the general public.
It's called the PC-104 formfactor and it's been around for decades. Hell I got a 386 with A2D inputs and digital in and outs as well as VGA, CF interface and audio interface in the basement that is slightly larger than that that I used for wearable Computing in the early 90's.
It's not new or special. It's standard industrial PC gear repackaged and sold with a "Ooooooh space technology" marketing twist.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
The product site lists the size as 52mm x 52mm x 52mm.
(Is there some convention for making a square root sign in ASCII?)
Could do x^(1/2) or x^0.5
Apart from the inappropriate use of the 'PC' term, the article doesn't actually state what type of architecture the processor is.
This far more interesting paper on it, states that it has a MIPS processor.
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.
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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
Yeah but the gumstix are much slower than the TI's OMAP35x processors in the Beagleboard. Gumstix does seem to be coming out with some OMAP products in Q4, but currently their only advantage is that they are neatly packaged with a small case and they have a model with ethernet built in. Otherwise the Beagleboard has much more going for it.
Those two things would be nice to be able to get preconfigured for a beagleboard, and nothing I saw on their site hinted at it. Of course you can do it yoursself with an expansion board and soldering iron or usb ethernet, but that's bulkier. I'd buy a beagleboard now if I could get it with ethernet and a nice small case for cheap, but I can't find that anywhere so far. I'm sure someone will offer it soon enough.