AdvantageSix Promises a Tiny ARM-based Computer 191
oberondarksoul writes "Drobe, one of the leading RISC OS news websites, is reporting that AdvantageSix have displayed an in-development version of their forthcoming A9home system. Running on a 400MHz Samsung ARM9 processor, and measuring approximately 6.6x4x2 inches, this ought to be a cheap -- and reasonably powerful -- RISC OS-based alternative to small form factor PCs or the Mac mini."
Garrhh! (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Garrhh! (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Garrhh! (Score:2)
Close enough, though...
Here You go (Score:3, Funny)
6.6x4x2 inches = 0.033x0.020x0.010 rods
Re:Garrhh! (Score:4, Funny)
*Mac Minis
Re:Garrhh! (Score:2)
Re:Garrhh! (Score:2)
Re:Garrhh! (Score:4, Interesting)
OK...first of all I challenge your figures, please cite some references for a 400 MHz. ARM (Palm/PocketPC CPU) being as fast as a 1.2 GHz. Pentium M, or a 1.42 GHz. G4. Does this ARM even have hardware floating point? Most don't...
Secondly, the Mac Mini comes with a great software bundle, a ton of available software, a good (if not great) graphics adapter, and for the cost of the ARM box I could get it with 1 GB RAM and the Superdrive.
In a smaller case. That sounds worth it to me.
I doubt you'd even notice the size difference (Mac Mini is 6.5"x6.5"x2"). You and I have very different concepts of "worth it".
Re:Garrhh! (Score:2)
The whole world doesn't end by the USA border (Score:1, Funny)
Re:The whole world doesn't end by the USA border (Score:3, Informative)
MOD PARENT UP (Score:2, Funny)
So there is a world outside USA border.
Re:The whole world doesn't end by the USA border (Score:4, Funny)
Re:The whole world doesn't end by the USA border (Score:1, Funny)
Have you ever seen the specs for the board? (Score:1)
6.6 inches? (Score:4, Funny)
Re:6.6 inches? (Score:5, Funny)
Interesting (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Interesting (Score:1, Insightful)
> to not owning a computer will be happy to buy.
This one certainly isn't. It's nearly $1kUS for a 400MHz box. Unless you were so strapped for space you had to breathe in deeply just to walk past your server rack, then this one isn't going to be an option.
I could built five 400mhz x86 boxes for the price of one of these. They might take up more room, but hell, I'd have five of them
Or one of them, and $800 to spend on something good.
Re:Interesting (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Interesting (Score:4, Interesting)
I don't see much of a market for these things in the long run: a low-end laptop is easier to set up, more compact, and less messy (no cables, speakers, etc.). It's also a better deal.
Re:Interesting (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Interesting (Score:2)
Do you really need them every time you buy a computer? I would divide the price difference by two for realistic use.
Re:Interesting (Score:2)
Re:Interesting (Score:3, Insightful)
Well, that depends on what you mean "what it does".
If that's "being a PC with these specs", yes. It's about half again more expensive than a Wintel PC with the same specs.
The keyboard and mouse are negligable. If you spend more than US$10 on them you're not trying. Yes, you need a monitor... if you don't have one you're looking at $100-$200 extra.
On the other hand, if "what it does" is "run Mac OS X", it's pretty cheap... especially considering
Re:Interesting (Score:2)
How so? The cheapest combo I could find on Pricewatch was $16, unless you want a ball mouse.
" Yes, you need a monitor... if you don't have one you're looking at $100-$200 extra."
More like, "if you don't have a spare monitor just sitting around, you're looking at $100-$200 extra".
We're Slashdot readers. We probably have access to spare/older hardware. Most people don't, though.
"If I could have got an iBook for close to the same amount, that would
Re:Interesting (Score:2)
That's actually pretty good, for online. I get a lot of that stuff from surplus electronics places, and if you don't want to dig around in a bin or you don't live in a big city, that's a good deal. So, make it $20.
"if you don't have a spare monitor just sitting around, you're looking at $100-$200 extra"
If you have a monitor and you're using it, then you're out something like $20-$50 for a KVM switch. But you save some
Re:Interesting (Score:2)
Re:Interesting (Score:2)
Re:Interesting (Score:3, Interesting)
I don't think that people who haven't owned a computer till now will go and buy one which doesn't have a monitor and runs RISC OS. IMHO they will be more comfortable buying a standard PC running windows.
They will be useful for clusters (ie. Beowolf)
Technically Beowulf clusters are diskless along with not having monitors,mice et
Re:Interesting (Score:2)
is a very fluff term, however both of our clusters have hard disks in all of the nodes as local caches for very large data sets. The next one we get will almost certainly have mid- to high-end GPUs as well, since a lot of the kind of things we do can be run (at least in part) in a GPU a lot faster than on a CPU. [beowulf.org]
Re:Interesting (Score:5, Informative)
Another thing these are not at all cheap in developing countries. I'm from India. The A9Home costs 499 Pounds which translates to around 40,000 Indian Rs which is a lot for a desktop computer which doesn't have a monitor. We can get assembled PCs (with monitor, speakers etc) for around 25,000 Indian Rs
Re:Interesting (Score:1, Redundant)
(of course each new generation is better and cheaper, but I see HDTV as a clear cutoff where you can start to say that a machine is powerful enough. I can see normal people saying "if it's cheap enough, sure, I'll put streaming video/TV in every room of my house". As opp
Re:1080p on what? (Score:2)
There are plenty of LCD's available for $200 [newegg.com] now. Granted, that definitely won't work in the living room, and may or may not work in the bedroom, but it'll definitely work in the bathroom, kitchen, and computer room anyway.
In terms of what current hardware can and can't do, please read this [xboxmediacenter.de]. XBox, with a 733Mhz Intel Pentium-III, can decode and upscale to 1080i lots of stuff with no problem. However, it can't decode full-bandwidth (eg. 19 - 25 mbps [expandore.com]) 720p or 108
Re:Interesting (Score:2, Informative)
Not really a competition for the mini (Score:5, Informative)
-Comparing it to a macmini is really doing it a great dis-service
It's not what you've got (Score:3, Insightful)
It's what you do with it.
RISC OS is just a little bit more efficient than Windows, MAC or even Linux. Where 256Mb is a struggle for Windows + GUI apps and 128Mb a struggle for a MAC or Linux + GUI apps, ITYF that we're talking 16Mb being the lower limit for RISC OS + GUI apps.
You're really comparing melons and apples to cherries.
Re:It's not what you've got (Score:2)
Re:It's not what you've got (Score:3, Insightful)
(Typed on a cheap Linux Laptop)
Re:It's not what you've got (Score:2)
Have you tried RISC OS? For usability and consistency of user interface it used to be streets ahead of Mac, and probably still is. For efficiency it was streets ahead of everything. Mind you, relying on a co-operative rather than a pre-emptive scheduler was a major fault, as was the fact that you couldn't use the filer to explore for
Re:It's not what you've got (Score:2)
Re:It's not what you've got (Score:2)
Re:It's not what you've got (Score:2)
Re:Not really a competition for the mini (Score:2)
A computer without an optical drive? For external data expansion, I'd prefer Firewire over USB any day because Firewire supports DMA transfers, USB needs interrupts so it interrupts the CPU to move data, which can slow the computer down. It doesn't have a DVI port to allow digital flat panel links. DVI-I supports analog connnections too.
Re:Not really a competition for the mini (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:where's the ethernet port? (Score:5, Informative)
RTFA and all
Re:Where's the optical drive, Bluetooth, Firewire? (Score:2)
That sounds like a lot of of money (Score:3, Insightful)
For that kind of dough, you can get a pretty fancy Intel computer.
OK, the architecture is "elegant." And the form factor is really tiny. How else is this useful?
Re:That sounds like a lot of of money (Score:5, Informative)
It runs RISC OS natively, which - although not nearly as popular as in its hayday - is still used by a fair number of people. Certainly they're more expensive than the average Intel, but they do have several advantages.
For instance, the entirety of the RISC OS is in ROM - this gives machines ludicrously good boot times, as well as making it virtually impossible to accidentally hose the system. It also has a familiar and easy to use GUI, using the middle-button for all menus - no menu bars cluttering up every window, and has features such as font anti-aliasing built in (since 1989).
Re:That sounds like a lot of of money (Score:2)
Re:That sounds like a lot of of money (Score:2)
Re:That sounds like a lot of of money (Score:2)
Re:That sounds like a lot of of money (Score:2)
It's a developer box (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:That sounds like a lot of of money (Score:2, Interesting)
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/acatalog/full_system s.html [overclockers.co.uk]
- Intel Pentium IV 'Prescott LGA775' 3.0GHz (800FSB) HyperThreading CPU
- Abit IG-80 915G "PCI-Express" (Socket 775) Dual DDR400 Motherboard
- Onboard Intel 2D/3D Accelerated Graphics (PCI-E x16 slot for future upgradability)
- GeIL 512MB (2x256MB) DDR Value PC3200 CAS2.5 Dual Channel Kit
- 200GB Maxtor DiamondMax Plus10 8mb Cache SATA 150 Hard Drive
- NEC ND3540 16X Dual Layer DVD±RW ReWriter D
Re:That sounds like a lot of of money (Score:4, Informative)
Re:That sounds like a lot of of money (Score:2)
The word for this is 'prototype'. Prototypes and first generations are expensive because
Heck I applaud these guys. Couple of guys set
some specs (Score:2, Informative)
400MHz Samsung ARM9 processor
Embedded graphics processor
128M SDRAM
8M VRAM
10/100MBit network
40GB hard disc
4 x USB sockets
Microphone in
2 x PS/2
RS232 serial
5V power supply, 20W power
Re:some specs (Score:2)
Seems strange to include RS232, given the target market and small form factor
Re:some specs (Score:2)
Re:some specs (Score:3, Informative)
400MHz Samsung ARM9 processor
This will be blazingly fast as the OS is written in assembler, and is stored entirely in ROM so does not need to load from disc. My old 200MHz RiscPC used to be able to boot into windows from cold in well under half a second.
128M SDRAM
As the OS (and entire windowing system) is running from ROM you get more of that memory for your applications. The applications are far more ti
Hello? (Score:1)
Re:Hello? (Score:5, Interesting)
Its really not a product your average user would want.
I really don't see why the artical refers to as an alternative to A MacMini or SFF PC , it just leads to alot of confusion.
Re:Hello? (Score:2)
http://www.planetriscos.co.uk/ [planetriscos.co.uk] http://www.planetriscos.co.uk/ [planetriscos.co.uk]
http://www.vigay.com/cgi-bin/webring?ring=riscos [vigay.com] http://directory.google.com/Top/Computers/Systems/ RISC_OS/ [google.com]
etc etc there are still alot of folks who use RISC OS
Re:Hello? (Score:2)
I tend to think in terms of desktop computing. Since it seems to revolve around either Windows or *x (OSX included) these days, RiscOS (like BSD) appears very low on the radar.
I can remember how enthusiastic I was when I first read about the Archimedes on BYTE.
We are in bad need of a bit more hardware diversity.
Still, At 499 pounds, it seems a no-no when compared to the Mac Mini.
Re:Hello? (Score:2)
The industry is in real need of alot more diversity in many areas , but along with that we need alot more compatability , which is something we just wont get till we totaly get the diversity back . The OSS movment has been doing alot to further the causes of compatability(amongst other things) , but propritery vendors have no real drive to shift out of the Windows
Re:Hello? (Score:2)
So there's RiscOS code in Windows and Mac OS X? Wow, I never knew that.
Re:Hello? (Score:2)
Re:Hello? (Score:2, Insightful)
Photos and videos of the A9home (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.iconbar.com/news/wakefield2005/report/ [iconbar.com]
But does it run... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:But does it run... (Score:2)
No market for this... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:No market for this... (Score:1)
Re:No market for this... (Score:1)
It's Purpose? To Make the Mac Look Mainstream (Score:5, Insightful)
I was trying to work out why these people continue to use this platform, and it can only be a manifestation of that sadistic quality that is present in so many geeks - the one that leads us to defile a beautiful Mac mini with the installation of, say, Slackware 7 or Red Hat 5.2, just to be difficult, or why we tunnel PPP over SSH to create VPNs (because IPSec and PPTP are for lusers). I looked at a few screenshots, read some articles - one which particularly amused me was that which opined the lack of full and decent internationalisation [drobe.co.uk] (it seemed so prehistoric) - but it was somewhat reassuring.
There is still a group of individuals who run scared from the Macintosh, and who belittle those that use it, although their numbers are declining, and rightly so, because the Mac's superiority in all fields bar gaming is so resplendent ("Que le flamewar commence!"), but I like to think that having seen this, Mac users' choice seems a little more rational - at least their OS-du-jour is better than the standard (i.e. Windows). RISC OS just sucks.
So I really can't bring myself to coo over the specs of this machine. It's about as big as the Mac mini, yet:
iqu
Re:It's Purpose? To Make the Mac Look Mainstream (Score:2, Insightful)
1) RISC OS is based more around function than form. It won't look as pretty as your Mac, but it'll be one hell of a lot more responsive.
2) The RAM and CPU specs shouldn't be compared to those needed for Windows or Linux. This thing will appear as fast as a high-end system on the desktop.
3) If you think Windows 95 or KDE come even close to RISC OS then you've been smoking crack.
Re:It's Purpose? To Make the Mac Look Mainstream (Score:4, Insightful)
The Macintosh user interface has traditionally always placed function before form, and even today, it is one of the premier operating systems in this regard. Mac diehards continue to argue about the Human Interface Guidelines and lament Apple's more-than-occasional failure to adhere to same. It goes without saying that this never happens in the Windows world.
That said, I'm sure you've got a point about responsiveness (although I can't help adding that Tiger has, belatedly, improved things in this regard). But there are certain features (like Exposé) where the Mac's comparative added horsepower become essential.
This thing will appear as fast as a high-end system on the desktop.
Whilst you have a point, this is somewhat bogus. If I (could) run Windows 95 on my Athlon 64 3400+, I'm sure it would fly, but fact is I don't - I want/need the added functionality and ease-of-use enhancements that later releases have brought. And with Mac OS X, Apple's done a pretty good job of keeping old hardware (like my 400Mhz iMac) useful with, even with all the eye candy.
If you think Windows 95 or KDE come even close to RISC OS then you've been smoking crack.
I've not used RISC OS as much as I'd like, and I know it had a following in education for a while (certainly over here in Blighty anyway), but I think its spartan style means that there aren't going to be many more users coming to the fold these days. For that reason, I think the Windows 95/KDE analogy is at least partially valid (in that they both look ugly as shit).
iqu
Re:It's Purpose? To Make the Mac Look Mainstream (Score:2)
For the same reason people do difficult and odd things; they can show off and show that they are interesting. If it's easy
Re:It's Purpose? To Make the Mac Look Mainstream (Score:2)
But as anyone with any familiarity with Acorn machines knows, the serial port won't work properly :-)
Heck with the *Mac*, what about Yellowtab? (Score:2)
Re:It's Purpose? To Make the Mac Look Mainstream (Score:2)
No, PPP over SSH is for people who don't know that TCP over TCP [sites.inka.de] in anything less than ideal conditions is a really bad idea.
Re:It's Purpose? To Make the Mac Look Mainstream (Score:2)
iqu
Re:It's Purpose? To Make the Mac Look Mainstream (Score:2)
Re:It's Purpose? To Make the Mac Look Mainstream (Score:2)
But it didn't matter. There was always a decent amount of...errr..."content" available via SMB, and those of us with the technological savvy found other ways of getting more.
iqu
Um, is the Mac Mini a big threat or something? (Score:2, Flamebait)
Wow! (Score:2)
I'm sure it'll steamroll the Windows XP juggernaut any day now. People don't listen to their computers anyway, so sound is of little consequence.
Crashing? Feh. That's just the "core dump wizard"
This is no SFF or Mac Mini alternative... (Score:2, Insightful)
In every other detail it loses vs a SFF PC or Mac Mini. It's not smaller or faster. It's also much more expensive.
I'm not even sure this is a particularly great ARM platform either. I've seen other small ARM systems which were similarly equipped and much cheaper to boot.
I'm not sure RiscOS really reached any significant popularity outside the UK. It appears to me this is more of a nostalgia effort much like th
Re:This is no SFF or Mac Mini alternative... (Score:3, Funny)
Freedom, democracy, French Fries... ;-)
Re:This is no SFF or Mac Mini alternative... (Score:2)
Re:This is no SFF or Mac Mini alternative... (Score:2)
Just about anything by Sony?
PS/2 (Score:2)
-Benjamin Meyer
Get out the stake (Score:2)
Re:Get out the stake (Score:2)
We're trying, really! Unfortunately, we were already asked to do this with the Amiga.
We held Amiga down, drove the stake through, and stopped to admire our handywork. And then it got up and ran away, stake and all.
So, just as soon as we catch Amiga and recover our stake, we'll try it on this monster.
I do a lot of ARM development and... (Score:3, Informative)
1) It's very pricy. ARM cpus are dirt cheap compared to power or x86 CPUs, the rest of the components are pretty standard. The build cost for this machine should be less that 100USD in reasonable sized runs.
2) It draws A LOT of power. I don't think that any ARM machine I've worked with draws close to 20W @ 5V.
On the whole though, I think this is a cool idea - when I worked on a 200Mhz Xscale ARM running Debian, it was perfectly fine for web surfing, etc. Perfect for Mom and Pop if they just wanted to surf & do email.
Calculator (Score:2)
Not cheap! (Score:2)
Re:Does (Score:1)
Re:The Mini (Score:2)