Digital-Logic Microspace Mini-PCs

frozenray writes: "Digital-Logic AG, a Swiss company, sells two rather cool BX-based mini PCs, the Microspace-PC30 and -PC31. Most notable features are: very compact size, passive cooling (<35 dB according to the manufacturer), an impressive collection of interfaces (including 2xUSB, IRDA, TV Out/In, FireWire, 2xEthernet 10/100, optional smartcard reader, line in/out, microphone), CDR or DVD, 20 GB 2.5" harddisk. The downside: Those are definitely no systems for power users (current processors are 700 MHz Celeron and 700 MHz P3, 1 GHz mobile P4 systems are planned according to this [German] article), the SMI721 graphics controller is nothing for UT addicts, and they're quite expensive (CHF 2'549.- and 3'199.- according to their Swiss distributor, which amounts to approximately US$ 1'517.- / US$ 1'904.- at the current exchange rate). Another caveat: The power supply is external, but I didn't see any pictures of it on their website. Readers may want to compare this design to the TX2 version of the 'Cappuccino' PC which is similar in concept but has a rather loud CPU fan."

External Power Supplies

[Bo Vandenberg]

I can see that an external power supply might run cooler outside the case.

I dont remember fans on external power supplies for things like the old Apple //c....

Is there anyone wise in the benefits and costs of external power supplies and whether you can use them for your own projects.

Bo

Soekris emBSD board...

[uberkludge]

Yeah, it won't play UT, but I'd much rather have this [soekris.com], especially with some 802.11 luvin and a crypto card [embsd.org]... uberkludge.