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Hardware

Mini PC in an Actual Lunchbox 219

Posted by CmdrTaco from the now-isn't-that-cute dept.
schnell29 writes "I am looking for a small case and such to house my next computer, and I have seen many mini, micro, flex ATX cases, but mini-itx.com has caught my atention. I like the lunchbox pc. With all the talk about quiet, small pc's this might be the ticket. And hey, they even report that VIA is now Microsoft CE .NET 4.1 certified."
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Mini PC in an Actual Lunchbox More

Mini PC in an Actual Lunchbox

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  • Tasty (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 26, 2002 @06:40AM (#4757703)
    Mmmmm this computer looks good enough to eat!

    • Re:Tasty (Score:3, Funny)

      by cioxx ( 456323 )
      Mmmmm this computer looks good enough to eat!

      Seeing how it's powered by Windows, it probably eats all the RAM all by itself.

      NO LUNCH FOR YOU PENGUIN BOY!

  • Batman Lunchbox (Score:5, Funny)

    by Blackneto ( 516458 ) on Tuesday November 26, 2002 @06:41AM (#4757705) Journal
    Pfft! I'll put mine in an Incredible Hulk lunchbox.
    It will kick this guy's ass.
    • I'd like to see someone install a Red Hat system in a... (wait for it) red hat! Now that would kick some serious tail. I wouldn't want to wear it, though.

      If I put my PDA in my hat, does that count?

  • And when you boot it... (Score:5, Funny)

    by darkov ( 261309 ) on Tuesday November 26, 2002 @06:42AM (#4757709)
    "Oh God, not Windows again! I told her I hate windows..."

  • Great! (Score:5, Funny)

    by The Original Yama ( 454111 ) <lists.sridharNO@SPAMdhanapalan.com> on Tuesday November 26, 2002 @06:42AM (#4757712) Homepage
    Now I can cook my lunch at work on my Athlon!

  • this will make bullies happy (Score:5, Funny)

    by StefMeister ( 219044 ) on Tuesday November 26, 2002 @06:44AM (#4757715)
    Beating up geeks to steal their lunch (money) will become much more profitable.

  • slashdotted. (Score:2, Funny)

    by caino59 ( 313096 )
    well...I almost feel obligated to ask

    Are they serving the site of that lunchbox pc?

    caino

    Don't touch my .sig there!
    • It wouldn't surprise me if that site was hosted off that lunchbox pc. We /.ers have a tendancy to eat servers for breakfast
      or in this case maybe lunch :)

  • Little Jonny starves to death... (Score:5, Funny)

    by MosesJones ( 55544 ) on Tuesday November 26, 2002 @06:47AM (#4757728) Homepage
    This is ridiculous and irresponsible, mothers will be sending kids to school without food by mistake.

    This MUST carry a large warning label that clearly states "contents are not edible".

  • Cooling Fan (Score:5, Funny)

    by theedge318 ( 622114 ) on Tuesday November 26, 2002 @06:49AM (#4757732)
    You can also eliminate all those pesky cooling fans ... just use those refreezable ice packs.

    Honestly ... should we really be trying to put a computer in a lunch box ... how about putting it in a keg. Not only can it serve up your DIVX movie collection, it can provide you an all your guests with your favorite frosty beverage. Again the need for the cooling fan is eliminated by the kegerator.

    Does anyone know where to get a kegerator with RJ45 and Composite/RCA connections?

  • Imagine ... (Score:5, Funny)

    by BabyDave ( 575083 ) on Tuesday November 26, 2002 @06:49AM (#4757734)
    a five course dinner of those!

  • Only problem with x86 architecture (Score:5, Insightful)

    by tulare ( 244053 ) on Tuesday November 26, 2002 @06:52AM (#4757739) Journal
    is that the manufacturers still insist upon maintaining obsolete interfaces on their mobos. Seriously, how many of you are going to buy a printer tomorrow that is parellel-only? The echos resound through the hall. Similarly for the serial port. These ports are only there to support older hardware for those too uncreative to go find dongles if they're stuck with crufty old hardware. One serious advantage of, say, an iBook over a comparable PC laptop is that the designers were free to be more creative because they weren't stuck with a bunch of zillion-pin garbage sticking out the back of the computer.

    Seems to me it's time to clean up the x86 motherboard. I've been happily not using parallel or serial for about two years now. YMMV.
    • Actually, come to think of it, ps/2 is also a thing of the past. Imagine how much more you could get out of a mobo like this if you replaced the ps/2 ports, the parallel port, and the serial port with, say, 6 usb and 2 firewire ports. Again, why not?

      • Re:Only problem with x86 architecture (Score:5, Insightful)

        by ShavenYak ( 252902 ) <bsmith3@chart e r . n et> on Tuesday November 26, 2002 @09:53AM (#4758600) Homepage
        Imagine how much more you could get out of a mobo like this if you replaced the ps/2 ports, the parallel port, and the serial port with, say, 6 usb and 2 firewire ports. Again, why not?

        I use a Via Epia motherboard in my MAME cabinet [charter.net]. Between the need to hook up a keyboard encoder, and the fact that it's running FreeDOS [freedos.org], using USB would not be an option.

        These would also make great platforms for car audio and home theater machines, where you're likely to want to run a small LCD or VFD display, most of which will need a serial port. There are still plenty of good reasons to keep the legacy ports, and if you need that many USB ports, you can get a USB hub.

    • Re:Only problem with x86 architecture (Score:5, Insightful)

      by orangesquid ( 79734 ) <orangesquid&yahoo,com> on Tuesday November 26, 2002 @07:01AM (#4757763) Homepage Journal
      I am frustrated when PC's come with only one serial port instead of two. Serial ports are incredibly useful for connecting external modems (sorry, but winmodems are solid cpu-using crap and there's no guarantee an internal modem isn't a winmodem) and for serial consoles. When you want to remotely administer a server that can't connect to the network, do you login through the serial port, or do you talk instructions over the phone to some idiot who doesn't know the difference between a PC and a lunchbox? Oh, wait...
      • Not a bad point, although I have to add that, given the spaghetti that passes for wiring at my workplace, I don't remotely administer anything that can't talk to the network. Unless you consider remote to be the distance between the keyboard and the comp. Besides, I'm perfectly content using my usb-to-serial dongle on those blue moon occasions and forgetting about the ugly mess that my laptop doesn't have.
        • and forgetting about the ugly mess that my laptop doesn't have.

          So you have another mess -- a USB dongle with 6" of cord and a serial port on the end hanging from your Vaio as you're fumbling down the aisle to the console port of the Cisco that's broken.

          Just be careful to not accidentally pull the dongle out when Tera Term is trying to use it. You'll pay with a BSOD. :o)

          I guess it's the lesser of 2 evils.

          My main problem with lack of legacy ports (especially serial!) is that freebie or linux may not support my particular device.

          • Heh, you may have a point there. I do have to highlight the astonishment I would feel in the event that my iBook 2001 running Gentoo ever returned a Blue Screen of Death while running Tera Term - such a happening as this would almost certainly qualify as unique and worthy of an entire Slashdot story, complete with digital pics on a soon to be whallopped server somewhere.
            In truth, I only need that silly dongle maybe three times a year, and the rest of the time, it's put away in a safe place. And I think you'll find that Linux support for usb-to-serial converters is getting pretty darn solid :)

    • Re:Only problem with x86 architecture (Score:5, Interesting)

      by AftanGustur ( 7715 ) on Tuesday November 26, 2002 @07:05AM (#4757771) Homepage

      is that the manufacturers still insist upon maintaining obsolete interfaces on their mobos. Seriously, how many of you are going to buy a printer tomorrow that is parellel-only?

      Dohhh ? Isn't that like claiming that Floppies are obsolete since no software is delivered on floppies any more ??

      I think you should instead think about the number of printers in-use that are parallell-port only, and then think about if the parallell port is "obsolete".

      • I think you should instead think about the number of printers in-use that are parallell-port only, and then think about if the parallell port is "obsolete".


        But those printers are in-use on hardware which does have parallel ports, and if you assume computers generally outlive printers (true, IME) then there's no problem manufacturing motherboads without the legacy ports. The only problem is if you need to run the new printers on those old PCs...
        • you assume computers generally outlive printers (true, IME)

          Maybe those throwaway ink jet printers, but my main printers are Epson KXP-1124 dot matrix, from circa 1994. Here at work we still have plenty of LaserJet 4 series printers. Our high speed dot matrix line printer is from sometime in the late 80s. Of course you can use network print servers, which is what I do, which kinda makes the whole argument moot, but I take issue with you saying that computers outlive printers, in my experience the opposite is almost always true.
        • I've upgraded or replaced my computer FOUR TIMES since I bought my printer. It's a Canon Bubble Jet 4100C, and it's still functioning like the day I bought it, which was 7 years ago. It is, of course, parallel only.
        • But those printers are in-use on hardware which does have parallel ports, and if you assume computers generally outlive printers (true, IME) then there's no problem manufacturing motherboads without the legacy ports.

          In my experience, this isn't true. My printer at home is the workhorse of the printer world, an HP Laserjet III. I've probably gone through four computers (or at least, four mainboards) in the lifetime of that printer. IMO the only printers which are regularly outlived by computers are consumer-grade inkjet printers, which are rightly regarded as disposable.

      • Well - I havent had a floppy drive in my machine the last 2 years - and what should i use it for?

        As soon as you have a CD-RW drive I fail to see why anyone would need a floppydrive...

      • Re:Only problem with x86 architecture (Score:5, Insightful)

        by tulare ( 244053 ) on Tuesday November 26, 2002 @07:18AM (#4757800) Journal
        I'll take this one at a time:

        "Isn't that like claiming that Floppies are obsolete..."
        Yes. Floppies are obsolete. Rely on them at your peril. I won't. I will still use them for those machines which I have to manage which are so obsolete as to be unable to boot from cdrom, but that's it as far as their usefulness goes. Rate of failure alone is a great reason to trash the floppy disk.

        "I think you should instead think about the number of printers in-use that are parallell-port only..."
        Yes, some printers still are parallel-only. How many of those are laser printers? Not very many. IMO, inkjets are almost never worth saving when you re-up your system, and most laser printers have multiple interfaces, so you're not tied to the parport to use those. One exception to the above is the occasional pen plotter... many of those are parport-only and definately worth saving if you need one. Which is a good reason to buy a "specialty" computer to manage it, or, um (jetdirect) an external (jetdirect) print server. (jetdirect)

        All I'm trying to say is that not every single x86 mobo needs to have all this old crap hanging off the back of it. Be nice to clean things up a bit, while maintaining special models for people who need them for a particular purpose. Kind of like how you can still buy boards with ISA slots on them. Anyone want to argue that ISA isn't obsolete?
        • My 7-year-old Brother personal laser printer is parallel-only. I'll keep it as long as it continues to work and toner refills are available -- I print so infrequently that I have no reason to upgrade the printer.

          If I upgrade my PC, and the new mobo doesn't have an onboard parallel port, no problem. I'll just buy a $10 I/O card and plug that in.
      • ince no software is delivered on floppies any more ??

        please show me how to flash your BIOS without it.
        Microsoft Operating systems DO NOT ALLOW direct access to low level hardware.

        until the BIOS manufacturers start releasing bootable ISO's of their flash program and BIOS updates you have to have floppy there...
        • "Microsoft Operating systems DO NOT ALLOW direct access to low level hardware."

          Bull. So how does Asus EZFlash work? How about Matrox ProgBios for windows. Both allow BIOS flashing from within windows, no floppy required. I believe the IBM ThinkPad also has BIOS updates for windows.
      • Dohhh ? Isn't that like claiming that Floppies are obsolete since no software is delivered on floppies any more ??

        Actually, floppies pretty much are obsolete, not only because no new software comes on floppies, but also because it's so incredibly easy to move data from your floppies to a much more reliable CD.

        Then again, this also illustrates why floppy drives are being taken out of new PCs, but serial ports, PS/2 ports, and parallel ports aren't. Mediums for holding data can have their files easily transferred over to new mediums, but printers, keyboards, mice, joysticks, gamepads, and other old hardware are not so easily, nor cheaply replaced. And besides, moving from a PS/2 keyboard and mouse to a USB keyboard and mouse gives you no additional performance, whereas moving from floppies to CD-Rs is a huge leap in performance and usefulness.
    • I've got one of these boards, bought it from Ewan at Mini-itx. Top guy, top service :-)



      It's being used in-car. The easiest way of displaying info is still a VFD or LCD model interfaced to the serial or parallel port.



      My car also has an OBDII connector, so I can play with the engine management computer. Which is nice. Serial at 1900-baud - very strange rate.



      I have looked at building USB interfaces for the above, but it isn't worth the hassle. There's a PIC that'd do the job of looking after USB, but with low speed transmission, plus the hassle of writing a USB driver it's non-trivial. USB can't speak until it's spoken to, which is fun...



      Also, forgive me for pointing out the bleedin' obvious, but there's 2 USB ports on there, plus 2 USB headers. :-D



      FYI, the EPIA-M will have USB 2.0 too...

      • My car also has an OBDII connector, so I can play with the engine management computer. Which is nice. Serial at 1900-baud - very strange rate.

        Sounds interesting, care to elaborate?

        What kind of "interface" does the mgmt software have? Is there some kind of "client" software out there which is able to speak to your engine mgmt?

        • Certainly ;-)

          I've got a 2000 model year Subaru Impreza Turbo. The connector on it is a standard ODBII type connector, but the signals aren't OBDII. Have a search and you'll find some resources for that particular car (or I can help out). There's also quite a few resources detailing the "official" ODBII standard.

          With my ECU, I can monitor the engine and its sensors in real time, and also actually change the map. Not yet done that part of it, as that's getting a little fast'n'furious, but sometime I may have a play when I'm sure exactly what every part of the map does.

          If you want more info, I have a hotmail account. Look at my user name and you'll guess the address :-D

          Cheers,
          Nick.
          • Thanks for the reply, I asked as I was really surprised that these interfaces to the car electronics are open (but I assume probably only the passive ones are open).

            Now I learned through google that there a real scene around car electronics reverse engineering, which I didn't know before.
            There's even a open source suite for that stuff at
            http://freediag.sourceforge.net/
            which you probably know.

            Nice stuff
    • Only after a port has used up all possible usefullness. When all the parallel printers and external modems are "recycled"(Sent to China) and no networking company uses the serial Console port on their products anymore. THEN, you can get rid of those legacy ports. Think about the people trying to abolish floppy drives from computers... Is making a boot CD as easy as making a boot floppy? Are you going to use a 700 MB CD-R for a 40k document?
      • Those little USB/Flash keychain thingies should eventually replace floppies.
      • You bet I'm going to use a 700MB CD-R for a 40k document, just as soon as Linux has CDR UDF with variable packet sizes and the ability to deal with open UDF discs.

        Examine the costs:
        CD: about $.01/per if you buy them in bulk
        Floppy about $.005/per if you buy them in bulk

        CDs also don't wear out due to age (the magnetic field of the earth eventually wears out floppies), only due to heat.

        So I don't mind putting a 40k document on one CD, as long as its as easy to use as a floppy is.
    • they insist maintaining them because people WANT them.

      FYI there are several mobos with only usb for keyboard/mouse/other hid.

      why would you like to buy a new keyboard just because the mobo manufacturer didn't include ps2(which, added, costs just about the price of the plug)? most people don't.

      legacy support goes to hell too.
      some more exotic hw rely on being able to use 2 serial ports on pc for example.. (some weird military radiomodems for example)

      and isa is much more usable than that stupid amr(seriously, i have not seen ever one amr card in my life, in a computer or on a computerstore shelf)(granted pci is better, but again, legacy support.).

      if you don't want serial/parallel/ps2 ports on your x86, buy a mobo that doesnt have them.. the (only) good thing about x86 hardware is that you can make that choice. but don't come bitchin when your usb keyboard fails and your backup keyboard is ps2/din.
    • I'll address the serial port issue only. Try configuring a Cisco (or about any worthy piece of network equipment, Suns included for that matter) without a serial port. *boo*
      But hey, I work with my computer, I guess Josticks all come in USB now so you don't really mind.
      • Well, whenever I have to blow out a 2600 (about three times a year - the 3com switches hereabouts are much more frequent violators of common network expectations and common sense), I reach into my desk drawer and pull out - get this - a DONGLE that converts USB to SERIAL. Oh, my. Oh, my. And to think I could have had one of those ugly blue ports jutting out the side of my laptop for food to get caught in...

        • 1) Serial ports on laptops have doors to cover them up.

          2) I cannot imagine getting food *inside* a serial port unless you were doing something extraordinarily messy or morally unclean.

          3) By purchasing a dongle, you are paying extra for the privelidge of being able to reclaim about 7/8 square inch of space and shout at the world that you are free of serial ports.

          4) A serial port attached to the machine is a lot harder to lose, step on, smash, throw, or steal than a dongle.
          • You make good points, and very funny, but...
            Let me answer in order:
            1) Serial ports on some laptops have doors, which often are broken off within a year or two, to cover them up.
            2) You obviously don't have kids, work around kids, or ever have to work in anything other than a very controlled office setting. I don't have that luxury. My hapless laptop is set down wherever it may happen to be needed, which can be in fairly unfriendly environments from an equipment point of view. It's what I do.
            3) Really? I think I have a much cleaner-looking and handling computer without the serial port. I need the dongle about three times a year, and the rest of the time it is safely put away.
            4)Similar to 3), with the addition that I'd be about as likely to step on my laptop, or the external firewire drive, or my mouse, or my other foot as I would be to step on my serial dongle. If I choose to throw the dongle, it's good that I had it to throw instead of the laptop, don't you think?
      • But hey, I work with my computer, I guess Josticks all come in USB now so you don't really mind.

        No, joysticks do not all come in USB now. If you're willing to take the serial port version of a joystick, you can get it for $3-$7 at just about any store that carries them in the United States, including Wal-Mart and Target. If you want the USB version of THE SAME DAMN THING, you have to pay at least $20 for it. Yet another reason why the serial port is a Good Thing for everyone that uses computers.
    • I bought a GPS unit only a year ago. It came with a serial cable. I'm "creative" enough to find a dongle but I refuse to pay $25 for a Serial-USB adapter. Same for my old Palm Pro that I still use because I can't justify buying a new one - that's got a serial connection on the cradle.
    • I am GLAD that I have serial and parallel ports. Only crappy modems (yes some people HAVE to use modems yet they dont live in gattica like you...)
      use anything but the serial port... Please tell me where I can get a US robotics V.everything modem that is USB or PCI... you CANT. and the parallel ports.. I have several devices that use the paparle ports... tell me where I can get a USB eeprom burner or Pic programmer...

      How about a UPS that has usb out to signal the server to shutdown or my critical workstation..

      How about a Professional BetaCAM deck that has control vis USB? hell shw me one professional device that has USB for control.

      now let's look at scientific... Ph meters, mass spectromaters... no usb on them.. only serial.. good old RS232..

      thousands more people than you depend on the RS232 and parallel ports every day.

      • "Please tell me where I can get a US robotics V.everything modem that is USB"
        here [deluo.com] (that merchant code is for google, btw.)
      • Only on slashdot where a topic starts talking about removing ports that are unnecessary on a purpose built compact pc would someone be modded up for saying that these "compact purpose built pc's" would now be unusable as SERVERS, or for scientific equipment!?

      • Lumpy write:
        Please tell me where I can get a US robotics V.everything modem that is USB or PCI...

        Right now, I'm using a USR 56K FaxModem with a 5610 Chipset [usr.com], which is a PnP PCI Hardware modem. Newegg sells it for $70 [newegg.com] about. But wait! There is the OEM version, which NewEgg used to have but is out of stock [newegg.com]. It runs about $45 dollars, and goes by the name of a USR Robotics 2977 Modem. I own the OEM version, which does identify itself as a 5610 under lspci. Its a solid modem, purely hardware based - just needs a basic serial driver.

        I'm quite fond of external modems, since they are easy to debug and setup, but my server is relatively free of cord tangle - only power, network, printer and phone. (Printer sits on top of it.) I didn't want to go to the hassle of finding a spot for an external modem.

        Now serial and parallel ports rock for home electronics - The kits to develope on USB can be rather pricey. And I have been burned enough with USB in the past (back when it was new) to realize that some OSes and hardware start to have problems as soon as you have a half dozen USB devices.

    • I don't have a problem with legacy ports on full-size ATX motherboards. Desktop and tower PCs have a requirement in my opinion to try to be as flexible as possible, which means being able to connect older and diverse hardware.

      On these mini-ITX motherboards, on the other hand, I agree wholeheartedly. These things are *small* (less than 7" square), and are ideal for tiny form factors. They would be even more attractive if they didn't have to be so tall, because all the I/O (a *lot* of I/O) is all stacked on top of each other. Take a look here [techseekers.net] to see what I mean.

      A modern, tiny motherboard like this should be able to do with VGA for a display and USB/Firewire ports for *everything* else.
      • Can someone summarize the differences between ATX, mini-ITX, mini-ATX and whatever other form factors are out there?

        PS why does a motherboard have to be flat? Why not L-shaped?
        • Can someone summarize the differences between ATX, mini-ITX, mini-ATX and whatever other form factors are out there?

          Same page that I linked to above has an excellent graphic of the size difference between mini-ITX, Flex-ATX, micro-ATX, and full ATX.

          PS why does a motherboard have to be flat? Why not L-shaped?

          If you had a dedicated PC that needed a very low profile (think super slim), then a L-shaped motherboard might be necessary to squeeze in things like the power supply, hard drive, and CD drive. The problem is that this had better be a high-volume item, otherwise you wouldn't recoup the costs of producing a board useful for only this device.

          Also, you would likely be looking at a less than optimal layout design (odd shapes mean longer traces), which could lead to performance and stability issues.

          BTW, I assume by your references to "flat" and "L-shaped", you are not asking about a motherboard that is literally bent into a third dimension. If you are, this is impossible to manufacture. Circuit boards cannot be printed by machine unless they are flat. If you require a device that has main boards on two planes (one laid horizontal, one 90 degrees vertical), then you would need two separate boards and some type of connector (like a motherboard and a AGP or PCI card).
    • Interestingly enough a friend of mine got an old printer from her father (deskjet) and asked me to help her plug it into her computer. So I said, "sure thing, no problem."

      One problem.

      Her Gateway computer didn't come with a parallel port. Why? Because when she bought the computer she didn't need a parallel port because she was not buying a printer and so Gateway didn't include the port.

      Ok, fine. I figure I can go get the little cable thing that connects to the MB to give the parallel port connection out the back. $5 later I have the cable.

      I open up the case, I go to plug it in, and then I realize to my sheer horror that the MB does not have the required socket. It has the solder points where the socket would be. It has the solder points where the Parallel port control chips would be. But no chips, no sockets, nothing. This MB was designed to have a parallel port and because she wasn't getting a printer they gave her a MB that didn't have the chips or sockets!

      So $50 later she had a USB to Parallel port cable and a working printer.

      Then the printer died.

      There was a point to this story but I think it broke off.
    • Seriously, how many of you are going to buy a printer tomorrow that is parellel-only?

      Actually the problem (for me) isn't that I intend to get new devices with parallel or RS-232 interfaces. I agree with you completely that we should migrate to USB and/or Firewire with all due haste.

      The problem is that I have an old printer at home which works great (Lexmark 4039-10R) and I'm not about to dump anytime soon. The USB-parallel adapters I've tried simply haven't worked very well and I'm not willing to spend more on them until I'm sure they will work. They're fairly pricey after all. Plus the one's I've tried so far required special drivers (Windows only) which is a big no-no as far as I'm concerned.

      I also have the problem that my Palm dock with the USB interface, for reasons I cannot fathom, does not work. So I'm stuck for the moment using RS-232 as well. Plus my linux install (Mandrake 7.2-yes it's old but I haven't had time to upgrade) can't seem to deal with USB for anything except my mouse. So more legacy ports I'm stuck with.

      Annoying? You betcha. Will I go "legacy free" asap? Yup. Soon as I can get everything to work. Until then, it's like the floppy. I hate it but I need it once in a blue moon because the hardware and system makers can't seem to provide proper migration paths.

      Another example. I'd love to get a Type 3 (the full two slot size) Cardbus firewire & USB 2.0 card for my laptop which only has USB 1.1 right now. Not only does no one make *any* USB/Firewire Cardbus combo card, they all make the interface cards type 2 (one slot) cards which stick out the side of the laptop or use a proprietary interface cable. I'd buy this card in a heartbeat but no one makes it. Sigh. Someday maybe...

    • I've been happily not using parallel or serial for about two years now. YMMV.

      The "YMMV" part is the answer to your own question. Obviously *you* can use up precious desk space with hubs and cables that don't stay in their socket, but many of us still actually *use* parallel and serial ports and like them just fine. A paralel port I could probably part with, if forced to, but I'd still want at least one machine with a parallel port just in case I needed to do something odd.

      Serial ports are a different story. My wife and I use serial cradles for our PDAs. I only buy external serial port modems. Just about every OS in the known universe that can run on semi-modern hardware has support for serial ports and their devices (modems, terminals, etc). But if you want all of your external peripherals from mice to cameras to scanners to modems to ethernet headers to printers on USB only, then your only choice is Windows 2000 or Windows XP. (And even there, USB can be rather crufty.) Some support for some of these devices already exists in Linux, *BSD, and OS X but they're still years behind Windows. I want "legacy" ports on the back of my machine because I want my machine to have that kind of flexibility. Many businesses have custom applications and or hardware and *must* have those ports on their machines in order to get their job done.

      And don't forget that the entire reason that the x86 is the dominant achitecture today: backwards compatibility. Hardware manufacturers might be happy enough to sell new goods that aren't even remotely compatible with the stuff manufactured yesterday, but businesses in particular aren't keen on the idea of upgrading their whole IT infrastructure just because some goons drafted a new standard.
    • I agree completely, sure there are still uses for serial ports and printer ports, but on a small foot print M/B such as these where they have even cut it down to just one pci slot, look how much space do those ports take up on the back panel.

      I would guess with just a little more modification to the mATX standard back panel you could fit one or two more pci(/agp) slots instead of those 20 year old printer and com ports!

      I know over two years ago I disabled all my printer and serial ports on my home PC to free some IRQ's, I only recently noticed that they were still disabled, shows exactly how much I use them! :)

  • what's the point (Score:3, Insightful)

    by dr.Flake ( 601029 ) on Tuesday November 26, 2002 @06:54AM (#4757747)
    beside's the usual answer: "because i can do it !"

    He still needs a backback to bring along his keyboard, mouse and monitor. Plus 500 meters of power cable so he can sit in the park and eat his lunch (from his other lunchbox) and type some letter.

    and with these specs? get a laptop.
    But i like the whole idea of very small but complete boards. Nice hack.
    • beside's the usual answer: "because i can do it !"

      I'm curious why you think that there needs to be any other answer than that. Now if he started a business to sell these things, I would question his sanity.

  • Cheater! (Score:4, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 26, 2002 @06:56AM (#4757755)
    There are two ways to get a computer into a lunchbox:

    1. Shrink the mobo
    2. Get a HUGE lunchbox

    He opted for #2.

  • linker error: undefined reference to `CE .NET 4.1' (Score:4, Interesting)

    by AftanGustur ( 7715 ) on Tuesday November 26, 2002 @06:58AM (#4757757) Homepage

    And hey, they even report that VIA is now Microsoft CE .NET 4.1 certified.

    ?? Sorry, I mean no offense but I don't get it.. What has a "Microsoft CE .NET 4.1 certification" to do with this box ??

  • miniturization... its been happening for quite some time now.. but the reason why we're gettin all excited about this is coz this project uses standard PC equipment. /.ers never like taking the easy route anyways. How about "embedding" a PC in a decent sound system ? take an average sony/panasonic/kenwood deck and put the motherboard into the main casing... have a small rear gap for the vga connecting cable.. the sound card can be directly connected to the deck internally and maybe the 3 cd changer can be used for reading ure cds (that will require a few modifications) :D
  • I'm building a media-set-top-box using a mini-itx box. I'm using RH7.3 + freevo + mplayer (with the xv extension in XFree).

    The good news is that it runs really well on linux , (I've even used it to run eDonkey ;-) ).

    The bad news is that the video drivers for Linux are much worse than the Windows drivers. For example, I'm able to play a divx with no problem, but if I try playing a dvd, the quality is pretty much crap. X-Mame won't run neither.

    At least the drivers are open source.
  • A more practical box, pre-built box based on these boards can be found here [netbox.co.uk]. No association, I just thought they looked good (if a little pricey).

    I'm interested in mini-ITX boards. I'd like to put together a home theatre system in a hi-fi component case. Possibly with an LCD panel, certainly with TV out. I'm holding out for the Epia-M board though (USB 2 and firewire).

    Cheers,
    Ian

    • why? use something that is DESIGNEd as a stereo component from the very beginning....

      here at GCT allwell [gctglobal.com]

      last year I asked and they wanted $350.00 for this box with processor and ready to go except for the DVD drive and hard drive and ram.

      This is the best platform to do that on. Although DONT get the Hardware MPEG decoder version.. no linux drivers that are worth a crap for them.. and with the horsepower you can shoehorn in that processor slot... you dont need it.

  • First done by... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by TheSHAD0W ( 258774 ) on Tuesday November 26, 2002 @07:31AM (#4757826) Homepage
    The "lunchbox PC" was first done by Steve Ciarcia [circuitcellar.com], as detailed in an series of articles for Byte Magazine [byte.com]. I believe the gizmo was a CP/M based computer, but I'm not certain; it might have been a PC compatible.

    I can't locate anything about the unit on the net, but I do remember one thing about the series... A couple of months after the conclusion, there was a correction, which went something like, "In our lunchbox computer articles, we neglected to mention that Fraggle Rock [the unit was in a Fraggle Rock lunchbox] is a trademark of Henson Associates. You can take the big blue monsters that have been waiting outside our offices away now..."

  • Mini Server Box (Score:2, Informative)

    by farfisa69 ( 526335 )
    Here's a company making pretty small servers:

    Physical Dimensions
    Width .....................190mm
    Depth .....................270mm
    Height ....................170mm
    Weight ...................3 kg

    Jade Servers [jadeservers.com]

  • I got one (Score:4, Interesting)

    by johnburton ( 21870 ) <johnb@jbmail.com> on Tuesday November 26, 2002 @07:59AM (#4757902) Homepage
    I bought a mini-itx motherboard and small white case from these people a few weeks ago and it works really well (running windows 2000 on mine) as a tiny pc I can leave on all the time as a mail/web/dns/file server. They are really cheap when you consider that the motherboard INCLUDES the cpu. Obviously not fast enough for the latest games but for a cheap server, or a simple word processing machine these motherboards are fantastic value. I had no problems fitting the thing together or with software compatibilty. Or course mine isn't in a lunchbox. I could believe how small the motherboard was when it arrived.
    • Only mine (VIA Eden EPIA 550Mhz) is running a real OS - Linux. It works great as a webserver. However it lacks a little oomph to survive a slashdotting. So no, I won't give you the URL be party to assisted suicide =).

      Dead Rat 7.2 (Er Red Hat) recognized all of the hardware, including the sound card. I do not have a floppy - only because I am too cheap to buy a USB one which is required. I also added a GForce2 Video card as the onboard one was a little slow and used system RAM for its video buffer. But for a pure web server that does not run X the onboard video card is fine (Trident).

      Oh and the webserver has been running for just over 87 days. Previously it was running for 134 days but I had to bring it down to intstall the GForce 2 video card. And without a fan to cool the unit too!

  • Wow, so now I can actually watch Star Wars: Episode II within my Star Wars lunch pale?

    You have made me a very happy nerd.

  • Openbrick (Score:3, Interesting)

    by giel ( 554962 ) on Tuesday November 26, 2002 @08:29AM (#4758051) Journal

    There is a leaner and meaner more out of the box and opensource solution too, called openbrick (openbrick.org [openbrick.org]). I guess this thing (including its case) will fit into an average sized winnie-the-pooh-lunchbox instead of a huge 12"x8"x8" batman box - it is about the same size as hub or a small switch.

    The number of interfaces however is rather small and it does not include a harddrive. Actully as far as I know it does not have any moving parts, not even a cooling fan.

    Very silent, and it processing power is comparable to a Pentium at 300MHz

    • From the site...

      OpenBrick is a small, light and silent open platform optimized for Open Source / Free Software solutions (firewall, micro-server, PABX, thin client, multimedia...). It is available for 300 to 400 EUR.

      The Via Epia motherboard with 800MHz C3 can be purchased for $130. It looks like the OpenBrick comes with 128MB RAM, so add $15 to the cost of the Epia to get a fair comparison. And think, do you really want to put a $400 PC in your Pooh lunchbox?
  • I just got done building one of these for pr0n filtering. It is a very compelling little appliance type platform for a very reasonable price. The thing runs RedHat 8.0 like a champ. For appliance work I use the slower machine because it does not have a cpu fan in it.

  • But MOM!!!! (Score:4, Funny)

    by crawling_chaos ( 23007 ) on Tuesday November 26, 2002 @09:13AM (#4758319) Homepage
    I wanted an Apple in my lunchbox!

  • Mirror (Score:2, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward
    ...can be found here. [superiorart.org]
  • from the webserver? Surely they're not serving the site from a lunchbox, but it apparently can't handle a slashdotting, so maybe it is ...
  • The cool kids buy their processing cycles from the school server farm.

    And god forbid they catch anyone with a PLAID lunchbox computer.

  • Somebody in my area LUG [taclug.org] is very creative!

    They have stuffed a Mini-PC into a VW New Beetle [taclug.org] model car...

  • ...or thanks to the Slashdot effect, it's all go up in smoke ;-)
  • The lunchbox computer box idea maybe cute, but for not much bigger physical size you can get a REAL computer powerful enough to handle even the most demanding desktop computing tasks. Remember the Shuttle SB-51G case mentioned on /. a few days ago with Intel i845 chipset motherboard that supports even the Pentium 4 3.06 GHz CPU? The one that has USB 2.0, IEEE-1394, and SPDIF connections? With onboard video (which can be disabled so you can install your own graphics card) and excellent onboard audio that supports Dolby Digital 5.1 audio?

  • Low energy PC? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by random_nick ( 621821 )
    I am looking for a PC - in a lunch-box or in an other box - which has the same, lower energy consumption as notebooks. Ideally less or no more than 60 Watt, as opposed to the standard 150-250 Watt PC power supplies.
    Any recommendations about power-saving PCs?

    Nick

  • People with kids already have to fish cookies and peanut butter sandwiches out of their drive slots... this "clever" case enclosure can only invite more of the same.
  • I really wanted the FireWire. Gigaherz, gigaram, duel boots between Red Hat and Age of Kings. Mine is a standard issue American size lunchbox (7x9x4) and it's a Yellow Submarine lunchbox. Thaks to some fancy stickers that come with Red Hat, all The Beatles are wearing Red Hats! Default boot is monitorless, right into mpg123 for the car. Normal IDE Disk too. Next version will have SlimDVD as well. Love those Shuttle boards!
  • Can you get peanut butter flavored thermal paste?

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