[SGVLUG] Idea for New PC

[Emerson, Tom (*IC)]

Heh heh heh -- I somewhat expected a knee-jerk reaction in response to
posting a WORD attachment to a Linux list [and the HTML version won't be
far behind, especially considering it only added marginal "niceness" to
the formatting of the content] but that aside, let's see what we're
talking about:


-----Original Message----- Of Arthur Baldwin

[...] pasted version: 


JCBrick
 
*        Core 2 Duo Processor with at least 800 MHz FSB (Ultra low power
laptop type CPU soldered on board with fan-less heatsink)
 
*        Must have 2 or more Gigabyte LAN ports
 
*        Must have optional power supply designs for either car
operation or home operation.
 
*        All chips must be reliably soldered onto motherboard - no
sockets.

[TE] OK so far -- you're obviously conserned about vibration -- you
might want to do searches on "industrial" computers, i.e., computers
used on machine-shop floors and the like (where vibration from heavy
machinery will exist...)
 
*        Must have two high speed solid state "disk drives" using "thumb
drive chips" (one 16 GB and one 8 GB minimum) soldered onto motherboard
with no USB conversion stages to slow down data transfer.  (drive
letters C and D).

[TE] why "two drives"?  Again, from a Linux/Unix perspective, all disk
space is a single "drive" (from the "root" on downwards...)  At the
physical layer, partitioning and multiple spindles (physical drives) may
exist, but often they are conglomerated using RAID and LVM (volume
management) so they appear to the rest of the system/OS as a single
"device"

[TE] Also, I don't think you'll be able to get away from the USB
conversion -- the "thumb drive 'chips'" are already designed with a USB
interface as the control circuit

[TE] finally, specifically referencing them as "C and D" implies use of
Windows -- that won't get far on a Linux oriented list...
 
*        Must be able to boot from any USB 2.0 port (need at least 4
ports), a PXE device (LAN), or either of the two solid state drives
onboard.
 
*        Must have 4 GB high speed RAM in two standard slots.
 
*        Must NOT have any Keyboard, Mouse, standard serial, parallel,
FDD, SATA, or IDE interfaces

[TE] Again, why not?  Sure, all of these can be found in USB versions,
but declaring them as "forbidden" might eliminate an otherwise
satisfactory off-the-shelf design...
 
*        Needs to have MIDI - IN and MIDI - OUT ports

[TE] likewise, the requirement to have THIS very /specific/ type of port
seems a little odd -- why not use a USB/Midi converter?   [results of a
simple search show this to be about $30 --
http://www.google.com/products/catalog?q=usb+midi&oe=utf-8&cid=229411050
553829399#ps-sellers]

*        Must have high quality onboard Audio and Video (with hardware
3D Acceleration - prefer ATI)
 
*        Must have built in IR transceiver device that is exposed on
front panel

[TE] have you considered bluetooth?  I would imagine a standard "remote
control" could be adapted to BT technology fairly easily, and by going
wireless you eliminate the need for "line of sight", so you could put
this BEHIND the home stereo or in the trunk and still be able to control
it from a handheld device.  You could even use a bluetooth "mouse" [or a
combo unit, such as the wiimote]
 
*        Unit must be as small as possible
 
*        Unit should not have any expansion slots of any kind
 
[TE] you're limiting yourself here -- again, with the discussion of what
ports should or should NOT be on the box, have you condiered interfaces
such as HP-IB [a.k.a. IEEE 488] -- there is still a ton of industrial
control and measurement devices out on the market that use this type of
interface 


Applications include:
 
*        Media Center Controller for multiple component Home
Entertainment Centers
*        Home Control Systems
*        Recording Studio Control Systems
*        Automotive Media Centers 
*        Vehicle Control Systems
*        Family Internet Sharing Control/Filtering/Monitoring Systems

[TE] what problem are you solving with this that isn't already addressed
by similar dedicated items?  (ok, perhaps the automotive ones...)  Home
control systems from X-10 and Smarthome are certainly adequate; internet
control and content monitoring is now regularly included in devices from
linksys and D-link, not to mention the large number of "home grown"
solutions using linux on "old throwaway equipment"

[TE] oh, and for recording studios, you might want to check out
"Indamixx" [http://www.indamixx.com/]  They are local, and a few months
back we had the inventor showing it off here at a meeting.  Admittedly,
his price wasn't what you were looking for [he was struggling to break
the $1K barrier -- in fact, I see the base price *today* is $1200] but
also remember this is a /highly/ specialized device with a /very small/
target market (DJ's and podcasters...) so there isn't enough "volume" to
get a good price

Target Wholesale Cost
 
Less than $300 each in quantities over 1000 with 4 GB RAM included and
with metal box enclosure (fanless heatsink).