What is Digg?152 Comments
- radu79, on 10/12/2007, -5/+58How old are you? 16?
There was a time when I upgraded to a Cyrix 166, and I was so happy with the additional speed. - pbaehr, on 10/12/2007, -2/+38Kids these days, honestly!
- geminitojanus, on 10/12/2007, -2/+37"I don't think I'd worry about choosing between this and a Mac Mini. This one costs $120 and runs at 166mhz. My PHONE runs at 312mhz. This is developed for use as a thin client in industrial situations - it's not a consumer device."
Your phone also needs to be much faster, due to it running a DSP to convert your voice into a set of digital signals that can be broadcast. Meanwhile, this machine can do everything your 10 year old computer can do.
While it may seem like a step backwards, this machine is almost perfectly inline with what most consumers today actually use their computers for; email, web surfing, typing papers. To boot, it's even got all of the video and audio hardware onboard and is fast enough to decode an MP3 so you could actually listen to music while typing those papers, and you don't need a seperate chip to provide a video interface. Think about it; most of the people in the world can't afford computers simply because their computers do more than what they need them to do. Some people would just be happy to get their hands on these things. These tiny machines make it possible. I could populate a school with 2,000 students with 2,000 of these things for a bit over $20,000 ($90/computer, plus bulk purchases of old monitors and a file server). Where my friend used to be an admin, they just spent $26,000 on 25 new Dell computers for a student computer lab. That speaks volumes in and of itself. - shrewduser, on 10/12/2007, -2/+26pentium compatable, as in x86, don't underestimate a modern small low powered 166mhz processor.
- felchdonkey, on 10/12/2007, -10/+33I don't think I'd worry about choosing between this and a Mac Mini. This one costs $120 and runs at 166mhz. My PHONE runs at 312mhz.
This is developed for use as a thin client in industrial situations - it's not a consumer device. - geminitojanus, on 10/12/2007, -1/+20It's worth noting that this isn't a Pentium processor at all, and is in fact /pentium compatible/, which is to say it complies with the 80586 instruction set. In fact, this is a SoC design that utilizes a reimplementation of the Pentium that is more superscalar than the original Pentium. This chip is literally what a Pentium would be today if it were reimplemented, except for the fact this chip is integrated on-board with all of the rest of the necessary hardware to make it a computing platform.
The fact this chip has a 2W TDP is truly amazing, and is exactly the direct computing should be heading. Add in a cheap $20 CRT and you've got the ideal computer for schools everywhere; no harddrives to keel over, wireless built in, incredibly cheap in huge quantities, and it does everything a normal school kid would need to do. - geminitojanus, on 10/12/2007, -3/+21"Where does it say 'developing countries'? Nowhere. It's for geeks who build stuff like wireless print servers for fun. Not Joe Developingnation. I swear. Why does everyone think people in the developing world want sh*tty computers?"
Who the hell said "Developing Nation"? I said "people". There are people in the "developed world" who would snap up these machines just as fast as the "developing world"; imagine every single kid in a school being able to have a computer that they can do research on, write papers, listen to audio presentations from teachers across the world.
Secondly, the developing world doesn't care if the computers they get are "*****", they're COMPUTERS, something they don't have that would greatly appreciate their quality of lives. Imagine what a developing country could do with the Internet. No more relying on people coming over and doing things for them, they can learn to do things for themselves. They can publish about things they learn to help each other. They can communicate needs for goods to each other, they can organize, they could even govern over computers.
No, I don't know if it's penis envy that you have a computer and they don't, or if you just don't care about anyone but yourself, or if you are some rich bastard sitting on a pile of cash and simply don't understand what it's like to be without, but judging from the number of countries and people who are jumping on the One Computer Per Child project, I'd say you're vetoed. Get a life. - brhad56, on 10/12/2007, -1/+18I remember aweing at a guy who purchased a 200MHz machine (mine was 60 MHz at the time). And I rememeber thinking that noone needs a 200MHz computer.
- B111, on 10/12/2007, -1/+18Fsking kids! Back in my day computers had a 1 MHz (Motorola) processor, 128K RAM, and we liked it!
Or course all we did was play Oregon Trail. - adam84a, on 10/12/2007, -1/+17I remember when I yearned for a 166MHz Pentium (thinking it would blow my 133MHz out of the water).
- FishersJEFF, on 10/12/2007, -1/+16And the Cyrix 166 was a heck of a chip had one that ran non-stop for years. The only issue is that they ran a little hotter that the Intel chips. But they have most certainly had clock speed of 166 MHz on the market. Just like there were times of 1MB of ram and hard disk of 150MB. Just because you weren't around to see them doesn't mean they didn't exist.
- gadgeek, on 10/12/2007, -1/+14It may be worth noting that this is a P166 with three integer units. Hence, it should be capable of up to three times better performance than an old Pentium 166. The chip is said to outperform Cyrix's MediaGX, for example, which is a Pentium compatible that can be clocked close to 400MHz.
Given that Puppy fairly screams on my old HP Omnibook with a 166MHz Pentium, these clients likely work very, very well under the Pup. - chad78, on 10/12/2007, -3/+15I find it facinating that some people think the way to measure the value of a computer is in Mhz or Ghz.
Doesn't any appreciate the fact that it's pretty cool that they could do *more* with *less*?
For example - MacDonald's has had Billions and Billions served - but they've had decades in which to do that, and millions of employees and multiple trillions of dollars with which to do that. However, they call it a miracle when Jesus feed a few thousand people with a litle boy's lunch. (Now watch me get modded down for mention Jesus.)
The point is - to be able to do more with less is pretty cool. Anyone can do fancy stuff with a superpowered PC - but being able to surf the web and do the primary things people do with computers with something with less power than the average camera phone is pretty cool.
Remember kids, the lunar lander had less processing power than a Furby - I'll let you decide which is a more impressive technological accomplishment. - tybris, on 10/12/2007, -1/+12You do not realise the power of the puppy. Puppy Linux is small enough to fit itself completely into memory and have plenty to spare. Imagine that, no swapping, no disk delay, no reading from cd, just the full speed of your computer. It will make even a Pentium 166 look very good (except for the time required to boot that is).
- geminitojanus, on 10/12/2007, -0/+10A true sign of your knowledge about modern computing. First of all, this isn't a P166, it's a PENTIUM COMPATIBLE, 166MHz chip. Think, if you will, Athlon 64 vs. Pentium 4; the two chips use the same instruction set, but have vastly different performance characteristics.
This chip has a 166MHz Pentium Compatible core with a great deal more superscalar hardware than existed on the original Pentium chips. It's also a System-on-Chip, meaning that it's got everything it needs to be a computer on one core; video hardware, CPU, memory controller, PCI controller, audio hardware, everything.
In all actuality, this thing probably performs better than some 500MHz Celeron systems as long as you pair it up with a good amount of memory. And it's a hell of a lot cheaper at $35 bucks per unit per thousand. - jpbro, on 10/12/2007, -0/+9@B111 -
Are you talking about the C=128? Amazingly, you could put it in "fast" mode (2 whole mHz!), but it would blank the 40 column display, so you had better have an 80 column compatible monitor unless you were just "crunching" (lightly pressing maybe?) numbers :)
My first computer (Vic 20) had a mind blowing 5K of RAM (of which 3.5K was available to the user). It's hard to believe how far we've come sometimes! - mwolfzorn, on 10/12/2007, -3/+12"Pentium-compatible processor" it's not a Pentium 1, it's a custom processor for this purpose
- dbalaski, on 10/12/2007, -0/+9Just cause the Processor is slower than what we use on our desktops, doesn't mean its not useful ... Good clean code can make it sing ( I hate to say I started with the Original IBM XT -- old fart I guess lmao )
Plenty of older tech I find it migrating this path --- I can see lots of applications for this machine (Kiosks, teller & POS terminals, machine controllers etc)....
(I actually have one in mind for me -- local units processing RSS feeds for display on large screens at my company -- hell this would save a lot of $$$) - rockefeller, on 10/12/2007, -1/+9On that same note, have you noticed that even though processor speeds keep increasing, your computer, for the most part, runs at the same speed over the years, I mean like 10 years ago.
The problem is that as computers get faster, software gets more demanding. How much of that extra functionality do you really need in the latest and greatest software? Try running Windows 98 on a 4 GHz machine and it screams. Realistically I could use 98' for the majority of the things I need to do, without the 4GHz machine. I've never tested this, but I bet Windows XP on a 4 GHz machine will run at about the same speed as Windows 98 on a 1 GHz machine. I'm refering to common things like internet browsing and opening documents, etc.
IMHO, it seems as though it's a market issue...the only way to sell faster pcs is to make software that is more demanding, but not necessarily more useful. Get people to install the more demanding software, their computers start running slow, time to upgrade hardware. - gherikill, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7I want one for my car.
- desheffer, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6Well, if it helps any (about the whole kid thing), I'm only 18 and my first computer had a 90 MHz PII
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6No no no, saying you'll get modded down tricks people to use reverse psychology so they mod you up, likewise saying you'll get modded up gets you modded down, except I use reverse reverse reverse psychology and so I am fairly confident that the comment reffering to the comment appended to the comment regarding being modded down will not be unmodded up.
- jejones, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6@B111: Speak for yourself. We Tandy Color Computer users ran a multitasking OS (OS-9) on our .89MHz systems. Of course, in 1986, we moved up to twice the clock frequency, 512K of RAM, and windowing, and ran UUCP and a port of the KA9Q TCP/IP code.
These days the serious CoCo user has replaced the 6809 with a Hitachi 6309, moved to NitrOS9, and uses SCSI or IDE (or both). We can use VGA monitors now, too. Next year will be either the 15th or the 16th annual "Last" Chicago CoCoFest. - PoVRAZOR, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6Just plug a USB network card in to that rear USB port.
- willcode4beer, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7predicting you'll get modded down gets you modded up
whining about being modded down gets you modded down more
talking about mod points can also get the automatic down modding (as should this post) - nipuL, on 10/12/2007, -2/+7If this thing had an extra ethernet port, I'd probably consider buying one. It would replace my current P166 which runs as my internet gateway/firewall. Which is running OpenBSD on a 200Mb hard disk drive, and 32 mb ram, no swap (it only uses 10Mb to run).
I could think of a billion (well a lot) of useful things for such a device. - yensed, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5The processor is a "SiS 550". It was used in some of the 1st dvd players and in some notebook video cards. Its got kinda fun history if you read about it.
- akinder, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5Ack, way too much ePenis comparing going on in this thread
- chad78, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5It says it is available now, and shipping - but there is no MicroClient Jr. on NortTech's website ( http://www.norhtec.com/ ) There is a MicroClient - but no MicroClient Jr. (At least not that I could find.)
- merreborn, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5"To boot, it's even got all of the video and audio hardware onboard and is fast enough to decode an MP3"
Sweet. Attach a big hard drive, and shove it in your car. Boom. Half terabyte MP3 player for your car, for about $250.
No, you wouldn't wanna try to play WoW on it, or probably even surf digg, but this thing means you can have a familiar, programmable platform for controlling whatever the hell you want controlled. - adam.skinner, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6While it may drive a small linux distro itself, it's intended for thin client computing. It simply views stuff, and the processing job is offloaded to an LTSP cluster running OpenMosix =)
- uidzero, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5A pentium 166 is more then enough for thin client usage.
- zetsurin, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Ahhh the days. I remember whether I should go the extra dough for the 166MHz or the 150MHz. It made a difference back then...
- kLacK, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4I'm dissapointed in you guys, I'm 23 and my first computer was a Commodore 64 :)
- beni, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5Does it have any floating-point units? The article mentions 3 integer units, but if floating-point is weaksauce like VIA's chips, forget about it.
- kahrn, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5@desheffer, I assume you mean 90MHz PI right? ;)
I'm 16.. was given a 486 not sure about the specs, but I remember it running win3.1. Speed was never really problem because I was thrilled with the encyclopedia interactive CD thing.
I can remember using my first pentium quite well though, 150MHz non MMX with 16MB Ram with 1MB Onboard GFX memory. Perfect for playing games like flight unlimited (the original) and sometimes flight unlimited 2 if you tweaked it enough)!
The things you *can* do with a system like this is limitless. People are all wondering if you can even view web pages.. well, yes. Of course you can. Infact, there is no difference other than speed in what I can do with a 486 than anyone else can with the latest pentium 4.
If the software is written well, then you can find many uses for boxes like this. I'm always looking for low spec systems to experiement with and get them running on the network doing small jobs and just seeing what YOU can do. It's not about what the box can do, because the box can already do everything. - sbrown123, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4I use a Kurobox at home. It has 128M ram and runs a PowerPC processor at 266Mhz. Costs approx $150. With it I Installed a 400G drive, linux, samba, subversion, a torrent client, and plugged my printer and scanner in to it. It has become the always-on, lower power, and quite workhorse for all my XP machines.
- robsta, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4I believe it is a really similar case to the new Intel Core 2 Duo's. I sell these Processors at work and have to constantly reiterate to customers that its not all about clock speed. The cheapest model (E6300) is clocked at 1.86 GHz. They do have a higher FSB than before and chew less wattage. They run better for a number of factors such as the instruction set, dual-core etc. People think GHz/MHz is the definitive measure and find it hard to justify otherwise. I haven't tested this processor myself but I'm sure it excels in areas a mobile phone CPU couldn't due to the architecture.
- geminitojanus, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3"Does it have any floating-point units? The article mentions 3 integer units, but if floating-point is weaksauce like VIA's chips, forget about it."
It has a modern pipelined FPU along with an independent MMX unit. Its FPU performance probably isn't the greatest in the world, though, especially at 166MHz. However, since it can retire 3x integer operations and 3x MMX operations per cycle, it would probably make a world more sense to rewrite your application to use integers instead of float point math wherever possible, and attain a huge amount of performance. - EvilTesdall, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4then i upgraded to a 233..and holy ***** that was speed!
- edzieba, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4http://www.gumstix.com/platforms.html
200-400MHz, and so much smaller. Completely different markets though. - dbalaski, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3@jejones -- wow I remember OS9 (had a Coco too ) digg for the memories ;)
- kLacK, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4Ok Ok, when I was 3 month's old I had a speak n spell.
- mrops, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3OMG, this is perfect, I have been looking for something like this forever. I even experimented with Single board computers. I basically just want to run a SSH and a http server on my DSL, but don't want to dedicate a PC for it. This is perfect for this task.
SWEET - rbanffy, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Those kids... My first computer was an Apple II. 48K of memory, 143K floppies, TV screen and a 1 MHz 6502 processor...
Really, the first one was a Sinclair ZX-81 clone, a Prologica CP 200, but I wouldn't consider that a computer. Not even at that time. - deelux247, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3For only about $89.95 there is an amazing computer that includes a monitor, keyboard and mouse, several GB of hard drive space, CD-ROM or CD-RW, USB and Firewire, and runs MS Office, music players, internet, e-mail and chat programs quite nicely. And they are wireless ready. They are called iMac G3s and are available right now on eBay!
- blackb0x, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Just hope that one $10k server doesn't go down.
for heavily threaded applications, having 1000 slower machines is better. Look at google. They built their company on lots of small, cheap servers. - Lobster, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Do not underestimate Puppy.
If you want our biggest ever operating system with Open Office included and running faster than on any other distribution
Puppy 2.03 has just been released for Bittorrent Transmission
http://puppylinux.org/wikka/OfficeCE202
180MB - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Vibration issues
- JQP123, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2In my opinion, http://www.ntavo.com/ offers the best available bang for the buck in terms of small ultra-compact computing.
Their NTA-6020 model thin-client terminals are just slightly larger than the one decribed in the article but significantly more powerful and flexible. These use a Via C3 800 mhz processor with standard DIMM slot, on-board video, 2 IDE, 2S, 1P, 4USB, 2PS/2, 1PCI.
The low end $149 model comes with 128mb RAM and is setup for network booting; however, this is easily changed in the BIOS and with just a little work youi can add a laptop hard drive for stand alone booting. The only real issue --- there is no power connector or mounting holes for the hard drive. I patched into the main supply and drilled my own holes.
Essentially, this is just a pre-configured and re-branded Gigabyte product, Model TA3LB, look it up on www.gigabyte-usa.com. It appears to me that Gigabyte takes this basic model and adds the missing power connector and mounting holes and it becomes the TA1 which is then sold for somewhat more.
I've booted Win98, Win2k3 server, Puppy and DSL Linux, PC-BSD and all work fine. -
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