8track

My quest for a low power server began in the Carbon Diet page and now continues with this system. It is smaller, faster, and uses less energy than the earlier EPIA 800 system.

When I was riding around Corvallis one day, I saw a free pile in front of someone's house. Right on top was a GE portable AM/FM 8 track player. I could no t pass it up. I immediately envisioned putting a computer in the case and that is exactly what happened.

"8track" is now a complete computer system based on a Via CN10000 Mini-ITX board built inside the 8 track player case. It has

1. 1GB of DDR2 RAM,
2. a 30 GB Toshiba drive borrowed from a Toshiba Magnia SG20
3. a Morex 60 watt automotive power supply
4. a Trendnet WiFi PCI card

Power options include using either an old HP Omnibook 800 laptop power supply or a 12 volt gel cell. At the Solar CREEK booth at DaVinci Days, I ran it on a solar panel and a 120 vac inverter.

I can plug it into any convenient monitor and keyboard. At DaVinci days, I used an Acer 15" display and a PS/2 keyboard and mouse. The monitor ran off the inverter, too. I plugged in stereo speakers and connected to the Solar CREEK web site via a wireless link.

The HP power supply puts out about 35 watts and it had no trouble running this machine in the above configuration. I measured output of the supply and found it takes about 10 watts to run.

I am running Ubuntu Linux on it at the moment (6.06/Dapper Drake). I use mplayer to play the official Solar CREEK quicktime video.

Pictures