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 Via 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
- 1GB of DDR2 RAM,
- a 30 GB Toshiba drive borrowed from a Toshiba Magnia SG20
- a Morex 60 watt automotive power supply
- 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
