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25 Dollar PC

If you want the same thing with a display and a keyboard and a case with batteries, buy one of those ARM netbooks for $100 or less. You'll still throw it in the trash eventually because of the lack of power. There are currently ARM9 systems that fit inside an RJ45 network socket and run Linux.
 
If you want the same thing with a display and a keyboard and a case with batteries, buy one of those ARM netbooks for $100 or less. You'll still throw it in the trash eventually because of the lack of power. There are currently ARM9 systems that fit inside an RJ45 network socket and run Linux.
I was thinking along the same lines. Those are neat but as embedded devices. Well, that's what I would trust them to be, anyways.
 
I think calling it a $25 PC is very misleading since you need to add a display, keyboard and mouse. When you figure in the cost of those "extras" you're nowhere near $25.
 
i remember seeing this a few months back. it's pretty interesting -- but yeah, it's not very powerful. i'll stick with my Phenom II X4 955 overclocked to 4 GHz thank you very much. :)

i suppose in a pinch it could be a lifesaver though. it could also make a capable little web server as long as you're not hosting microsoft.com
 
I'd thought about this as a firewall/mail server for a small network, but there's no ethernet connection and rather limited I/O. I suppose you could hook on a USB hub and add a USB NIC and keyboard, but it starts to look less attractive. Right now, I'm using an old HP ePC with a 1.4GHz Celeron and a Seagate 5GB Microdrive as a hard disk. It runs from a wall wart and has been running Debian for years without being rebooted more often than every 6 months to a year. I'm guessing power consumption with the monitor turned off is probably about 20-30 watts.
 
yeah the lack of built-in ethernet is a major problem, imo. that HP you use is very acceptable as a firewall/server. my firewall/router is a 700 MHz Athlon that probably takes way too much power. i have it running ClearOS.
 
It'll have some uses but as most of the other cheap project computers I hear about I'm not sure if the buzz wears off and they live on or if they just die out and never come to fruition. There was some compact cheap computer system with ethernet built-in for like $60 I thought but I don't recall the specs. Either way, probably no use as a PC (too slow) but useful as a small monitoring device for specialized tasks. I/O is the biggest hiccup most of these systems have and that will keep it from doing well I'm sure.
 
I think it has some promise for the stated vision of being a student's personal computer-science education machine, but I wouldn't recommend it for normal use.
 
I dont know about the rest of you, but when I see that small board, I see the core of my cell phone. Granted its only $25. But you are really limited to just usb, it doesn't feel totally right.
 
I'll bet you can't do very much on it. Probably more of an experimental toy. Still, hooking up a circuit board to your TV would be interesting.
 
I'll bet you can't do very much on it. Probably more of an experimental toy. Still, hooking up a circuit board to your TV would be interesting.

I've wondered what you could do with a DTV converter box. At least one that I have has a DE9 serial connector on the back and can display registers and debug messages.
 
Right now, I'm using an old HP ePC with a 1.4GHz Celeron and a Seagate 5GB Microdrive as a hard disk.

Nice, mine is a Celron 300 w/ 256Mb of RAM and a 6gb IDE drive, works perfectly.

What surprised me about this machine is that it can do 1080p. but I think they need to get a ethernet jack on it somehow before it becomes truly appealing to me. I'd use it as some sort of headless server, but it is true there is not much power there for it to be truly robust.
 
At least one that I have has a DE9 serial connector on the back and can display registers and debug messages.
I saw a serial port on the back of a Comcast box and wondered what it was for.

Weird idea, If newer TVs come with USB, ethernet or wireless,and some have a wireless keyboard, I wonder if you could rework the insides or ROM so it would boot an OS off a USB drive? That would make for an awesome TV........no, and awesome computer TV!
 
Most set top boxes secure the boot chain with private encryption keys so that they will only boot images encrypted by the OEM and signed by the silicon vendor.

Trust me, having your phone ring and there being a lawyer for the Walt Disney Corporation on the other side of the line makes sphincters pucker.
 
The DTV converters will become more common as junk. I suspect that many have, if not RS232 capability, JTAG or at least a serial connection at 3V logic levels.

I strongly suspect that, given the restrictions on what one of these things was permitted to do by FCC regs, there's probably no encryption of the firmware. Since they all seem to have 32-bit CPUs and several MB of memory as well as video display capabilities, it might be interesting to hack into one.
 
The DTV converters will become more common as junk. I suspect that many have, if not RS232 capability, JTAG or at least a serial connection at 3V logic levels.

I strongly suspect that, given the restrictions on what one of these things was permitted to do by FCC regs, there's probably no encryption of the firmware. Since they all seem to have 32-bit CPUs and several MB of memory as well as video display capabilities, it might be interesting to hack into one.

that is a really interesting idea idea actually. does anybody here have one of those they're not using that they would want to play with? :eek:

i wonder what kinds of CPUs exactly you would find in one.
 
You'll find a lot of low end integrated SoCs from Sigma Designs, NXP, and ST. They have a host CPU core to run the OS in addition to different DSP cores for decoding. Generally nothing more powerful than a 300-400 MHz MIPS R4K or ARM v7. Same types of ASICs that you will see in a lot of the inexpensive media extenders.
 
that is a really interesting idea idea actually. does anybody here have one of those they're not using that they would want to play with? :eek:

i wonder what kinds of CPUs exactly you would find in one.
I have a digital receiver here, might be different than what you are talking about. Anyway, I hooked it all up just to see what would happen and a unix-like screen came up with some sort of firmware update. I had it hooked up to my cable TV line, not the ethernet (it has it) and what happened is that it was an unauthorized box, so that firmware update was instructions to brick itself, and it did.

It was a digital receiver. So it's bricked now. It was British. Still is, a British brick shaped like a DVR. Hmm... If I find another one I'll definitely see what I can do with it.

/edit I had it handy so I opened it up and found three chips that looked like they do something important:

STi5600ACV-X
BCC-X
A22AP9832
Malta

Sci-Atl
573759
SQMBUAA
A22AK9819
Malta

STi 4600ACV
AAC
AN29A9819
UK

There are Broadcom chips, presumably for the ethernet and your normal layout of caps and crystals.

here is a surprisingly Hi Res pic of the board inside this Scientific Atlanta box:

https://picasaweb.google.com/nathan...ComputersAndClassicGaming#5626894323779940946
 
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