A $25 PC On a USB Stick 352
KPexEA writes with this excerpt from geek.com:
"[Game developer David] Braben has developed a tiny USB stick PC that has an HDMI port on one end and a USB port on the other. You plug it into an HDMI socket and then connect a keyboard via the USB port, giving you a fully functioning machine running a version of Linux. The cost? $25. The hardware being offered is no slouch either. It uses a 700MHz ARM11 processor coupled with 128MB of RAM and runs OpenGL ES 2.0, allowing for decent graphics performance with 1080p output confirmed. ... We can expect it to run a range of Linux distributions, but it looks like Ubuntu may be the distro it ships with. That means it will handle web browsing, run office applications, and give the user a fully functional computer to play with as soon as it's plugged in. All that and it can be carried in your pocket or on a key chain."
Re:USB (Score:5, Informative)
If the idea is to plug in a keyboard, then why does it have a male USB plug, and not a female ?
Actually the article says something slightly different.
You plug it into a HDMI socket and then connect a keyboard via the USB port giving you a fully functioning machine running a version of Linux.
The writer specifically distinguishes between the HDMI port, which is plugged in, and the USB port, which is connected.
In the picture it looks like the device is connected to some sort of powered hub. The keyboard is also connected to the same hub. This is also likely where the device gets its power. What I can't tell from the picture is whether that is a simple powered hub or something more complex.
Re:Power? (Score:5, Informative)
Supplied by HDMI (Score:3, Informative)
The HDMI spec requires a 55mA supply at 5V. This seems to be enough to power this little computer.
It might not work with a lot of usb devices without a hub that has external power but a keyboard should be possible.
Re:Power? (Score:3, Informative)
It looks like there is a third connector from the "top" of the device (in the picture) which is at the end of 6 soldered wires in what looks like a ribbon arrangement... A second USB input? From the running shot it ends in a small black device. Either way the hub is necessary as it looks like the mouse, keyboard, and external DLink LAN device connect through it. Good tech example, though. I'd definitely get one.
Re:Neat idea but... (Score:5, Informative)
Not sure what problem this solves...? (Score:5, Informative)
By the time you've added a keyboard, mouse, display, a decent sized SD card for storage and/or WiFi connectivity so you can actually get data in or out you're probably closer to the cost of a netbook or OLPC, but have lost the benefit of portability.
I guess that a school could provide fixed monitors/keyboards in classrooms, so kids could sit down and plug in their £25 dongle, rather than entrust them with a £150 netbook (and suffer the inevitable loss and damage) - but then (a) the computers could only be used in suitably equipped classrooms and (b) you might as well fix the computers and give kids an even cheaper USB drive to carry around.
Yes, the kids could use their dongle computers at home but its going to be a while before you can assume that everybody has an HDMI TV, and unless kids have a HDMI-equipped TV in their own room (If they do, its good odds that they already have a PC anyway) they'd still have to persuade the rest of the family to miss The X Factor so that they could work on their project.
Nothing wrong with cheap-as-chips single board PCs, but I do wonder why people are so obsessed with building them into wall-warts and USB dongles, when t something slightly bigger (with more room for connectors and space for a couple internal USB devices or a micro HD) would be far more flexible and portable.
Also from TFA:
Braben argues that education since we entered the 2000s has turned towards ICT which teaches useful skills such as writing documents in a word processor, how to create presentations, and basic computer use skills. But that has replaced more computer science-like skills such as basic programming and understanding the architecture and hardware contained in a computer.
Strongly agree - but there's a second string to that, in that ICT has not only supplanted "proper" computer science (which did, once upon a time, exist as an optional high school subject in the UK) but has also tended to pull computers out of maths and science. I've encountered maths teachers who thought, for example, that kids "did" spreadsheets in ICT (they did, but only to turn out pie charts for the annual cat & dog survey - when faced with a fairly trivial modelling exercise they used calculators to fill in the spreadsheet). "ICT" was responsible for many BBC micros being ripped out of subject classrooms and thrown into skips to be replaced by the new ICT (PC) suites. Heck, I'm not advocating it, but even today you could make good use of a good old Beeb (bristling with inputs and outputs and easy to program) in a science classroom!
Overall, I'd welcome the demise of "ICT*" as a curriculum subject (about as sensible as having "handwriting" as a separate subject) on the two conditions that the other subjects were given the necessary time and support to teach IT skills in context, and there was a CS option at age 16-18 (with some sort of "teaser" in the compulsory maths curriculum).
Seems to me that these micro-PCs would be good for the latter, but effectively tied to the computer lab.
(*Note - the 'C' stands for "Communications" and was mandated by the UK Department of Redundancy Department in the UK, who, presumably, didn't think that 'Communication' had anything to do with 'Information' . Figures.)
More Info (Score:5, Informative)
> > 1) How long do you think it will be before the boards become
> > available?
>
> I'd say three or four months. As you can see from the screenshots, we
> have usable Linux, but we're waiting to get final versions of the the
> chip from our supplier.
>
> > 2) Are there any plans for a version with onboard ethernet?
>
> I don't think we're likely to do onboard Ethernet; we will have an
> onboard 3-port USB hub so people can add an external adapter.
>
> > 3) Are there any plans for a version with onboard wifi?
>
> Yes. The final version (though maybe not the first distributables)
> will have onboard WiFi (probably 802.11n) in the price point.
>
> > 4) What are the power requirements, both under load and at rest?
>
> At rest I'd say 50mW (we could trim this if it was really important,
> but it gets a bit fiddly below this point), under serious load
> (original XBox class graphics or 1080p30 H.264), 700mW.
Re:OLPC Owned (Score:3, Informative)
And HDMI port weirds me out. HDMI is a very recent interface, requiring a TV set made in a last three years or so.
If you're going to make a TV-connectable portable pc for poor kids, put in a standard analogue TV output. Poor families don't buy modern TV sets all that often.
So, this is slashdot, and I don't expect people to read the links, but:
Composite is just an analog RCA plug. The HDMI is for modern TVs without that type of input.
Re:Supplied by HDMI (Score:2, Informative)
HDMI power is provided by the source device, not the sink (i.e, the TV). Since the USB stick in this case is the source device, it is not getting power over HDMI from the TV.
Other low-cost ARM boards. (Score:4, Informative)
There are many little [andahammer.com] ARM [futureelectronics.com] boards [digi.com], some of which are priced as low as $39 in quantity 1. These are useful for applications where the ATMega in an Arduno is too limiting.
The choice of peripherals these guys made is unusual. With a USB port and an HDMI port, you can build a game machine, which is probably what they had in mind. Most such boards are more suited to embedded applications, and have I/O - digital TTL ports, Ethernet, LCD drive, etc.
A problem with these minimal machines is deciding what to put on them. The lowest-price devices tend to have too little of some resource and too much of something you don't need. This leads to a proliferation of little embedded boards with slightly different options, which runs the cost back up.
For hobbyists, the Leaflands Maple [leaflabs.com] may be interesting. It's an ARM board in the Arduno form factor. It's compatible with Arduno daughter boards ("shields"), and has some commonality with the Arduno development environment. Not enough memory to run Linux, though.
The $25 price is a vaporware price - they're not actually shipping. NXP is shipping LPCExpresso [nxp.com] for "under $30", and that includes the entire tool chain (Eclipse, GCC, JTAG debugger, etc.)