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Technology

Super Tiny Espresso PC 128

Posted by CmdrTaco from the is-that-a-celeron-in-your-pocket? dept.
OscarMeier writes "ArsTechnica has posted an article about the Espresso PC. 0.5kg light, it is a fully featured i810e Celeron or PIII system including everything and the kitchen sink (VGA out, NTSC out, USB, PS/2, 12 GB Hard Drive, up to 256 MB RAM, docking 24X CD w/ floppy). " must... resist... temptation... if only it had a battery.Check out the manufacturer's site for more information.
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Super Tiny Espresso PC More

Super Tiny Espresso PC

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  • Espresso (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Well if we have a water cooler from the earlier post, we could literally have hi-tech espresso machine... or at least a coffee maker to go along with our espresso machine.

  • Re:other components (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    A few other ideas come to mind: There is that rollable, waterproof keyboard [slashdot.org] covered on /. last year. They became sorta hot again with the i-opener; not sure where you can find them in stock now, but I seem to come across them while shopping for parts every so often.

    The company that makes the folding palm keyboard that you mentioned may be willing to make a compatible keyboard, esp. since the standard connectors are available on this machine. There is also the Happy Hacking Keyboard you see frequently in SysAdmin and the Linux mags that may be "small enough" for some people's uses.

    Smaller LCD screens can be found at EIO and partsexpress.com...problem is, they probably won't work well as computer screens. The obvious other choice is to use the i-opener's LCD screen. Personally, I wish there was a company that sold 10-13" LCD screens for a reasonable price (iow, not the same price as a 15" you can get for $620). I wish there was a good site that detailed specs on various laptop screens...unfortunately, the stuff seem so proprietary as to make the effort painful and almost not worth the effort.

    Heck, with a decent 10" LCD screen, with the CD/DVD option, you could have car GPS in addition to MP3 very easily and nicely and still stuff it in a Dodge Neon comfortably and neatly.

    There is also, of course, the entire wearable computer scene...hand twiddlers, head mounted displays, etc. that folks have already mentioned. For that, you might want to start with the MIT site [mit.edu]. There a lot of links for peripherals that could be used with this machine.

    Personally, I think it would be cool to have a program that allowed handwriting recognition through the trackpad...something that if you hit a certain combination allowed you to flip back and forth between "mouse/pointer" and "keyboard" functions. I thought I saw such a program around, but I'm not finding it in my bookmarks right now. This would do away with a keyboard entirely for some uses.

  • Looks like a neat little device. However, the pictures of the device reveals that the expansion slot (e.g. for CD-rom) is located on the same side as the USB port. This implies that the USB port (e.g. ethernet connection) can not be used in conjunction with the expansion slot. What a shame.

    Fear not! The expansion slot connects to the docking station.... which has a USB port! ;)

  • It also comes with a way cool overclocked powersupply, running on 50/60MHz. That's one million times faster than the 50/60Hz that usually comes out of the wall :) Way to go!

  • No single news service will ever report all stories first. The original point of Slashdot was to get Rob Malda's editorial slant on the news. It's cool that a lot of stuff is reported here before I'd see it anywhere else, but when I want to follow a particular issue closely, I make a point of reading closer to the source! When you want blow-by-blow details on Micro~6 abuses and remedies, look at the appropriate site [msboycott.com]. I count on getting stories about the latest game console stuff from Slashdot -- eventually -- because it doesn't matter whether a few days go by before I skim past that kind of news.

    You obviously still read Slashdot. Go easier on the people who run it. You can criticize the site without bashing it.

  • Ethernet (Score:5)

    by dew ( 3680 ) <david@week[ ]org ['ly.' in gap]> on Tuesday April 18, 2000 @10:29PM (#1124491) Homepage Journal
    How do you wire this puppy to the Net? There are very cheap USB Ethernet interfaces. Here's one at Buy.com [buy.com]. $36 to hook this baby up to the Net is not too bad methinks. =)

    HELL-OOO portable server! =) Just plug 'er into the wall and the 'Net and you're good to go. If something goes wrong, plug it into the TV and pop the keyboard on. (Wiggling with excitement) AWESOME!

    David E. Weekly [weekly.org]

  • Seems to me the only thing missing from this unit is a kicking 3D card. Lan parties would never be the same after this baby hit the streets, all you would need is a monitor farm.

    I'm looking to build a new game system, and I would love having one that fit in my backpack.

  • Re:Best feature (Score:3)

    by kevin lyda ( 4803 ) on Wednesday April 19, 2000 @02:53AM (#1124493) Homepage
    actually i think you're getting more if you're not getting windows, but yes, you're correct. :)
  • But what's the price difference with or without an OS? In other words, is there a Windows tax?
  • I experimented with changing it because so many of you idiots were too stupid to get the joke, so if you want to claim credit on that basis...:-)
  • "I'm doing it because I want to, not because you tell me to"

    How perceptive of you to realise that my actions are, and will be, governed by me, and that any correlation between my actions and your wishes is merely coincidental.
    You weren't planning on taking credit for any of my previous sig changes, were you?

    On a related note, I have relatives that will be 13 in a few years, and our exchanges are no doubt excellent preparation for that, so I suppose you have been of some service, and for me not to thank you would be as poorly mannered as you, so, thank you for having been of service.

  • Thank you for quoting one of my young relative's favorite movies, reminding me of how pointless and fruitless it is to argue with children.
  • No really, punning aside if I take the screen, keyboard and other 'external' junk off my IBM Thinkpad 600E what I'm left with could probably be packaged inside a mid-sized cell phone. With a little ingenuity it could be crammed inside a package small enough to be just a fat spot in the power cord. What good is a tiny PC if you have to rely on someone leaving a monitor and a keyboard laying around?

  • w/o an integrated ethernet you would have to use the USB ethernet adaptors out there (but will these USB adaptors be available for Linux?)

    a box w/o a connection is like a TV w/o cable ;-)
  • Your other mistake:
    it says in huge purple letters that it WILL run Linux.
  • I have a laptop. (Well, several [sinasohn.com], actually.) I have a big monitor, external keyboard and mouse, and a docking station at home. Same at my main client's office. But I also use it on the train to and from client sites, here in bed (where I am now), in my Land Rover, at my Dad's place, etc. I even sat in the hospital while my Dad recovered from his stroke [sinasohn.com] and worked.

    But not everyone does that. There are a lot of people who need a portable computer, but don't need to pay for, or carry, a relatively large laptop just so they can have a screen and keyboard.

    They drive to and from work, don't lie in bed ignoring the beautiful woman next to them while they read Slashdot, maybe don't even turn on a computer at home if they don't have to. (Deviants!)

    My client has a bunch of "support notebooks" that people carry home to be able to dial in if necessary when they're on call. Something like this would be much better -- they could take one of these home in their pocket and connect it to their own monitor and keyboard when necessary.

    There are huge advantages to being able to have the same setup at home and at work -- having your e-mail, your bookmarks, various files, etc. -- but if you only ever work at your desk (at home and at the office), why not just set up a monitor/keyboard/mouse at each location and shuttle the CPU back and forth?

    No, it's not a replacement for a laptop for those who use a laptop creatively and in varying locations, but it is an alternative for those who simply need their data in more than one regular location.

    P.S., this isn't a new concept. Going back about 8-10 years, there was a computer called (iirc) the Brick sold by (iirc) Ergo (if you've got one, I'd love to have one in my collection!) that was basically the same thing, albeit much larger. And going back even further, computers such as the Apple IIc were touted as "portables", but you needed a monitor at each location.

  • No no no, don't think portable screen:

    Think headset.

    And one-handed chording keyboard in the pocket.

    You'll look like a perv, with your hand moving in there, but you can live with it.
  • Does it run Linux? FreeBSD? InsertYourReligionHere?

    To find out, I started here: the manufacturer's website [saintsong.com.tw]

    What I expected was to spend a few minutes digging around, finding what chipsets it used for various components, comparing with the hardware compatibility lists [redhat.com] for my particular sect of Penguin Worship [redhat.com]

    What I did not expect to find was, in big bold purple letters, "Run Windows 2000/98/NT, Linux".

    Not once, but twice. (Although not so big and purple the second time.)

    It's also got an S-Video port, which purports to support both NTSC and PAL, and comes with an adapter for composite video output.

    And 3D sound.

    And 4mb of video memory, support 1280x1024x16.7M and 1600x1200x256.

    Yikes. This thing is damn near perfect, considering it's not a Transmeta processor.

    Hell, it's more powerful than my server. In fact, I ran an ISP once on far less box than this, serving thousands of customers.
  • For your information: AWE (http://www.awe-gmbh.de [awe-gmbh.de]) will be the German distributor of the Espresso PC. I talked with them yesterday, they will start shipping it in May.

    ------------------
  • This is REally Really cool, but what use is it?
    a pc that is small. ooooh-kay. if it ran off of a single +12V supply I coud see some uses... but It uses a multiple voltage supply. I'd rather have a regular pc that I can UPGRADE.
  • I'm sorry, but you're pulling this out of your ass. Is it possible you're right? I guess. But you have absolutely no way to prove this, and you are wrong about some of your statements. There is nothing random about the selection of the pilot on your flight, nor, for that matter, the rest of the pilots up in the sky with you. They are carefully selected professionals, who generally take their jobs very seriously. If they don't, the FAA is all over them like white on rice. They have sophisticated radar, and accident investigations to prevent repeated errors.... I could go on. Compare this with driving: No one on the road is tested or screened worth a damn (at least not in the US). So what you have is essentially random drivers next to you on the road. If a driver has a demonstratably horrible driving record, you're lucky if the DMV even confiscates their license. What more is many of these supposedly suspended drivers still drive. Add to this 18-wheelers, and truckers who are not quite all there (ever seen some of those double logging trucks in washington state?), soccer moms in 4 ton SUVs on the cell phone driving 20 miles over the limit swerving into the opposing traffic, pot holes, blind free way onramps, etc. I could see your arguing this if you live in like bummfuck north dakota (where you can be virtually alone on a road), but if you live in a major city, it is really hard to deny the risks.

    I am a good driver. I am defensive driver. I live in philly. I know I increase my safety significantly, but having driven on I76 and numerous other roads often, I know that I only have so much control. I've seen little imports with absolutely no escape route (sometimes it simply is impossible to avoid, other than not driving at all) get crushed by truckers. I am not foolish enough to think that even my driving is safer than flying on a major jet airliner (as opposed to those commuter and charter flights)

  • The problem I have with the Empeg is that it's not as fully upgradable & customizable as I'd like it to be. Plus, it's pretty damn expensive. I'd (and others, I'm sure, would) rather throw together my own MP3 player.
  • You can purchase a Book PC for $225.00 from National Computer, ph 316-682-9400

  • Need to look a little more closely at the fine print. The power supply is 15V and 3A. That's what acutally plugs into the port labled "DC IN"

    Not 110AC. That's just what the supplied transformer likes.
  • Hehehehehehe, you said "one-handed chording keyboard in the pocket."
  • OK,

    With an Ethernet <-> USB adapter and a cheap LCD screen this would make a v. cool portable net appliance...

    Going around the world? Road Trip? Take this baby with you (and a digital camera). Upload the pics from the camera via USB. Muck about with your pics on the mini PC, then upload them at a friendly Internet Cafe (which would have to provide an ethernet port...)

    I agree with Rob tho' It really needs a battery.

    Just remember folks, I've copyrighted the idea of Internet Cafes that provide a large screen, power and an ethernet or USB/net port to plug these guys into...

    Saying that, In a couple of years we'll have these things a tenth of the size built into rucksacks. Mmmm, PC, USB, GPS, WebCam in a rucksack? Geek-tastic!

    :-)
  • Imagine if it could make a double espresso AND browse the web at the same time. Now that'd be perfect PC for caffeine addicts like me.


    --
    GroundAndPound.com [groundandpound.com] News and info for martial artists of all styles.
  • So basically you can carry this beastie around and plug it into any video display and compute, but you still need a keyboard (and probably a mouse). So: does anyone make a compact, collapsable keyboard like the ones for the Handspring and Palm?

    I recall seeing a minimouse somewhere...

    Kevin Fox
  • Go intel's site about the 810 chipset. It has a built-in graphics adapter with decent 3d capabilities. Performance is like a TNT. Nothing to rave about, but still able to play most of todays 3d games.
  • ...and a battery. I should read the whole thing before I post, duh (you should too, and save us a flame war or too :).

    Espresso slung from one side of my belt, AC generator from another... getting a little more clunky. Think I'm gonna have to start wearing a hand truck.
  • One of the pricing options is no OS at an $83 difference. It's nice to see a device like this Window$ Tax-free :)
  • This thing is crying for a HMD and Twiddler :)
    It might be just a tad clunky, hard to tell from the pictures, but I think I could live with it.
  • The strength of slashdot used to be that news that matters to nerds appeared on it within minutes after publication elsewhere.

    I suspect the number of submitted newsworthy items has grown too large to give every item a serious chance of proper review. I submitted something last sunday (a very quiet day, only a handfull of new items on slashdot). At least I thought it was relevant but the people at slashdot apparently thought otherwise. My item was 'declined' within minutes after submitting, as were 387 others (at least that was the number of items in the queue). And again, there was not much going on at slashdot at that time.

    So the only conclusion is that slashdot is getting out of sync with what's going on. It's taking longer for relevant stuff to appear and relevant things sometimes do not appear at all. Both things are bad and need to be addressed.

    One option might be to use user reviewing of item submissions similarly to the way the forums are moderated. A moderation treshold could be used to prevent from less newsworthy stuff from appearing.
    I know this has been suggested before so It will probably not happen this time either.

    A second option is to appoint more reviewers. Rather than letting each reviewer review any incoming submission, it would be a good idea to use a sorting mechanism (for instance by letting the users pick a category when submitting e.g. linux, java, ms trial, quicky, etc.).
  • The people who make my tiny keyboard [pfuca.com] (PFUCA) also make a small server called the netbox [pfuca.com] running Linux. The company website has pictures [pfuca.com] of Linus checking out clusters of them.

  • Best feature (Score:5)

    by FascDot Killed My Pr ( 24021 ) on Wednesday April 19, 2000 @01:17AM (#1124520)
    Here's the coolest feature (from the "config and order" page):

    Choice #3 for "Operating System" is: None - pre-formatted HD only (-$83)

    Yep, people are starting to get it. Not only do I want to be able to buy a "blank" computer, but I want to PAY less when I GET less.
    --
  • Man, if someone would make one of these buggers with a decent 3D accelerator (3dfx, NVidia, heck, even a Rage128 wouldn't suck), and slap a 10/100 network port on it, it'd be damn near perfect to take over to your friend's house for LAN gaming fun. 'Specially with a nice flat-panel screen. (Hmmm... I'm kinda talking about a laptop again though, I guess)

    But still. Granted, you can get 10mb USB ethernet adaptors, but is it *really* so jam-packed they couldn't squeeze one in?

    And just why is it that none of the laptop makers never slap a decent video chip in their designs? I'm guessing size, power consumption, heat dissipation, some combination of those three.

    Ah well, for now, my VAIO's got Mandrake, and a small partition for Win98; works great for Diablo, should work just as great for Diablo II, don't need the 3D for those, at least :)

    (Oh, and here's a link straight to the product page [saintsong.com.tw] for the terminally lazy, save yourself a click)
    --

  • I submitted this to ArsTechnica instead of /. ... (Score:4)

    by figa ( 25712 ) on Tuesday April 18, 2000 @10:28PM (#1124522) Journal
    because /. has been so lame lately. That AskJeeves thing has been around for days.

    You know where I found the Espresso? I found it in an ad in this month's Computer Shopper.

    ArsTechnica has posted three out of the last four things I've sent them. /. hasn't posted any of my story suggestions, and given their preference for reruns, I didn't even bother.

    Rack up the hits, ArsTechnica. You've earned them!

    This is not a troll, it's a genuine complaint. /.'s overall quality has sucked hard lately.

    You heard it second at /.!

  • Make a functioning desktop PC out of laptop components and this is what you get.

    Take a small laptop, remove the screen, the battery, and magically fit in a CdRom (orDVD!) drive...

    Very intelligent - now if they made a battery that was about the same size that you could attach to the unit, and then a portable screen that could be hooked up, etc, you could have a really nice modular laptop system - Think Lego!


    adrien cater
    boring.ch [boring.ch]

  • other components (Score:3)

    by adrien ( 26080 ) on Tuesday April 18, 2000 @10:07PM (#1124524) Homepage
    does anyone know of other small stuff to go with this thing?

    Palm bought a foldable keyboard design from a company called Think Outside [thinkoutside.com] which, if it could be hooked up, would be the perfect companion from something like this.

    A portable display??? Anyone? Teeny LCD?

    OK, then Sony makes these goggle [sony.com] things - but they seem really expensive...

    And then, outside of lugging around a car battery, anyone know of any nice power supply solution that might work with this thing?
    VST makes a firewire RAID [vsttech.com] that can run off powerbook batteries (or maybe just as a backup source???) So something might be hackable by a skilled and brave geek with a soldering iron...

    Break the 1 box tyranny of laptops! Think modular. break it up into seperately usable parts. I wish that my powerbook screen was detachable and could be used with my linux box, for instance. Why have two screens on my desk?

    this type of thing is definately the future. why make things big???


    adrien cater
    boring.ch [boring.ch]
  • I'm still looking forward to the day when transmeta based portables are available. Mmmm many hours of constant use...

    OK. You go for Transmeta, I'll go for an ARM CPU. Lower power consumption and faster processing, so even more hours of constant use for me.

    Nick (who's expecting to be moderated down by somebody whose God is Transmeta).
  • So instead of a perv playing with his twiddler, you're now staring blankly talking to nobody. I suppose at least the latter doen't get you arrested...
  • ...
    >If tiny computers catch on, it's going to be the exact opposite -- airplanes will be the only safe way to travel

    Some of us use palm 7s ... (and others use similar equipment) ... I've yet to be in a car wreck. If your suggestion is that this will allow the average person to use a wireless device ... I suggest you relook at the palm 7s (at least). It was convenient having the wireless with me this past weekend, as an online yellow-page section was a godsend. (As was the white pages, come to think of it). And since I wasn't the driver ...

    I think it is a mistake to assume that people will use these wireless/portable machines when they are driving.
  • >Yu, the Espresso has a main power supply. Even soccer mum (?) doesn't have a mains supply in her car, typically.

    Two observations here. Given enough hacking and time, *someone* will come up with a battery solution. And, in all likelihood, the company selling espresso won't be too far behind in producing a battery solution.

    Secondly ... for about $50-$100, you can buy power inverters for your car. I use my laptop from my car (when not driving, dammit!) all the time ... and it is "plugged into" my car.

    I've seen power inverters that provide enough wattage to powerup a monitor ...
  • I work catering to local goverment agencies that are either hampered by too little IT support or too much "support" from IT departments that are more focused on managing their own workload than anything else. Selling computers into this market is a nightmare; they are accustomed to buying equipment though -- lab stuff, field equipment, even aircraft. But buying computers and especially servers seems to create a huge and irrational decision process.

    When we switched from the Newton to the Palm Pilot, making sales was like night and day, because the pilot was perceived as equipment -- not information technology.

    Ditch USB and put a PC card slot in these guys and they'd be a godsend. In fact, I'd put wireless network cards in the (look ma -- no LAN!) and configure the server and all the workstations as cute little appliances. Hell, I could even fly this under procurement specifications for NT or Novell everywhere and deploy on Linux if I wanted to.
  • I have a decstation, which is the largest of my computers, and probably weighs in at 50 pounds. Likewise, I know people that vax machines weighing much more. There is a certain comfort in knowing you can't pocket my box. :-) Can you imagine school's using this? A small amount of people can pocket an entire computer lab in a few minutes.

    Wazzup!!!!!
  • I got to work on the Monorail in Atlanta. Great idea. Awful implementation. The marketing should have been much better IMHO. I've still got mine. The biggest problem that I had was the lack of a NIC. Wow, I didn't think that anyone ever even saw one of those. I know this is off-topic, but it's really cool to see someone that has actually used a product that I helped build.

  • BookPC (Score:2)

    by cr0sh ( 43134 )
    This may be what you want...

    http://www.directron.com/bookpc.html
  • does anyone make a compact, collapsable keyboard like the ones for the Handspring and Palm.
    You might prefer this:
    Happy Hacking keyboard [pfuca.com]. I gotta get one of those.. :)
  • How about a clean, simple and portable server that can be taken to a clients intranet and logged into using one of their standard PCs and which can then be used for demonstrating prototypes and the like at ethernet speed...

    all we need to do is work out how to get an ethernet adaptor hooked up to it and....

  • Done (Score:1)

    by Betcour ( 50623 )
    It RUNS without problem - it is just a regular PC with Intel 810 chipset (which includes both audio and video onboard). This is what is cool with this unit : standard PC, no compromise.
  • They point out that you can by a small LCD to go with it too, but the LCDs seem kind of expensive, even the "budget" LCDs, of course I'm not sure of the currency conversion rate. My question is, of course, why does everything have to be nice? I have an old Monoral PC with a really cheap LCD screen (the whole computer clocked in at under $1000) and it was good enough to get work done. Now though, if you want to by an LCD monitor it has to be nice (and expensive). I mean, I'd like to see a cheap, servicable LCD to go with a cheap, servicable computer. Like the $385 one that ibuypower has advertised here. [ibuypower.com] Or I could use the LCD to go with the Pocket EPC System or Book PC (I mean, I could leave the cheap LCD at work and hook the thing up to my good monitor when I got home, etc.)

    Oh well, I guess the best Idea is to buy a Pocket EPC, take the guts out of it, crack open the Monorail, take the guts out of that and combine them in to a Frankestein computer....

    o/~ It's a B movie, it's a B movie show o/~

    Well, if I ever get money to start a project, that is... ;_;

  • Still, it would have been better with built-in ethernet.
    Or even better, support for an optional wireless ethernet card (like Apple's Airport)

    It seems that having to carry around adapters (USB->ethernet), wires, etc around defeat the purpose of it being so small in the first place.

  • DVD? (Score:1)

    by Rix ( 54095 )
    Looks pretty cool as a set top type box, but wouldn't you want a DVD drive in it for that?
    Cheers,

    Rick Kirkland
  • On the order page, you can select Win98, Win2k, or a blank drive. Nice to see =)
    Cheers,

    Rick Kirkland
  • Read the coffee mini-howto :-)) Greetz, Cathelijne
  • Hey...i wonder if you can buy a stripped down variation of the espresso. Not even having a hard drive wouldn't be a problem...can you imagine how easily you could build clusters out of these things? And it would be different from normal clusters because the nodes would be hideously small and hopefully quiet. If you had the cash, you could cluster 20 of them together right under your desk...or even under your bed!
  • According to the company that makes it, http://www.saintsong.com.tw/it/en glish/ithome.htm [saintsong.com.tw], there is an option for a DVD drive.
  • You dont have to look like a perv! Get a Voice Recognition software, or code one up your self, and get a HMD (head mount display) that has an eye tracking mouse, a digital startack (because it's real small) so you can be online. Now if you can find a HMD that looks like semi normal sun glasses (they have those TV ones surly you can get a decent svga one as well, then get one of those mic/inner ear headphone units and you dont llok too bad, you look like an average Joe listing to a walkman with sunglasees singing along to his music.
  • > > http://www.ibuypower.com/product-pc/pocket-epc.htm

    It looks neet to me. Take a look at the photos page, they show all sides of the unit, plus it being dwarfed by it's pariferials.

    http://www.saintsong.com.tw/it/english/ithome.ht m

    Says it supports Linux.

    Power Adapter: Auto-switching.
    Input: 100V ~ 240V, 50 ~ 60Hz, 1.1A;
    Output: 15V DC, 3.0A; weighs 250g.
    That's 45W peak power draw available to the PC. Ouch...

    Some stats:

    Intel Celeron 466/500/533 MHz
    INTEL 810 series Chipset
    Integrated 4MB AGP Graphics
    Integrated 3D Wavetable Sound
    64MB SDRAM; upgradeable to 128MB
    6GB Hard Drive; upgradeable to 12GB
    Built-in Speaker
    PS/2 KB Port, PS/2 Mouse Port, Microphone Port,
    Earphone Port, USB Ports x2, External VGA Port,
    S-VIDEO Out Port
    Touch Pad & Scrolling up/down Button
    Small Docking includes: 24x CD-ROM, 1.44MB Floppy
    Drive, Serial Port, Parallel Port, USB Ports x2
    100~240V 50/60Mhz Auto Swiching AC Adapter
    Carrying Case
    Touch Pad & Scrolling up/down Button
    0.99 lb, 5.90 x 4.17 x 1.26 (LxWxH)

    Pricing: from $899.00-$1243.00

    S-Video for your M1
    Speaker and Earphone ports for use with voice recognition software.

    Some extrapolation from other products.
    I bet it sucks down about 20Watts in use.
    To me this means 16x18650 Li-Ion cells will power it for about
    4-5 hours depending on the quality of your switching power supply.
    That would end up being a pack about twice the size of the unit.

    I'd be worried about cooling.
  • Wow. Big mistake. Had a little accident and posted an email I was responding to on this site. I am sorry about that, just wanting to let you know that it wasn't my words. I got that information off of the wear-hard@have.org mailing list which discusses wearable computers, and we were discussing the usability of that unit. We have been talking about it for about three days now and have decided (or atleast I have) that it is a great unit, but eats up so much power that sticking to a PC 104 or a SBC Low power unit is alot more viable. Other than that, ideas like David Weekly's, to use it as a portable server or what not are really good. I think it would make a cool game server - like that purple Linksys (i think) unit about 6 months back. Bring it to a LAN party, slap it in - with modest games you could even run X servers for people to run games off that machine. Don't know why you would - but you could. The possibilities are endless - but I think that this isn't such a great advance. I could build you a very simmilar unit from an Advantech Single Board PC - using standard Celeron CPU, a rise card, any graphics card - it has an AGP slot and all off the shelf units. It would be cheaper too. They even sell a case. A build it your own Espresso . . .

    http://www.advantech.com/products/sbc/pcm-9574.h tm

    there's even one with scsi (5.75 * 8 inches)

    http://www.advantech.com/products/sbc/pcm-9570.h tm

    The site does not list their prices - but other units cost about 400 dollars, so this one would probably be about 550. Pretty good price - and its all pretty standard stuff so you have compatability and expandability.

  • Base Price: $899.00
    Maxed Out: $1243.00

    Maxed Out:
    Intel 810 Chipset Mini Board
    Intel Celeron 533 MHz
    128 MB SDRAM
    12GB Super Slim Hard Drive
    Integrated 4MB Video
    Integrated 24x CD-ROM Drive & 1.44MB Floppy Drive
    Integrated 3D Sound
    Built-in Speaker
    Built-in Touch Pad
    Win 2k Pro
    Standard 1 Year Limited Warranty

    --
  • A PC Card Slot would be convenient, wouldn't take up too much room, and you could have that Ethernet or well .. whatever you want :)

    --
  • Just so you know, airplanes are a LOT safer than cars right now... Check the stats. =)

    dB

  • It's the best Mp3 car player (Score:4)

    by Segador ( 65111 ) on Tuesday April 18, 2000 @11:32PM (#1124549)
    I think that's its better use. You have AC, have mic, have sound... (I think in a voice controled mp3 player i saw in freshmeat..) And when you wan to load it, just take it with you to home and plug it thru USB or parallel to your linux box. PERFECT!!!
    Other use (almost here in spain with expensive connections) is take it to work and download anything to it using the FAST T1 connection...!!
    Pretty gooood.


    ==
    That's the time harvesters,that's the time to be care
    get back all this people, so ostentatious and arrogant.
  • (maybe I'm taking a joke seriously, but...)

    Yu, the Espresso has a mains power supply. Even soccer mum (?) doesn't have a mains supply in her car, typically.

    May I remind you that laptops (which will run in a soccer mum's car) have been around for a few years now.

    Rob.
  • Yah, I'm still looking forward to the day when transmeta based portables are available. Mmmm many hours of constant use... heh. I'm wondering what's taking them so long. I figure that the market is ready for something that has helluh long battery life. I just hope that it wont be too expensive.
  • All prices include insurance at replacement value and are for shipments within the Continental US.
    Cost of overnighting bare Espresso: $11.36

    Cost of overnighting Dell Latitude: $27.19

    Cost of overnighting Dell Optiplex G1: $62.71

    But the real acid test is this: Overnighting round trip from a regional office, in this case Toronto.
    Cost of overnighting bare Espresso: $26.92

    Cost of overnighting Dell Latitude: $58.12

  • I work in San Francisco - half the people walking down the street are talking to themselves anyway. And the other half are on cellphones.
  • Does that mean I can play games with it to LAN parties easily?

    :)
  • Through the USB port is the best way, I assume... I can think of a lot of uses for this thing, if it can talk to stuff without Windows.
  • That's completely off-topic. Have you read the provided information about the item in question?

    There's no screen. There's no keyboard. There's no mouse. There's not even a battery. It's a portable desktop, not a laptop. You cannot use it in the car, unless you happen to have a monitor, keyboard, mouse, and power supply hanging around in the car with you.

  • Cool (Score:2)

    by precize ( 83096 )
    The system seems to be extremely well-endowed considering it's size, but what is it trying to be? A portable computer? A replacement for a tower PC? Even with all it's features, it's still no match for a desktop computer that can have 384 megs of RAM, extra expansion slots, harddrives, etc. If it's trying to be a portable computer, then the problem of a seperate, portable display comes up. Personally, I wouldn't want to carry my computer and screen around separately...

    BUT IT'S SO COOL!!!!
  • If this little gadget is all it's cracked up to be (and it certainly seems that way), might we see a whole Beowulf cluster on one person's desk in the near future?
  • 12 gigs of mp3's.... YUM! Get one of these and slap it in the glove box (so it doesn't get all hot back in the trunk). Add in a small keyboard and one of those little 9" LCD TV's for a monitor (don't need a high res screen just for mp3's!) and a trackball... run BEOS so it boots up in 20 seconds and is ready by the time I get my seatbelt on! This is gonna rule!
  • I'm holding out until there's a 1lb cell phone/palm VII/text pager/web browser/mp3 player with a 4" color screen. Did I mention that I'm not buying until I can get a 2mbps wireless connection for $15/month, heheheh. This thing does look cool, but it seems like it would be more practical for demoing things like linux to companies, imagine just plugging this little box into their network and showing them all the things they could do, then tell them that the OS is free and that they get all the source code, It would really make an impression on them how well linux runs on cheap consumer grade hardware, and how it would run even better on an ultra super mega server that costs $10,000. For now, I'm sticking to MiniDisc for my music and staying away from all types of computing while out of the house...

  • That sounds pretty cool -- it can run Linux too.


    ========
    Stephen C. VanDahm
  • Any help for people not in Auzzie/NZ who'd like to purchase a similar setup? The website with the Book PC info makes it clear that they're not available to Europe/North America.
  • Agreed, you have a valid point. A few days ago I submitted the news that the MPAA site had been DDoSed. Did it get posted? no. I thought with how hard Slashdot had been ragging on them lately it would be a shoe-in. And it wasn't getting much coverage in the main-stream media, so I hoped Slashdot might inform the citizenry who don't read hackernews.com and didn't catch the one article on ZDnet and MSNBC.

    I also agree that the information is a bit more stale by the time it reaches slashdot these days. The Espresso thing was up on ArsTechnica two days ago, I read the Ask Jeeves thing at least a month ago... I think from Ars as well, if I remember correctly.

    Let's hope what happened to Wired magazine doesn't happen to SlashDot. Wired used to be an enjoyable forum for digital technology reviews and concerns, now it's all about "new money", and slick stories. Please don't fall down that slippery slope, SlashDot! Keep to your roots!

  • Do they have a rackmount version of this?

    Think about it: No more rows and rows of racks. Just one with a few hundred of these...
  • The correct URL of the manufacturer site is here [saintsong.com.tw], with links to PDF documents.

    Since the site uses frames, the previous posters, didn't get it quite right.

    A brochure is available here [saintsong.com.tw] as well (large graphic).

  • Are you REALLY getting less? (Score:3)

    by nels_tomlinson ( 106413 ) on Wednesday April 19, 2000 @02:41AM (#1124566) Homepage
    I had a professor tell me once that "an empty bowl is more useful than a full one.". His reasoning was that you can put something into the empty one (and thus render it less useful...). By that logic, the blank harddrive option should cost at least as much as the full. (Now I have to say something bad about Microsoft.... hmmm) The manufacturers who subtract nothing for not loading windows are deducting the value of windows, not the cost.

    Seriously, I agree with you; it's great to see the option, and great to see it priced where it ought to be. Now if they would just make a non-intel, non-apple version with a G4 cpu! That's another sort of choice I'd like to see more of.

  • I'd not buy it just because on their home [saintsong.com.tw] they claim:
    "Recommanded Browser IE 4.0 or higher"

    They ought not to be serious...

    Anyway, this is a damn cool tool, and it run Linux too!
  • Anyone tried a Quake III benchmark on this monster?
    Give me a positive answer and I'll go and get it!
  • I'd love to buy one of these... but will it run BeOS?? If anyone buys one, I'd love to know if it runs Be.
  • Forget about the Sony goggles. Look at these for $499 or $399 [epinions.com]!!

    Combine that with the roll-up [thinkoutside.com] keyboard mentioned early... chills.

  • If you think this is cool, you might also like this miniature all-in-one PC [lippert-at.com]. It uses the ~1 watt (read: convection cooled) MediaGX from National Semiconductor [national.com] (originally by Cyrix). It doesn't have as much computational muscle as the Espresso, but there are a lot of applications that don't need a 400-500MHz Celeron (i.e. a router/firewall/mini house server). Plus this one comes with built in 10/100BaseT.

  • Did nobody else notice that the specs on the ibuypower.com [ibuypower.com] page indicate a 50-60MHz AC adapter? You can power it from your old 486's clock line :-)

  • The ONLY problem with this box is the lack of ethernet. A USB ethernet adaptor is only 2 Mbps, which is simply too small for a modern processor on current LANs. If it had 10/100 ethernet or a PCMCIA card slot (for an ethernet card or other option), it would become the perfect little "brick".

    With ethernet, it would make an excellent, low cost workstation when desk space is at a premium (such as our office), a GREAT low cost, high density server (you could probably fit 4 or 5 in a 1U rackmount, at least, for only $5,000 or so. Try to beat that compute/volume, storage/volume and cost/performance with any other device), and a wonderful mini server to shove in a desk drawer next to the ethernet hub.

    If it had ethernet, we would have bought at least one for our office immediately, I would suggest my sister buy one instead of a laptop (she wants a mobile machine to transport between her office and home, but not general mobility), and might have bought one for myself to replace the noisy and large services machine taking up space in my kitchen.

    But the lack of a high bandwidth networking option turns this from an effective machine into nothing more than a cute toy.

  • I'm pretty sure the manufacturer's site (linked to in many posts already) stated that when the expansion unit is attached, the USB ports are available on that unit, but the site appears to be /.-ed right now.

  • Looks like a neat little device. However, the pictures [ibuypower.com] of the device reveals that the expansion slot (e.g. for CD-rom) is located on the same side as the USB port. This implies that the USB port (e.g. ethernet connection) can not be used in conjunction with the expansion slot. What a shame.
  • ...would be the PC Chips Book PC [dansdata.com], which is also i810 based, with normal drives and RAM, so you don't have to spring for laptop componentry.

    Of course, the Book PC may be small, but it's still much bigger than the Espresso. Way cheaper, though.

  • "Pocket EPC system", "Pocket PC & docking" etc.

    Given the perchant for geeks to wear T-shirts and blue jeans where a wallet can be a challenge, calling this a "pocket PC" is stretching things a little (and I don't mean denim.) Even so, it's a great idea - if you don't need a keyboard and screen when moving from place to place, why lug them around? You could use a Palm as a console while on the move, use it as a (somewhat bulky) MP3 player etc. etc.

  • Specs! (Score:1)

    by crlf ( 131465 )
    Wouldn't it be ever so nice if they were to describe the actual hardware available for it?

    Video Chipset - Does the "4 MB AGP" video also handle the Touch Screen Display (most posts seem to have not noticed it). If so or not, It'd be sweet if someone could port/write an Xserver for it.

    Sound Chipset - Please be supported oh PLEASE be supported.

    Nevertheless, it seems to me that by giving the "NO OS" option on the pricing page, they are partially supporting alternative OSes... If someone is kind enough to send me one of these babies, I'll be sure to test it out running linux :)

  • Touch Screen Display (most posts seem to have not noticed it)

    My mistake, I misread touch pad for touch screen.

  • I'd prefer a CD writer and no floppy.
  • But this is much cuter. The BookPC looks like a small PC. The Espresso looks like it should actually be in a living room. Pricey though.
  • This is only a very bare bones system unit. The expansion unit gives it exchangeable disk drives but you need to provide your own keyboard, monitor, and mouse (unless unlike me you like touch pads). This means that it is a very portable computer as long as you have all the peripherals at each end.

    Also it seems to me that it is missing one or two items. I would have expected a 100baseT RJ45 socket for networking at least, and possibly a modem. I realise that these are possible through the USB but networking and/or on-line access are essentials these days and it is strange they are not part of the core product.

  • Linux is an option (Score:5)

    by Dhericean ( 158757 ) on Tuesday April 18, 2000 @10:06PM (#1124597)
    According to the Product information on the Manufacturer's Website [saintsong.com.tw] Linux is already an option as the operating system. It is just iBuyPower who do not seem to be offereing all the options (There is also a DVD).
  • PS - WTF is that little black area on the front? They make it look like a tiny little LCD screen, which I know it is. So what the hell is it?

    The touchpad. Not a one-character LCD screen, as in Dilbert's ring-computer. Try looking at the manufacturer's website, http://www.saintsong.com.tw/it/english/prod/espres so.htm - all the parts are nicely labelled.

  • company web site with more info (Score:4)

    by divide_by_0 ( 176557 ) on Tuesday April 18, 2000 @09:55PM (#1124610)
    the company's web site with all kinds of stats and pictures of this cute little machine is at

    http://www.saintsong.com.t w/it/english/prod/espresso.htm [saintsong.com.tw]

    the site also has links to their .pdf files

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