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Linux Software

Linux on a SIMM 87

Posted by CmdrTaco from the isn't-that-cute dept.
An anonymous reader wrote in to point out that the uclinux project has an interesting little device on its website. Its the size of simm and runs Linux. Costs about $175 and has chips for ether, an LCD panel, 2mb of flash RAM and 8 megs of DRAM. Very cute. Very little. Very cool.
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Linux on a SIMM More

Linux on a SIMM

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  • Does anyone know if the processor could handle a 100baseT connection?
    Not a chance. I'd be surprised if it could saturate 10bT, let alone 100.

    I'm looking forward to setting one up as a dialup router, though...

    Matthew.

  • 1. Find out where your local dead laptops go when they die.

    2. Get ahold of one (a cheap '486 with enough memory) that has a busted display (or keyboard) but that has external keyboard and/or display jacks.

    3. Plug in an external monitor and/or keyboard temporarily in order to install an OS (a BSD or Linux). Plug in a PC-card ethernet card to connect to it.

    4. Plug in an external modem (or use a PC Card modem).

    5. When it's all set up, unplug the monitor and keyboard. Connect to it over ethernet to make use of and control it.

    6. Duct tape it to the bottom of your desk, or put it in the closet.

    There should be a lot of laptops with busted displays out there languishing in a repair depot somewhere. Anything that's a 486 or better can make a nice remotely-accessed server in this fashion.
  • I have a 386 33mhz with a 250MB hard disk running linux, using it as a dialup router with ip masq. Works great, but it would be nice to have a smaller one. (I want a router that's smaller than my modem :)
  • A Man after my own heart...

    I would really like to build a small low power Linux box that I could leave on all the time at home.

    After looking around for something small and low-power that I could afford, I gave up and did as someone else suggested. I used a laptop with a dead screen.

    I actually have 4 laptops all (more or less) the same -- my main one and three others I bought used. One I bought had a busted screen, but I bought it for the memory/battery/power supply.

    When I wanted to set up a linux box to serve as my internet gateway, I dug it out, popped the drive into one of my others, loaded linux, and stuck the drive back into the one with the broken LCD. I used one of my SlimSCSI's to connect to a CD-ROM drive to load Linux; it now has two PCMCIA ethernet cards in it.

    It's a 486DX2-50 with 8mb of memory and a 340MB hard drive. I think you really need about 500mb, but I managed to fit everything. 8MB of RAM is enough, but I wouldn't complain about more.

    By putting the hard drive into another laptop, I was able to use that screen and keyboard, but you could also use an external monitor. In production, it sits on 4 plastic soda bottle caps (for better ventilation) on a shelf in the corner. I have it hooked up to a six-port OmniView switch box, so I can use the exact same monitor/keyboard I'm using right now to work it. I can also telnet to it from any other computer on the network, or from the outside (I have a DSL connection.)

    Anyway, it works great, and a working 486 laptop with a broken screen shouldn't be too expensive. Have fun!

  • Well, I've gotten a 486DX2/50 running Linux decoding at 22.05KHz, mono... Had to disable damn near all the background processes though (updated, klogd, etc..)... Command line of mpg123 -m2 or something, forget what exactly it was.
  • Yep.. and they have a flash rom development tools directory that says "don't touch.. not ready yet" there just to taunt us!@#!

  • Re:Nope (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Well it's very simple, as has been discussed on the uCsimm mailing list, use an external MP3 decoding chip and DAC. Processing power is not an issue!
  • It's not the transport, no, but lots of people over here consider buying parts from America at the cheap prices they are over there, and getting them shipped. Thing is it costs an absolute fortune to get computer parts shipped across the Atlantic, rendering such a cost-saver useless...
  • Apologies. I hit "reply" and typed my reply. I got off coding some other thing and went on my lunchbreak. When I got back from lunch, I hit submit. Maybe if you click on my user info and check some of the other comments I have written in the past, you'd find that they tend to be fairly relevent. At any rate, thanks for the flamebait!
    To all: sorry for having to post this here, as I seem to be lacking an E-Mail address to send this message privately.

    ~GoRK
  • The Apple Newton Message Pad 2000 had a 166Mhz StrongArm chip and that was ages ago in computer time. :)
  • How many times a month does this need to end up on /. - this is the ucsimm, we all know the ucsimm, we've seen it before. At least two times before this.

    And incedentally, it's not just the same size as a simm, it's designed to be clicked into the same single-inline-module socket as a 30 pin simm.

  • It has already been worked on and it's called Itsie. That's about 3 year old ,then developed at the Digital Western lab. Now Compaq owns it and as you know Compaq is slowly being sucked into a black hole right now, right out of existence. Hope they get their acts together.
    Yours Slippery,
    Okhra
  • I thought that one of the main reasons for the uclinux simm was for low power consumption. And USB fits in with low power where?
  • And do away with cards and slots altogether? The only necessity to have cards and slots in a big chassis is for manufacturers to have some standard to build to and not have to retool. Whatever you can't build onto the MB should be packaged in a SIMM or DIMM. In fact do away with all of the external connectors as well and run everything through USB.
  • I have my suspicions about an 18MHz processor being able to handle a 100BaseT connection.


    I realize that; that's one of the many things that would make this a variant :).


    I'd like to see someone integrate an ARM core and a couple of ethernet controller cores on a die for use in a module like this.

  • Isn't this the third time this site has been featured in /. ????? Geesh.
  • This, and some of the other demos at the Real Time Linux session at the recent Linux World, were the most impressive things I saw.
  • Didn't we just have an article predicting tiny computers built at molecular level?

    Looks cool though - maybe they'll actually be small enough that you wouldn't have to pay ENORMOUS charges to get one shipped across the Atlantic. Perhaps this sort of thing really could precipitate international computer sellers so everyone outside the US won't have to pay enormous amounts for parts...
  • I just finished setting up an old Pentium as a firewall. It would be nice to be able to use something that doesn't take up as much closet space :).


    If they make a version of this that can handle two or more network interfaces at 100 Mbit, I'm sold.

  • Not to be picky or anything, but this news goes way back [slashdot.org] .

  • Well, even though this story was posted before, it's still a really cool project. I saw their presentation at the Ottawa Linux Symposium, and it's way cool. The page posted on the main page is ABANDONNED and you should look at the project here: www.rt-control.com [rt-control.com] They've got a lot of new cool stuff going on that's not mentionned on the dead page.
  • kinda sounds like the stuff they sell at jumptec.com
  • I am, as the subject says, ignorant of what this means. Besides the novelty value of having Linux on such a small/low-power device, what good is this? Should this appeal to Joe Average Linux user, and if so, why?


  • This item was covered as uCSimm news [slashdot.org] back when it was fresh.
  • This exact same device was posted on slashdot on 6/31/99 (by CmdrTaco himself), and 6/6/99 (by Justin)...

    The 6/31/99 reposting didn't bother me because it was a listing of a number of miniaturized computing devices, but this repost adds no new info whatsoever.


  • I would really like to build a small low power Linux box that I could leave on all the time at home. The main problem is fan noise. Obviously this and other slightly less extreme solutions could offer that. However as someone who is not a very hardcore programmer and not too keen to part with my money I would also like to be able to use a fairly standard distribution and to pay something like standard x86 prices (all those tiny embedded boards seem incredibly expensive). Does anyone have any ideas? Underclocking perhaps? The main problems I imagine are the power supply, the processor and the hard disk. Suggestions on any would be most welcome. For my purposes I would not need to run X on it but would want full internet connectivity and perhaps reasonable performance running a scanner and printer.
  • If it's fast enough and easy enough to add memory to these things or maybe even an interface for those nifty little postage stamp memory cards then this would make a really cool mp3 player. Since it's a general purpose computer it's ability to play ANY mp3 ANY number of times cannot be compromised by the RIAA (SDMI Level 2...grumble..grumble). So what if it won't play "officially sanctioned music", who cares? Muhahahahaaaa!

  • Nope (Score:1)

    by voidptr ( 609 )
    Sorry, it's a 16Mhz Dragonball (Same as the Palm Pilots). No where near enough compute power to do mp3 decoding.
  • This news item has appeared 3 or 4 times now on slashdot! Remember that stupid commercial for "Triples" cereal where the people did a "triple-take" ... ? Kind of like what I feel like!!!

    ~GoRK

  • I wouldn't say that it appeals to Joe Average, but it is good for building small, dedicated boxes.

    For example, previous posters mentioned dedicated MP3 players and firewalls. I might use it to control small electronic devices (like an X10 server, perhaps, just as an example) or some such nonsense.

    Basically, I think it would be cool to have a small, low power device that runs an OS I'm familiar with (and use on my desktop) -- that way, I can add new functionality and operate the silly thing with my existing knowledge.

    --
    QDMerge [rmci.net] 0.21!
  • Um, besides the fact that Linux's USB support is less than dismal at the moment, how are you going to find a USB controller for that particular CPU? This isn't x86-land where everything just works.

    - A.P.
    --


    "One World, One Web, One Program" - Microsoft Promotional Ad

  • if you're a terrorist you can use a ruggadized version of this SIM as your embedded controller for simple "smart" RPG's,or a crude cruise missles system, etc.
    This doesn't do anything that a PC-104 system wouldn't do, and you can certainly get more power in an x86-based system.
    hack this together with a GPS system
    Civilian (non-aircraft) GPS has about a 250 MPH "speed limit" built into it; it won't maintain lock over that speed. Makes it hard to navigate missiles with it.
  • I don't remember the exact alphabet-soup designation, but isn't the DragonBall the same processor used in the Palm Pilot? I believe it's a Motorola 68000-series processor.

    I also recall seeing a version of gcc that worked on this processor. I downloaded and played with it a little bit using a Palm emulator and the ROM image from my friend's Palm III. It seemed to work just fine.
  • That's just a mirror, and one that's hardly ever up at that.

    - A.P.
    --


    "One World, One Web, One Program" - Microsoft Promotional Ad

  • my newton mp130 is also a strongarm i belive. the newton line is easily the best series of palmtops ever produced. its horrible that i finally had to give it up for for a windows ce machine after apple repurchased the spinoff newton technologies then killed it.

    oh and hey 3com. i dont want to learn how to write again, i went through that agony once in the first grade. thanks though.

    b

  • Netwinder (Score:2)

    by Gleef ( 86 )
    Go to Rebel.com [rebel.com] and get yourself a Netwinder [rebel.com]. They are small, cost "something like standard x86 prices", and as far as I know, completely fanless. They use a low power StrongARM processor, and if I remember correctly, just use a standard 9V DC power adaptor as its power supply. The whole thing runs in 15 Watts.

    ----
  • Ive always hated the palm pilot, but maybe thats because I could never aford one (yea donations accepted if you want to change my mind). This device could be the new wave of hand-geld portable comunications devices. Imagine your next Digital Cellular phone ran totaly by linux... Dreams do come true, or am I just in wonderland? Hay were's Alice
  • PC Power and Cooling http://www.pcpowercooling.com/ has a whisper line of power supplies that are VERY quite. They are bit pricier that bargain basement power supplies, but not to expensive. Buy one of these and replace your existing power supply. You can also get large passive heat sinks for most CPU's.
  • If this is going to be in embedded applications, USB isn't useful right now. Most interesting devices like sensors, modems and GPS units etc. all run on RS232. I'd like to see more serial support; the I2C can be handled with bit-twiddling.

    But at $175 I can get cheaper PC/104 modules from Taiwan that do the same sort of thing.

    Vik :v)

    http://olliver.penguinpowered.com [penguinpowered.com]
  • whats the best proxy/firewall package for linux?
  • Was there really a 6/31/99 posting?
  • The 6/6/99 post was a repost! The original was on 4/7/99 [slashdot.org].
  • clock speed is a *very* poor indicator of power. Take the Microchip PICs for instance. a 4MHz device is 1 MIPS due to its RISC nature which allows almost all opcodes to execute in one cycle. Unfortunately there aren't things like MULs or floating point -- it's all done in software.

    16MHz *sounds* like a lot but how many oscillator cycles does it take to produce ONE processor cycle? And how many processor cycles does it take to execute a given opcode? Remember that not all opcodes execute in the same amount of time on most processors.

    So no, this can't do Mpeg decode, which is a very heavy floating point kind of thing to do. Give it a cheap ass DSP to help it and you'd fly though. :-)

    Andrew
  • Too bad there's no way to delete a post like this. Oh well (sigh)...

    -ElJefe
  • If I am not mistaken decoding an MP3 uses floating point, and I recall something like a '50Mhz pentium' needed to decode an mp3 in real time, faster if you want to do anything else besides. [from imperfect memory cells]

    A dragonball (68349) is a CPU32+ core and does no floating poing [in hardware].
  • I have my suspicions about an 18MHz processor being able to handle a 100BaseT connection. It does take some CPU to do any sort of useful firewall work, unless of course you are just using that connection and utilizing only a fraction of the available bandwidth.

    Does anyone know if the processor could handle a 100baseT connection?

  • Yep. (Score:2)

    by Fastolfe ( 1470 )
    Yep. It mentions that on the site along with the fact that you can experiment with their OS code using the copilot Pilot emulator.
  • wise up jackass this is the third comment berating posters on complaining about reposting the article. dammit im tired of seeing these posts complaining about posts!!!!!
  • Indeed, decoding mp3s apparently takes a lot of power behind the action.. can't get slow, cheesy processors to do it (60 mHz? can't remember)

    anyway

    I was just wondering: Why does decoding mp3s require floating point? What exactly does that mean?

    I'm just curious here... thanks

  • And TINI is still cheaper ... (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Although it runs Java instead of Linux, TINI (see http://www.ibutton.com/TINI/ [ibutton.com]) is cheaper (US$50 vs US$175 for uClinux). Like the uClinux, it has a 10BT port and a serial port, but TINI also has other interfaces. For simple embedded tasks, TINI appears to be better suited, although perhaps not as flashy or trendy as uClinux.
    Final TINI hardware is supposed to be shipping this week.
    I have no connection to TINI or Dallas Semiconductor, except as an interested third party (and I'm not even a customer, although I probably will be, soon).
    P.S. -- Sorry about the AC, but /. appears to have lost/mangled/given away my login. I can't login, mailpasswd sends nothing, and mail to slashdot is ignored. What's a poor peon to do?
  • I also saw this site when slash had an article about a contest for the smallest somethin or other...
  • A lot of those parts originated in Asia. It's not the transport across the Atlantic which is causing price differences.
  • Does anyone know if the processor could handle a 100baseT connection?
    You have a 100Mbps link to the Internet?
  • Hey.. put down the soldering iron and get back to work on palm pilot linux. You can download uclinux kernels for the palm pilot emulator but they have been "working" on the flash tools for 12 months now.. finish already so someone can get to work on some leet frame buffer code and I can get PalmO$ off my palm3!

  • Note: this is not a flame, just answering the question 1) they are called beowolf clusters 2) you could probably create a beowolf cluster (with enough hacks) but the problem is that its a very slow processor with not very much ram. Beowolf clusters work best when you have a large amount of calculations which can be done between each message sent between the processors. Otherwise you just spend all your time creating network connections, and you never actually get anything done (diminishing rate of returns). Since this only has 8mb of ram, and is a slow processor, the cost for communicating via ethernet would be relatively high, and its ability to carry out complex calculations on large amounts of data would be very low. In short, it could probably be done, but you'd be much better off buying a single PC rather than a bunch of these. Doug
  • Yes! I've read this complaint that this story is a repost something like 12 or 13 times on this page alone! This complaint is a repeat complaint! You'd think that you folks have something better to do, yes?
    --
    I noticed
  • With the SIMM you could connect via ethernet to a "big" linux box in another room.
    Let the other box (we could call it "server") decode mp3's and transmit them to the SIMM-Linux.
    (I hope the SIMM is fast enough to receive data at about 160kbyte/sec ?)

    Put some knobs and a display to the SIMM and you can listen to MP3s without fan and harddisk noise.
  • would be a TI calculator deeply integrated with one of these things. :)

    both this thing and the TI-89 and TI-9X calculators are based off of the motorola 68k chips, right? it would probably be relatively easy to get them working together.

    if not, there's already a terminal emulation program for the TIs that works through a null modem.. just figure out some way to plug it into the SIMM thing.

    One interesting thing about this would be that you could actually program games in TI ASM in the SIMM, then transfer them to the calculator. Or add iridium to the mix somehow, and you've got a web server you can carry anywhere, along with a terminal to talk to the web server with.. -_-

    hey.. i can dream, can't i?
    and would somehow working in the fact that the old macintoshes were 68ks be _too_ far-fetched?
  • Delete it?! Why? I think it should be moderated up as "funny".
  • ...either "ditto.slashdot.org" or "xerox.slashdot.org" or something like that, just for reposted stories. Either that or a slashbox for reposts. At least we've fulfilled our one-a-day quota though. :P

    - A.P.
    --


    "One World, One Web, One Program" - Microsoft Promotional Ad

  • Uhh.. that'd be cachedot.slashdot.org, I imagine.

    -Chris

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