From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Message-ID: <57428.192.11.226.116.1075860750.squirrel@www.infernopark.com> Subject: Re: [9fans] nice hardware for a cpu server From: To: <9fans@cse.psu.edu> In-Reply-To: References: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Date: Tue, 3 Feb 2004 21:12:30 -0500 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Topicbox-Message-UUID: cc6bb2b8-eacc-11e9-9e20-41e7f4b1d025 > On Mon, 2 Feb 2004 vdharani@infernopark.com wrote: > >> It would be nice to see boards with just CPU, memory, ethernet (or >> some connectivity) only that are really low cost with which one could >> do grid computing without draining too much of money. Why is it not >> happening? > > I keep looking. There is a knee in the cost curve, and it always seems > to center around PC-like boards that use the standard PC power supply > connectors -- no big surprise, right? The volume drives it all. All the > world's a PC. > > Even if you go to a 5V only board you immediately double the price. > It's really amazing. true. i liked nanoEngine from BrightStar Engineering (http://www.brightstareng.com). it is compact, can boot off flash, has 100Mb ethernet, and can support upto 64MB RAM. but the cost is much highe= r than the low-cost Walmart PC. whenever i try to find a cheap, compact board, i finally come to a conclusion that PC is a cheaper solution. i want to see a board that - has a cpu - can have memory upto 64MB - has ethernet (and the board itself can be powered from ethernet?) - is about the size of nanoEngine - costs <$50 it may seem unreasonable, but i think it is possible for atleast a funded project that needs to use grid computing. regards dharani