6 replies to this topic

[Moon Goon]

Ordered a NorhTec MicroClient Jr. a few days ago.

http://www.norhtec.c...mcjr/index.html

It's really, really small. It's really, really underpowered. Only 166mhz and 128megs of RAM. Boots by default off the CF card but has PXE support. Has an internal IDE and *maybe* enough room for a 2.5" hard drive.

I was thinking of sticking the IDE cable out of the unit and putting FreeDOS and a partition imaging utility on it. You could back up drives from failed systems without taking out the HDD! Just attach your little PC and start copying the drives.

Anyone think of other ways to use this dinky little machine?

@Nuno: Thanks for the sharp eye. I think the board inside at least has an IDE connector. I'll just have to hang an IDE cable outside the case.

[was_jaclaz]

Nice little thingy , though maybe underpowered, by today's standards.

I did something like this, at a much higher price , with an Epia mini-itx fanless board a couple of years ago.

It was for a friend that needed something like a brick PC, but it had a VIA C3 533 Mhz processor and 512 Mb RAM, it ran XP quite nicely.

We jammed the board, together with a 10 Gb 2,5" HD in an old car CD changer he had lying around, nothing really "artsy" like some other people do:
http://www.mini-itx.com/
but it did work.


I guess that with the new nano-itx form factor of 12 x 12 cm, a entire new world opens to modders.

http://www.via.com.t...ano_itx/epia_n/
http://www.via.com.t...no_itx/epia_nl/

jaclaz

[Brito]

Moon Goon, I doubt there's much room to place an hard-drive inside:

There are options to add 2.5 IDE drives, WiFi, serial ports etc. Due to space limitations internal IDE drives cannot be installed

This would be really interesting to try..

[TheHive]

Kinda limited.

What about a computer within a keyboard. A bit expensive when you add accessories. Mouse and keyboard inlcuded all you need is a screen.
http://www.cybernetm....cfm?DocId=9000

[was_jaclaz]

Yep,
but the problem with those, like selfbuilt or pre-made nano-itx or similar PC's is that for the same money you can have a notebook.

I don't particularly like the keyboard thingy, it looks to me too much Commodore 64/Amiga like, and besides the keyboard is subject to be moved, fall, etc.

For a zero footprint PC I like this kind of design:
http://www.cybernetm....cfm?DocId=8003


Have a look also at the models here:
http://www.cappuccinopc.com/

jaclaz

[Moon Goon]

Just got the unit yesterday. No drivers or manuals. No adapter for the laptop HDD connection on the motherboard. Thankfully my Google-fu was strong enough to find Sis7019 audio and Sis550 video drivers for XP. Things run very slow at 200mhz with 128megs of RAM. Think a QEMU emulating a Win XP System on an average PC. DirectX works without D3D support - no big deal there. BartPE installs but cannot fully fire up TCP/IP. Should be interesting to find uses for this

[Yorn]

I've heard Puppy Linux comes preinstalled on them, or should work fine.