No, not a typo. I didn't mean a drive-by and am not referring to political correctness. How about a fully functional personal computer, internet ready, that will fit into a drive bay of your regular desktop PC? With a motherboard about the size of a credit card?
I've built my share of small-form-factor PCs over the years, but Via's new Artigo kit is by far the tiniest–and most interesting–I've laid hands on. The $300 bare-bones kit provides the starter hardware for a fully functional PC that's small enough to fit in a desktop PC's 5.25-inch drive bay, opening up a world of geeky possibilities.
The Artigo is based on Via's Pico-ITX motherboard form factor. Via has been pushing this mobo format–which is slightly larger than a credit card–as an alternative to bigger products that use AMD's and Intel's notably faster processors. The Epia PX-branded motherboard included here uses Via's VX700 chip set and UniChrome Pro II graphics chip. The Artigo kit also includes a preinstalled 1-GHz Via C7 NanoBGA2 processor and fan.
The Epia PX is a marvel of miniaturization. Within its 10cm-by-7.2cm confines Via manages to cram in everything from a SODIMM socket (underneath) to an ethernet controller with an RJ45 jack (in the back) and support for four USB ports (up front). Oh, and you also get PATA and SATA connectors, as well as audio jacks for speakers and a microphone.
The kit retails for under $300 (one vendor is here). While the geek in me screams for one of these, the practical me says, "What in heck do I need another computer for?" On the third hand, so to speak, VIA mentions that they supply Linux drivers. Uh oh.
I wonder what I could use as a peace offering for my wife……
I was wondering if you could load several of these in a box and get some sort of a multiprocessor PC? Sort of like blade servers for the masses.
Dunno. The reviewer was talking about making the unit he built into a server, but I don’t think he was planning on stringing a bunch together.
It appears each “bay pc” would require its own operating system so you would then need to network them together.