26 Nov
2003
26 Nov
'03
10:47 a.m.
On Wed, 26 Nov 2003, Hans Franke wrote:
You can get Pentium SBCs on eBay for dollars (or Euros if you
prefer...US$1.16 to the Euro means I'm drinking rather heathily these days
;)
--
Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival
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Because the true cost is more than just the board?
Take allone
the task of finding Disk drives that work with old computers,
large enough to hold for example the webcam pictures, and other
stuff, not to talk the Linux system - serious, the time when you
could install a full figured Server on a 100 MB drive is gone.
I still have such a system (486-133) running at home to serve
an old style mud, but even back then I had to do the setup by
hand to have enough free space ... Today, below a Gig nothing
is realy doable - except you make the installation of the sys
your task, instead of using it as a tool.
Don't be silly. First of all, a very simple minimal installation on less
than a gig is not that difficult. Second, one can always find a cheap PII
or even Celeron system (especially if one is an electronics recycler :)
Third, you can fit a large (1GB+) hard drive into a 486 without much
hassle.
These new boards are quite cheap and allow a hassle
free installation
and operation. To me, the idea is to have an invisible, reliable
appliance to manage such tasks. Think of it like a gender changeer box
Overkill...
You can find a
real small Pentium board with the same specs. In fact,
Pentium SBCs (single board computers) are real easy to get also. I have a
stack of them.
Now, they are extremly expensive in contrast. The great idea
about the VIA board is the price and the fact that everything
is on board.