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Mini ITX boards and flash memory
SlickShughes
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
So, I'm thinking of building a mini-pc, as a sort-of media PC EDIT the second (removed, per rules), play cds/dvds, maybe surf the web. The whole thing is inspired (well, flat out copied) from something someone mentioned in the Building Stuff thread in D&D - fitting a PC in a hollowed out NES. Here are my issues:
1. What should I look for in a mini-itx board? A cursory search at newegg and ebay shows a wide range of prices and features, the only one that I know I'll need is s-vid or composite out.
2. I've seen a few walkthroughs on the construciton of these, and it seems the biggest pain will be fitting a laptop hard drive in there. If I've got no concern about storing alot of media on it, would a large flash drive work for this?
3. Assuming 2. above, I'll need a small-ish OS to install on it. Any recomendations?
EDIT the second (removed, per rules)
(EDIT the third - fixed title to reflect current content)
1. What should I look for in a mini-itx board? A cursory search at newegg and ebay shows a wide range of prices and features, the only one that I know I'll need is s-vid or composite out.
2. I've seen a few walkthroughs on the construciton of these, and it seems the biggest pain will be fitting a laptop hard drive in there. If I've got no concern about storing alot of media on it, would a large flash drive work for this?
3. Assuming 2. above, I'll need a small-ish OS to install on it. Any recomendations?
EDIT the second (removed, per rules)
(EDIT the third - fixed title to reflect current content)
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3. You are going to want linux. Puppy Linux is a particularly good distro at running on anything and actually being usable.
On rereading of the rules, you are correct. My original request was (I thought) in a legal grey area, but the rules thread is clear on this, so I've excised the offending portion. I'm still curious about the rest though.
Perhaps a combination: USB drive running the OS, SD card reader to expand storage as needed?
Looking at #1 I'd say you definitely want Gigabit ethernet (for streaming media/files from places) and you want to make sure that it will boot a USB stick, which I'd imagine every motherboard does these days.
When I was thinking of doing something similar I was going to put some of the stuff in a ROB robot (or any other peripheral really) to save space. Makes it harder to move around, but you can fit more stuff in there.
Check out mini-itx.com and epiacenter (google it) for your motherboard specs.
Some of the newer mini itx boxes have sd slots on them, others you'll need an ATA/IDE to SD converter.
They can easily run XP with no problem, and it's what a lot of people end up using.
Just PM Me if you've got any questions about which board to buy.
I know they can run XP, but I was thinking about saving space by not using a HDD, and while I suppose you could put XP on a flash drive given a large enough one, I don't know if it's worth the cost of a drive that size.