Plug Computer

[Ron Murawski]

Plug Computer
http://www.ionics-ems.com/plugcomputer.html

Consumes about 5 watts
It's about the size of a small wall charger
Runs Linux on a 1.2GHz ARM processor
1GB of RAM, but 1/2 of it is NAND Flash
no hard drive, but there's a USB connector to connect externally
There's a developer's kit
Pricing is about $99US, expected to drop to $49US when produced in quantity

"It is a small, powerful computer. It plugs into the wall socket and an ethernet cable, and can run network-based services that normally require a dedicated personal computer. The plug uses low power and utilizes only a small fraction of the energy consumed by an always-on desktop computer or laptop."

"The device is meant to simplify the management of digital assets by offering PC-like performance at an inexpensive price. A software service can be bundled together with a plug computer and can be targeted at different market segments. Everyday consumers can use the plug for media sharing and backup services."

Here's a 'plug farm' with 6 computers


I can probably put one of these farms in a corner and not have my wife notice. No explanations necessary about buying lots of computers for testing...

Now let's work out how to set up these farms to test our engines!

more info:
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2351505,00.asp
http://www.marvell.com/featured/plugcomputing.jsp

[hgm]

Would be nice for running my ICS 24/7... If I can somehow compile the Chessd server for the ARM.

[jshriver]

You run your own ICS? Is it opento the public? I tried getting the "newest" available version of FICS running but it's pretty old code and didn't work well.

Is your ICSd available?

-Josh

[jshriver]

Sounds fun but $99 is a tipping point for me. You can get a Arm based SBC for around $50 by getting a Linksys router and putting custom firmware on it.

If this was released for $49 I would definitely get one.

-Josh

[hgm]

Currently I only run it one evening a month, for the on-line engine blitz tourneys.

I started with the FICS server (Chessd, Lasker 2.2.3 version), but I had to extend it for my own purposes. In the process I also removed some bugs from the old version. My version can be downloaded from

http://home.hccnet.nl/h.g.muller/capablanca.tar.gz

It installs the same way as Lasker. In addition to Chessd you need the PostgreSQL database (to maintain player list and ratings). An if you want to allow e-mail-based automatic registration, (which I don't), you would also have to run some mailer daemon to send out the e-mails.

[Fguy64]

very cool! I'm a little unclear on it's programmability, given the lack of a hard drive. presumably there is sufficient enough operating system that it can be configured to load programs from a remote source on the network?

[Gian-Carlo Pascutto]

If you can put Linux on it you can mount the rootfs over NFS and you don't need any storage.