@Dan

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Surely thin clients is both more secure and cheaper(especially to maintain). And any salesman that goes around lending the customers computers ain´t gonna be very popular.

I wasn't thinking of the Saleman model where they'd borrow a customer's computer. You're right that single case isn't necessarily attractive for this use. I was more thinking of the Computer Engineers and Admins we have that are mobile. They have responsibility for everything here. We, of course, give them laptops and they can login and such. But, this might be an alternative. They snap into whatever computer is around and do what they need to do.

Of course the same could be achieved with a CD & storage device. But, there are issues. Your size is bigger. You are requiring people to install apps on a friend's computer. Which if not deleted could be jeapordizing licensing agreements. Installing programs and cleaning up is more time consum. If you had a small computer w/ OS and the apps they needed this might be an option in some instances.

@BrianK

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BrianK wrote: Of course the same could be achieved with a CD & storage device. But, there are issues. Your size is bigger.

Most usb-devices is rather small, it depends on how much storage you want. and the cd can be 3,5" or businesscard size.

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You are requiring people to install apps on a friend's computer. Which if not deleted could be jeapordizing licensing agreements. Installing programs and cleaning up is more time consum Which if not deleted could be jeapordizing licensing agreements. Installing programs and cleaning up is more time consum.

That´s why I said livecd, you just boot from the cd and save your stuff and settings to the USB-memory, nothing get´s installed. Which is exactly how this seems to work it emulates an USB-connected cd so it is bootable and then initiates a remote X11 or VNC connection over USB between the x86-linux loaded into the PCs ram and the PPC-linux running on the Blackdog.

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If you had a small computer w/ OS and the apps they needed this might be an option in some instances.

Why do you need the actual computer(cpu and ram) on the usb-device? I see no benefit if there isn´t any screen and keyboard. Especially considering that admins most of the time work with remote connections to a server or locally on the installed machine with changing settings and installing/restoring.

A better solution would be an actual small laptop/pda with wifi that could be put in "drive-mode" like the Powerbooks or Sharp Zaurus and a custom boot cd and another cd that contains execute-in-place tools.That has several bonuses especially if it had a relatively large hd because then you could do a system restore even when the network is down. And the admin could access his servers on the run with wifi, the actual specs of the thing don´t need to be anything special but it does need a real keyboard and a screen.
But most of the time even just the cds is enough when you work in your own net.

Oh and there is many warnings that this is crap, like:


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REQUIREMENTS Linux or Windows XP Operating System

So I guess that is x86-Linux, because otherwise it would work with Mac to I guess some unlucky fool running Linux on a Alpha or PPC will be unpleasantly suprised.

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© 2005 Realm Systems, Inc. The BlackDog Mobile Personal Server is proprietary technologydeveloped by Realm Systems, Inc. and is patent pending. All Rights Reserved.

Shows great commitment to opensource....

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$50.000 grand prize

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The worlds first linux server that will take you for a walk.

And notice the "cool" studs on it in the pdf-flyer. It will "take you for a walk" all right....
Trawling /. for fools with money to burn.

@BigBentheAussie

I'm sorry, but I get annoyed when people do the "hey, look at what those guys did, why aren't you able to do this completely unrelated thing?". And lately there's been a BIT too many posts like this. "hey, the AmigaOne can't even read Amiga floppies, are you guys stupid or something?"

1:
I AM a hardware engineer

2:
Saying "hey this guy can build an airport shuttle, why aren't you able to build a working space shuttle" would not be a very good way to start a conversation with a rocket scientist

3:
Saying "hey, this guy can put an embedded class CPU with a couple of other chips in a box for less than $200, why can't you build a laptop" is not a good way to start a discussion with an electronics hardware engineer.


This thing has got:
CPU
memory
flash
USB
some security device thingie

So that's 4 or 5 chips: CPU, 2 16bit SDRAM chips, 1 16bit flash chip and whatever is needed for the security thingie. Also you need to generate a couple of voltages from the USB PSU.

A laptop needs:
CPU
Memory (in a socket)
PCMCIA/Cardbus
USB
Ethernet
Graphics (internal and external port)
keyboard
built-in instead-of-mousey-thingie
IDE controller with HD and DVD
A REALLY good battery
Voltage regulators for all the onboard stuff
Battery charger
TFT screen

So, from the top we have these chips: CPU, NB, SB, GPU, ethernet chip, boot flash, 64 bit SDRAM (probably two sets of chips in parallell on the bus, see how much trouble that has generated for instance with the ArticiaS), lotsa extra logic to handle battery charging and voltage regulation. If you HAD a clue you would have known how much more work it is to get all these chips to talk together. Then we have casing, TFT and battery, all of which are what REALLY set the useless laptops apart from the useful ones. And then it all needs to support suspend to ram and suspend to disk (yes, the OS handles turning on and off very good, but maybe the user doesn't want to reload tens of applications manually and move a bunch of windows around every time he moves from one place to another).

And extrapolating from the recent threads we've had about the various hardware projects, I would say most Amigans are NOT ready to purchase an Amiga laptop unless it's actually BETTER and CHEAPER than the things on the market already. Which kinda makes the whole thing impossible since battery, TFT and casing would cost a HECK of a lot more in this tiny market than in the x86/Apple markets. And contrary to common belief, LinuxPPC is not popular enough to sell hardware on its own. It also needs to be cheap and good. Or at the very least very cheap or very good.

So in short: Yes, making a crappy laptop is easy. It would also be costly. If you don't believe me, try to figure out how much you would have to pay for 1000 of the parts you typically have in a laptop. And then you calculate in one man for a year of engineering (6 guys might be able to do it in 3 months, but I doubt it). I just don't think this market is ready for a 4000 USD machine just yet. You would never get any useful kind of quantities on it...

Of course, pretty soon we'll see some interesting chips from Freescale, IBM and AMCC. But complex designs will take longer than simple designs. That's a fact. If it wasn't, it wouldn't be a simpler design,

_________________
This weeks pet peeve:
Using "voltage" instead of "potential", which leads to inventing new words like "amperage" instead of "current" (I, measured in A) or possible "charge" (amperehours, Ah or Coulomb, C). Sometimes I don't even know what people mean.

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by xe54 on 12-Aug-2005 15:21:31 @olegil Quote: You would obviously have a USB driver installed on the host machine that opens up a VNC like application and sends the interface over USB to the device. Nothing too fancy there. Nice idea, not overly impressive from what I've read so far. hmm, i see. from what i understand, the blackdog requires XP or linux, so, as you say, it is not a 'live' OS in that it requires a host environment to function. ideally, this product would suit me completely if you could just plug in the device, power on the machine, and get a native version of the OS with access to the host's hardware (drives, network etc). and as for a…

The user prefers native OS solutions and appreciates existing pocket webserver usage; they view game-playing devices as unnecessary replacements. The host environment's USB driver is deemed unimpressive, while the Blackdog device requires a PC/Linux to function but lacks live operating system capabilities on its own.

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by fricopal! on 20-Mar-2025 2:32:54 Quote: by xe54 on 12-Aug-2005 15:21:31 @olegil Quote: You would obviously have a USB driver installed on the host machine that opens up a VNC like application and sends the interface over USB to the device. Nothing too fancy there. Nice idea, not overly impressive from what I've read so far. hmm, i see. from what i understand, the blackdog requires XP or linux, so, as you say, it is not a 'live' OS in that it requires a host environment to function. ideally, this product would suit me completely if you could just plug in the device, power on the machine, and get a native version of the OS with access to the host's…

The user seeks an OS that operates independently with native access and isn’t reliant on another machine for functionality; they find existing pocket webservers sufficient without needing game-play devices, considering the USB driver of Blackdog unimpressive due to it requiring a host PC/Linux.