Two-inch-square Space Cube computer gets shown off
By Donald Melanson 
posted August 27th 2008 5:57PM
posted August 27th 2008 5:57PM
The two-inch-square Space Cube computer has apparently been making the rounds in Japan for some time now, but PC Pro has finally managed to sneak one into the UK and, thankfully for us, they've decided to share. This one packs a 300MHz NEC VR5701 processor, 64MB of RAM, a 1GB CompactFlash card, and a special version of Red Hat Linux, along with a single USB port, VGA out, built-in Ethernet and, most importantly for its target market, a SpaceWire port, which is used by the likes of NASA and the European Space Agency. Unfortunately for hobbyists that may have gotten their hopes up, while the price was initially estimated to be a reasonable $325, it now looks like it could be demanding upwards of £1,500 (or over $2,700) but the time it's officially released outside of Japan, although it seems like it will at least actually be sold to the general public.
[Via Slashdot]
[Via Slashdot]
300MHz because the latest and greatest 45nm process hasn't been subjected to the rigors of space flight readiness testing, sometimes taking years to get completed.
Also because it will work in 0G, meaning cooling will be difficult... no convection.
What is J-Tag? Google is useless...for once.
J-Tag is a popular debugging output. I'm not sure of the specifics, but I believe you can connect the J-Tag to another PC to run diagnostic utilities and things like that.
For instance, like the Neo Freerunner on the OpenMoko project. You can buy a debug board if you are developing apps for the phone, and it connects via J-Tag.
Just googled it ;)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JTAG
JTAG is Joint Test Action Group - Boundary scanner....
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boundary_scan
@Jon Doe: Google called, wants you to use "cuil" from now on.
no no you're all wrong.
it's Jay Tagg and he's the lead singer of Lannen Fall
www.myspace.com/lannenfall :-)
Ouch. That D-sub9 really hurts.
Yes, but does it play doom?
YOU KNEW IT HAD TO HAPPEN! I only bring the inevitable. :P
Of course it can, just put DOSBox on it
Ultimate DOOM System Requirements:
-386 processor operating at a minimum of 33MHz or any Pentium® /Athlon® processors
-Windows 95/98/ME/ 2000 operating system
-8 MB RAM
-20MB of uncompressed hard disk space
It can play a boot'nyerass. I mean, that would pretty much be ineviltablah...innevle...that's pretty much gonna happen.
...mr anderson
Check out that DVD burner.
But, what's the point of it?
If is has SpaceWire is probably also is designed completly radiation tolerant and for low power consumption, which makes it cost a lot more than your consumer hardware. But a cheap earth-bound version would be pretty cool for a lot of applications.
Anyway, this is great news, finaly astronauts can play some multiplayer Doom, maybe even Quake :)
yeah all of that is well and good but... can i play diablo on it?
wtf, you play diablo?!!!
Couldn't they save a lot of space by just using something other than CF? MicroSD, anybody?
MEGATRON:
GIVE ME THE CUBE BOY !!!!
Yeah, uhh, serial port?
How about more USB ports?
It's meant as a robotics and scientific base. Many devices you'd connect to this still use serial.
I was trying to figure out why is there Sony products around that gadget, is that a Sony product?
Weighted companion cube computer...get on it...NOW!
One advantage that I can see for this over my beagleboard is the fact that this device has an integrated ethernet port, but the high pricing and relatively unimpressive specs rules this out as a practical device for me. I mean its not like my house is constantly bombarded by solar wind or anything like that. Alos what is with the huge flash port...microSD anyone?
Yeah, but can it play Q-bert?
A friction-fit coaxial power connector? Seriously? I bet a quarter the power cable gets shaken out of its socket when this thing is on its way up into orbit.
Cool..... but can you overclock it??
Love that JTAG interface!
what are some good uses for this??
well to put it lightly to all you wonderful people... cell phones are cell phones.... mini pda's are mini pda's 2 inch CUBES as computers are 2 inch Cubes as computers.... if you cant see the reasoning in havin a computer that small with stats of that nature.. then you shouldnt bother commenting on it.. designed to use in tight spaces.. as in a SPACE SHUTTLE... i mean come on... think they wanna have something bulky and hard to maintain.. the design may not be perfect but its a first release.. by the time they spent millions in finacing and wonderfully wasted most of it.. they would have a device that has higher capabilities than you or i could do.. so why complain and bring these guys down.. just cuz you didnt think of it.. or cuz you couldnt do it.. and a cortex E8.. are you nuts... i wouldnt put that in anything that wasnt liquid cooled.. unless you wanted to melt all the other components...i build laptops and desktops for a living so i know a few things.. and thats one cool little cube.... oh and mr 3d dimensional.. your actually closer to bein right than the rest of the comments say... they are lookin at it from a mathematical view when its actually physics... so your pretty close..
Replace that serial plug for a VGA or DVI plug, and swap the SD compact Flash with a 8 GB one and we can talk.
Finally. The perfect machine to stick your wee wee in.
huh? Why is that perfect to stick your wee wee in?
$325 Space Qualified computer, I have paid more for individual space qualified fasteners. That's whats cool about this.
Is that a COM port I see?
On a computer from this decade?
Who HASN'T one? HP? Apple?
I usually see manufacturers of small devices thow out things like serial (RS-232) ports in favor of the smaller USB and Firewire ports.
Great, now my computer is small enough for me to loose. Then I'll find it two years later when I move, along with the remote, three socks, thirty-seven cents in change, and a Hello Kitty toaster.
Okay, maybe I knew where the toaster was all along.
Oh, and I, for one, welcome our small, square overlords.
Sorry, the voices from the Hello Kitty toaster made me do it.
Reading the article, it looks like depending on how the software is written, the OS (drive) can be upped to 32G (CFCard) as well as upgrading the onboard 64mb SDRAM to 2GB?
I doubt the CPU can be upped but the fact that the rest of it can (probably) go so much higher without compromising anything means they should run THAT through the test at the same time.
Hell, ones NASA/ESA gets them, watch the astronauts spend the extra $200 and make them THAT much more useful (debugging will be done so much faster since it looks like it uses regular stuff)
How do you mis-estimate a price by 800%?
Man.... $2700, i would go for a computer and a FPGA.
Love it, but since you'll still need a monitor and keyboard, wat is the real advantage of miniturisation of the systembox?
AAAW.. isnt it cute, a baby borge cube, when it grows up it will conquer whole planets.
actually the monitor and keyboard are probably not required. you could upload teh program to the CF card and have it boot and run itself when you turn the computer on and have the data stored right back on teh card. not sure why the monitor and keyboard would even be necessary
Pretty cool, I have the same phone of choice as someone in the Engadget office :P