Old fashioned meets old fashioned

Today I want to tell you about an old fashioned case mod in an old fashioned Sega PC. Years ago when VIA first released the Mini-ITX and their EPIA boards, case modders went wild with creativity sticking the little boards in Star Wars toys, an ET doll, odd lamps, small briefcases - you name it, it's been done. This one might also have been done before, or at least something similar. I'm sure I've seen an Atari mod before. But what makes this particularly cool is that the keyboard actually works. So although it's a VIA EPIA Nano-ITX NX15000G inside an old chasis, which is not that original, it's actually a keyboard that is a working PC - and that is far from old fashioned. - Technabob

Em-ITX brings choice

Can we have too many form factors? The answer, according to ElectronicDesign, is no - not if they fulfill a need in the market and use connections and slots that are standard. Apparently embedded developers just can't get enough when it comes to feature rich platforms, and the article highlights the Em-ITX from VIA as an example of an innovative feature-rich design.

"I/O interfaces include an 8-bit digital port, a VGA port, dual low-voltage differential signaling (LVDS) ports, dual Gigabit Ethernet, four serial ports, dual SATA II ports, six USB 2.0 ports, and HD audio. It can handle up to a 2-Gbyte DDR2 SODIMM. A Compact Flash socket is on the bottom."

S3 announces OpenCL embedded GPU

When S3 Graphics releases a new GPU you can bet your bottom dollar that their biggest support will be parent-company VIA. A lot of S3 products actually wind up being cross-purposed for use in the graphics cores found embedded in VIA chipsets, but the company does still release discrete S3 Graphics branded processors as well.
The S3 Graphics 5400E is being unvieled in China this week at the Electronic Manufacturer Exposition. It's being positioned as a chip which the embedded market can use for medical, scientific and other uses.
The 5400E has a native OpenCL engine, OpenCL being a cross-platform open standard. "Native support of OpenCL with the industry’s best GFLOPS per watt rating including a DirectX® 10.1 / OpenGL 3.1 graphics engine, ChromotionHD video core for HD video decode including Blu-ray, H.264, and VC-1, a video encode engine, and OpenVG 1.1 engine in the 5400E creates the most versatile GPU for embedded applications requiring longevity, customization, performance, features, and low power."
I can't give you a link to the Press Release. I was sent a copy by mail but S3 don't have it on their website yet!

ARTiGO A2000 recipe

Written up a bit like a recipe, a website dedicated to MS Windows Home Server has taken a look at the VIA ARTiGO A2000 barebone system, and why not? As they point out, it was designed as a Windows Home Server box. Overall they're happy with how easy it is to build and that it gives flexibility in choosing RAM capacity and disk space. On the down side, they do note that it's limited for a server in that it supports only a maximum of 2 hard drives. Still, for most home servers, 2TB would be enough and the trade off is pretty positive - that it's compact and silent.

Would you like fries with that?

The VIA Eden processor features in a new touch screen terminal from Posiflex, the KS-2010 available in the UK from DED. These 10.4" fan free terminals are built for busy PoS environments.

"Featuring an 800 x 600 SVGA screen, the standard RAM on the KS-2010 series is 256MB; an optional upgrade to 512MB is available or even 1GB if required. With a VIA Eden 500 processor, operating system support on the KS-2010 series includes WePOS, Windows CE and Linux. Windows XP Pro is also supported, but it is recommended that the upgraded 1GB RAM be used in conjunction with this operating system." - GroceryTrader.co.uk

C7-M in a nettop?

ClonedinChina.com published a quick news story (their source is in Chinese) about a mini desktop, or nettop, that is using a combo not usually found in embedded devices - the C7-M and the VX700.
"This mini pc gets a very small size, only measuring 135X123X35mm, weighing 300g. It features a 1.6G VIA C7-M processor, VX700 chipset, 1GB RAM, 160GB HDD, VGA output port, 2 USB ports,WI-FI and Bluetooth module."
This is kind of like a VIA ARTiGO, but a different shape and a slightly different platform. Plus, by the size measurements, it sports a notebook HDD, so it's not a storage server. So actually, come to think of it it's nothing like an ARTiGO except that it's small and features VIA chips! It's more a like a basic but tiny desktop PC. I'm guessing it's not available outside of China.

VIA AMOS gets new UK disti

The UK company 2001 is going to start supplying VIA AMOS solutions. The 2 VIA AMOS chassis, supporting Pico-ITX or Mini-ITX, start off with the basic PC and can then add modules for more options like ROM driver, PCI cards, etc. Although there's an ad in the border of their site, the link goes to the VIA product page, shown inside the main cell of their site. So pricing is not yet available. - Electronics Weekly.