Anyone tried using a Single Board Computer (SBC)

[kldavis]

Subject says most of it.  Just curious if anyone has ever attempted to use a single-board computer for the guts of their MAME cab.  I first heard of the concept of a single-board computer (SBC) only a few weeks ago when a friend showed me a custom firewall he made from an SBC and a stripped-down version of Linux.  Some advantages I see include...

- cheap (they can be found for <$200)

- fast loading/booting (typically run from compactflash or embedded NVRAM)

- quiet (all of them are passively cooled)

Anyone?

- Kyle

[PixelCloud]

hmm this sparks interests..


SBC running *nix...

could be a winning combo

[Bloinkxp]

The only SBC I am familiar with is the GEODE board that AMD recently acquired.  
For those of you who don't know this product started life as a Cyrix Media GX processor before Nat. Semi bought Cyrix and later AMD bought this.  It was base on the 6x86 and clocks around 300mhz.  I know it has the horse power for XP, but I think that XP really pushes it.
Whew...
At any rate it should be fine for older games.

B

[Goz]

I made a HTPC about a year ago using a mini-itx Nemiah 1000 (1Ghz)board w/ TV out and using an IDE 2 FLASH adapter and it performed well for MAME classics and NEOGEO games. It was fast on boot times. It was amazing how quiet it was and it stayed relatively cool using passive cooling (heat sink only).

I have been thinking of making a two player control panel with one of these SFF boards and flash for the drive in the CP and just use the TV out (svideo) feature to connect the stand alone CP / Computer to my big screen.

-Goz

[IG-88]

Subject says most of it.  Just curious if anyone has ever attempted to use a single-board computer for the guts of their MAME cab.  I first heard of the concept of a single-board computer (SBC) only a few weeks ago when a friend showed me a custom firewall he made from an SBC and a stripped-down version of Linux.  Some advantages I see include...

- cheap (they can be found for <$200)

- fast loading/booting (typically run from compactflash or embedded NVRAM)

- quiet (all of them are passively cooled)

Anyone?

- Kyle

Hey Kyle, I did a little searching on google today looking at SBC's and didn't have much luck. Where did you find those for <$200? Do you (or anyone else) have any more info on them?

[Edgedamage]

Found one.
http://sbc.winsystems.com/products/sbcs/ebcc3plus.html

[spystyle]

I've seen single board computers on Ebay for as little as $20

Search for "sbc" under 'computers and networking' catagory.

But if the board dosen't have everything (like sound) you'd need a backplane to connect the spc to isa/pci cards, which would make your computer as large as a regular desktop PC (so make sure the sbc you're buying has 'everything' on board)

...or maybe someone knows the pinouts to connect an additional card to an sbc with solder and wire?

Also be aware that you may have to solder a female molex connector to power it as many sbcs have funky power connectors.

Dig it?
Craig


(pictured below is an sbc in a chassis, seen from above, with a backplane that has isa,pci and atx headers)