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--- adacomputer [2009/10/20 22:33]
ladyada
+++ adacomputer [2016/01/28 18:05]
@@ Line 1: / Line 1: @@
-====== Ada-kompute! ======
-For my work, hobby and business, I need COMPUTING POWER! However, my needs are kinda picky and it took me many days to narrow down the 'ideal' hacking computer. Here is what my specifications were
-  - **Must have hardware/motherboard parallel port (printer port).** Parallel ports are the pinkie toe of electronics hacking. Youd think they'd be gone by now but nooo, they're still there, hanging around and often necessary for using older software/hardware/schems. I use them a lot for talking to laser and label printers, CPLD/FPGA programmers, bitbanging all sorts of stuff, programming chips via PonyProg, etc.. USB-parallel converters aren't good enough due to the slowness from the USB layer. Hardware parallel ports are just damn handy!
-  - **Must have hardware/motherboard serial port** (COM/Modem port). Two if you can. These are more common than parallel ports. You can use USB-serial ports for most things but sometimes you need the hardware speed of an onboard serial port especially if you're doing some funky bitbanging.
-  - **Should be small**, we dont got a lot of room here at adafruit.
-  - **Doesnt need hardcore video** Not a lot of game playing around here, mostly working!
-  - **Processor type** Can be Intel or AMD. Both are fine by us. Lately we've liked AMD a lot.
-  - **Lots of USB ports.** Both on the outside and on the motherboard. Especially for the shipping computer theres just tons of stuff that needs to plug in - programmers, barcode scanners, scales, backup usb keys, Arduinos. You can also use hubs.
-  - **Whole machine for <$500 ** Not including monitor, key/mouse, etc. We wanted it lean and clean.
-====== What we got ======
-===== Case =====
-We like small desktop computers so we went with the Shuttle brand for a machine. We tend to build up machines ourselves since its often cheaper and better to do it this way.
-Looking through the AMD processor machines we found only a few with both serial and parallel (from our notes we wrote down SA76G2, SK22G2, SN21G5, SS21G, SS21T). For Intel machines you'll have to scour the Shuttle website.
-It seemed like the SA76G2 was the model that was currently available, and not too expensive ($200 for motherboard/case/powersuppy). It comes with VGA, DVI, Ethernet, PS2, USB, 2 serial and a parallel port. This is great because we have onboard networking, video, and the ports we like.
-{{:shuttlefront.gif|}}
-{{:shuttleback.gif|}}
-===== Processor =====
-For the processor we actually went with two options. One was the "AMD Phenom II X4 810 2.6GHz 4 x 512KB L2 Cache 4MB L3 Cache Socket AM3" ($150, this was for my personal workstation) and the other was the "AMD Sempron 140 Sargas 2.7GHz 1MB L2 Cache Socket AM3 45W" ($40, for the shipping/programming workstation). The shuttle cant power more than 95W so dont try to overdo it or you will get heat problems!
-===== RAM =====
-RAM is RAM in our opinion, you need 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM PC2 6400. Since windows XP 32 cant recognize more than 4 G I just got 4G for the personal workstation and 2G for the shipping/programming workstation.
-===== CD/DVD =====
-I rarely burn discs, so I just got a DVD-ROM for installing software. eh.
-===== Hard drive =====
-You can go with SATA or IDE. Since everything else here is IDE, we went with 160GB IDE drives.
-===== Video card =====
-None! The onboard video was perfect. Theres a video slot but we actually used that for the serial port bracket
-===== Networking =====
-Theres a single PCI card slot, which we used for a WiFi card on the personal workstation. The business machine ended up connected to the ethernet drop so that was fine.
-===== Parallel port =====
-The computer has parallel on board, and theres a punchout on the case, but you'll need a [[http://eu.shuttle.com/en/DesktopDefault.aspx/tabid-123/241_read-1655/|PC8]] parallel port adapter cable
-{{:ps8.jpg|}}
-===== Serial port(s) =====
-The computer has 2 serial ports on board (COM1 and COM2). Unfortunately theres no punchout so you'll want a bracket. They're called "Serial Port Brackets" and come with a 10-pin IDC cable
-{{:09480a.jpg|}}
-If you're feeling adventurous, you can actually get two of these and a Keystone 9200-15 (double DB-9 bracket) and double up for both COM ports!

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