Home | News Archive | November 2002

More EPIAs - but not yet
November 29, 2002

Our spies at Comdex learnt that in addition to the EPIA and EPIA M, VIA will be releasing the EPIA V and the EPIA N... The EPIA V will be just like the EPIA, except that there will be a floppy connector replacing one of the IDE connectors. The EPIA N will be just like the EPIA M, except that there will be a PC133 SDRAM connector instead of the DDR266 SDRAM connector. The EPIA M is imminent, but there are no release dates for the V and N - confused yet?. Also spotted was a Morex Cubid 2699R, and Mini-ITX sized boards from Jetway. Thanks to Frank Yao for this info! Maybe we'll be to the next Comdex in person..

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Congratulations
November 26, 2002

..our DNS changes took hold in your locality and you made it to our new server farm. Thanks to Nick for sorting us out so quickly! We've been slashdotted twice before this, so we should have learnt our lesson. Instead of course this happened... you may experience picture loss and occasional dropouts for the next few hours ;-)

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EPIA M - the official announcement
November 26, 2002

VIA have announced the EPIA M-Series Mini-ITX mainboards in no uncertain terms. Worlds have apparently collided to make this possible. To regular readers of this site, the impressive specifications will be nothing new. In brief though, they feature the DVD playback boosting Apollo CLE266 chipset, six channel audio, USB 2.0 and Firewire, all in a 170 x 170mm package. You can sign up for one as soon as we get them here - particularly useful if you live in the UK or Europe. Production should be ramping up in mid-December, so they'll be thin on the ground initially. Hint: Check if your online store actually has them available, or has them available for 'pre-order'. We expect the first ones to arrive on people's doorsteps in about a week. We've got ours, and are giving it a thorough testing for you.

"PC and Consumer Electronics World Collide" - Press Release

VIA's EPIA-M Mainboard Page

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Mini-ITX Case Modding on TV
November 26, 2002

Mini-ITX case modding has reached prime time TV, or at least "The Screensavers" - a US cable TV show apparently. We'll probably never see it as we're based in the UK, but no doubt they mentioned this site in every other sentence. "What a great place to find Mini-ITX projects and components" they probably said. Well, in our version they did.

Mini-ITX Case Modding on "The Screensavers"

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The "Humidor II"
November 21, 2002

Style and elegance has never been used to describe a computer until now. Desktop humidors have been gracing the desks of the worlds most ambitious and successful for generations. Regardless of your thoughts on smoking, the wooden decorative box is a hit on any desk. Thousand dollar French humidors, Chippendale, original pre-embargo Cuban-made and the such. I think it's possible to re-make one of these beautiful boxes into a stylish and elegant office tool. They were originally designed to occupy desk space and make a statement about the owners' life-style and aloof-ness. They still can.

Jeffrey L Stephenson's Humidor II

The Original Humidor 64 Project

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New Mini-ITX Cases at Comdex 2002
November 19, 2002

We sent our Aibo robot dog on a mission to take photographs of Mini-ITX Cases at Comdex 2002. Five hours later he returned, aerial between his legs, after disgracing himself on the GeForceFX stand. Whilst trying to clean him up, he projected several images into the room. We suspect there might be more - we'll remove his restraining bolt and try again later...

New Mini-ITX Cases at Comdex 2002

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Hi-Fi PC Prototype Pictures
November 18, 2002

Last month, we took some quick snaps of the prototype of VIA's EPIA-M based Hi-Fi PC (due next year). Would you like to see them?

Some quick snaps of VIA's Hi-Fi PC prototype (due next year)

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Mini-ITX receives Microsoft Certification
November 18, 2002

Quite difficult to not make this sound like a VIA press release, but VIA's EPIA Mini-ITX boards are now Windows CE .NET 4.1 certified. These provide a "recognized quality assurance point and positive industry exposure". Something we all knew already. Don't worry, you can still use Linux.

Here's a link to VIA's press release

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Mini-ITX BIOS updated to version 207
November 18, 2002

VIA have updated the Mini-ITX BIOS to version 207 (we're not sure what happened to 206 - is this the 'Star Trek' rule of BIOSes?) This version updates the "logo display problem during boot up (under PAL mode)"...

http://www.viavpsd.com/product/Download.jsp?motherboardId=21

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EPIA-M Manual Available Online
November 14, 2002

VIA have posted the manual online for the forthcoming EPIA-M in PDF format. Now all we need are the EPIA-Ms...

http://www.viavpsd.com/product/3/4/EPIA-M_Manual_v1.0.pdf

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Introducing the EDENRACK
November 14, 2002

The EDENRACK is our 1U high professional quality rack-mountable case designed for the EPIA motherboards. Ideal for a very low cost Mini-ITX server - and we're currently offering FREE SHIPPING to the UK.

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The "Blue Plate "
November 13, 2002

Matias in Finland has created a stunning 326x329x49mm slimline server style case for his EPIA 800, and kindly sent us a bunch of pictures showing how he did it. The front is made of smoke colored acrylic and the rest is finished in 1.5mm aluminum, painted blue and complete with matching LED.

Matias's Blue Plate

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The "G4 Cube PC"
November 09, 2002

Who would have thought a humble EPIA 800 would fit inside an unwanted Apple G4 Cube Case? Third in our fantastically successful series of recycled computers. Is there no end to this motherboard's flexibility?

Wookie's G4 Cube PC

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The "Wraith SE/30"
November 07, 2002

Second in our hugely succesful long-running daily series of recycled computer projects. This one comes from the same year as the VAX, and it's a Mac SE...

Carl Thomas' Wraith SE/30

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The "Eden VAX"
November 06, 2002

First in a series of recycled computer projects. This one's got an EPIA 5000 filling up the void where a once mighty beast roamed free. Don't miss tomorrow's exciting installment...

Peter D's Eden VAX

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Netbox Cubit Review
November 04, 2002

Netbox are a UK-based company formed to create the "Cubit" - a Mini-ITX based mini-PC made rather splendidly from 5mm aluminium or Plexiglas. The Cubit comes fully loaded with 512MB of memory, a 60GB Hard Drive, a slimline CDRW/DVD and optionally a low-profile PCI V92 or ADSL modem. When the opportunity came along to review one of these handsome little devils we jumped at the chance.

Netbox Cubit Review

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