[slinkelist] Inexpensive Remote control

Stan Kurzet skurzetfr@home.com
Fri, 12 Jan 2001 14:35:14 -0800


Erik:

You are right.  I looked up your link and it is very similar, however, at
the $299 price, the one I got is a dark charcoal, and does have the DVD
drive rather than the CD only.  The other notable differences are; (1) in
the unit I have, the CPU is under the floppy drive, so there's no room for
an oversized heatsink for underclocked passive cooling (to reduce fan
noise), (2)  the IR keyboard has a much smaller receiver module and the
keyboard itself does not have the ears on the sides so its a good bit
smaller.  Also, the keyboard color matches the box.

As far as heat is concerned,  the one I have (800 Mhz PIII) runs quite cool,
particularly considering that it's 5 lbs. of stuff in a 2 lb. bag.  In
continuous operation on a table, the box is cool to the touch.  The warmest
part of the box is the back panel around the exhaust fan which is only 6 C.
above ambient after several hours of running with all disk drives inactive.

Stan



----- Original Message -----
From: "Erik Turner" <erik@turner.org>
To: "Stan Kurzet" <skurzetfr@home.com>
Sent: Friday, January 12, 2001 1:35 PM
Subject: Re: [slinkelist] Inexpensive Remote control


> This sounds a lot like the BookPC that I bought about a
> year ago for putting in my entertainment center.
> http://www.directron.com/bookpc.html
>
> It works pretty well.  It has 32MB RAM, a Celeron 433,
> a 37GB hard drive and Windows 98SE.  I use it for playing
> MP3 to my stereo system (controlled via VNC or
> TV/Wireless Keyboard) and I'm running a web server on
> it so I can stream music from my house to work (on a
> good day).
>
> Things that I don't like:
> - Fan is too noisy
> - No serial port (but it does have USB)
> - Using wireless keyboard/mouse can be frustating
> - No expansion slots
> - It's not black (actually you can now get it in black for
>     another $100)
> - It gets too hot if you close the glass cabinet door
>
> Erik Turner
> Indialantic, Florida
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Stan Kurzet" <skurzetfr@home.com>
> To: "Slinkelist" <slinkelist@nirvis.com>
> Sent: Friday, January 12, 2001 3:01 PM
> Subject: [slinkelist] Inexpensive Remote control
>
>
> Troops:
>
> Stumbled over a made to order solution for CDJ remote control that sells
for $299 at
> http://www.nxcom.com  I bought one, put it to work and here's a report on
the results.
> First for a description of the box.
>
> At 12X10.5X3.25 it displaces just under a quarter of a cubic foot.
>
> It has built in: (1) floppy and  DVD drives,  (2) 100 Ethernet NIC,  (3)
56K Modem,  (4)
> Audio play and record, (5) S video and composite video out, (6) DIN MIDI
in/out, (7) Game
> port, (8) dual USB ports, (9) parallel port, (10) PS2 keyboard and mouse
ports, (11) VGA
> Port..
>
> It comes with a very small and light IR remote keyboard with pointing
stick in the upper
> right corner and the L/R mouse buttons in the upper left corner.  Lefties
need to be
> ambidextrous to use it.  It also comes with a  small IR remote control
that contains  a
> pointing stick, mouse buttons and a lot of other controls that give one
pretty much total
> control of mouse driven PC functions in a one-hand widget.
>
> Included are 2 CD's of software including software DVD player, MP3 player,
Multimedia and
> CD players, etc., etc.  It has 2 DIM RAM slots and accommodates 512 Mb
max. It will work
> with all PIII or Celeron CPU's to 800 MHz.  Bios are better than most, and
the hardware
> quality is above average.  The video display using the S-video output with
a Sony Wega at
> 640X480 with large font is very good.  In my opinion, this is as good a
bargain for
> applications like CDJ and home control one is ever likely to find.
>
> Now for the bad news.  It comes without OS, monitor, CPU, memory or hard
drive.  If you
> get one, a word of warning;  you have to use a PS2 keyboard and mouse
until AFTER the OS
> and wireless keyboard drivers are loaded Otherwise, you get a black screen
and no clue
> why.
>
> Configuration is  not the easiest I have ever seen, largely because it has
so much built
> in stuff it takes several hours to load in all the drivers and apps that
come with it.
>
> It is fan cooled.  With a PIII 800 socket clocked at full speed, the CPU
runs at about 23
> C above ambient.  The fan noise is audible, but not as loud as the typical
desktop PC.
> The package does not easily lend itself to passive cooling the CPU.
>
> A 500 MHz Celeron and 128 Mb of RAM can be had for under 120 bucks at
> http://www.jcshopper.com/shopping/computer.htm
>
> Cheers,
>
> Stan
>
>
>
>
>