[slinkelist] Inexpensive Remote control

[Erik Turner]

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