www.linuxdevices.com/news/NS3880195342.html
Acme Systems is shipping a Penguin-shaped case for a tiny SBC (single-board computer) powered by an innovative MCM (multi-chip module) that runs Linux. The 67-inch tall, 30-Euro "Tux Case" houses the company's "Acme Fox," a 26 x 28-inch, 100-Euro, RISC-based board with Ethernet and dual-USB interfaces, and surface-mount connectors for other I/O.
The Tux Case comprises six pieces of colored plastic (the red piece represents the SBC -- click to enlarge) The case offers rear-mounted I/O ports for standard I/O, along with break-out ports for an available optional serial port, and possibly a planned RJ-11 modem connector.
Etrax 100LX MCM The Axis MCM uses "high-density packaging" (HDP) technology that allows "naked dies" -- an SoC, RAM, Flash, and I/O components, for example -- to be combined into a single chip, for reduced footprint and BOM (bill-of-materials). The Etrax 100LX weds a RISC-based SoC (system-on-chip) with 4MB of Flash, 16MB RAM, an Ethernet transceiver, and "various interface components," and requires only 33V power and a 20MHz crystal in order to run Linux, Acme says.
Etrax 100LX, based on a 32-bit RISC instruction, and said to deliver 100 MIPS (millions of instructions per second). The SoC integrates on-chip controllers for 10/100 Mbit Ethernet, four high speed serial ports, two USB ports for both host and device, IDE, SCSI, and two IEEE-1284 "fast" parallel ports. The Acme Fox's I/O connectors include 10/100 Ethernet and two USB ports. Twin surface-mount connectors expose other available I/O, as shown below.
Surface-mount connectors offer additional I/O The board also has a serial port pin header that uses the board's 33V signal, but can be turned into a normal serial port with an available "Fox Console" board.
Linux drivers for USB flash, hard drives, and USB-to-serial converters; and applications that include wget, vi, easyedit, and busybox shell commands and utilities. An included Linux software cross-development kit supports C language development on Debian or Red Hat Linux hosts. A free C compiling service is also available on the Web.
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