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--- adacomputer [2009/10/20 22:37]
ladyada
+++ adacomputer [2016/01/28 18:05] (current)
@@ Line 7: / Line 7: @@
   - **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.
+  - **Should be small and quiet**, we dont got a lot of room here at adafruit. And nothing is worse than fan noise.
   - **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.
+  - **Whole machine for $500 ** Not including monitor, key/mouse, etc. We wanted it lean and clean.
+Of course you should recycle what you can. In this case we had already recycled all our hard drives, CD rom drives, etc into other machines!
+If you have some other suggestions, feel free to edit the wiki page. Thanks!
 ====== What we got ======
@@ Line 17: / Line 21: @@
 {{:stuff.jpg|}}
-===== Case =====
+===== Case $200 =====
 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.
@@ Line 26: / Line 30: @@
 {{:shuttlefront.gif|}} {{:shuttleback.gif|}}
-===== Processor =====
+===== Processor $40-$150 =====
-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!
+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 $40/2GB =====
 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 =====
+===== CD/DVD $30 =====
 I rarely burn discs, so I just got a DVD-ROM for installing software. eh.
-===== Hard drive =====
+===== Hard drive $50 =====
 You can go with SATA or IDE. Since everything else here is IDE, we went with 160GB IDE drives.
-===== Video card =====
+===== Video card $0 =====
 None! The onboard video was perfect. Theres a video slot but we actually used that for the serial port bracket
-===== Networking =====
+===== Networking $20 =====
-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.
+Theres a single PCI card slot, which we used for a Wi-Fi card on the personal workstation. The business machine ended up connected to the ethernet drop so that was fine.
-===== Parallel port =====
+===== Parallel port $10 =====
 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 which has a 2mm header (NOT 0.1" IDC!)
@@ Line 59: / Line 63: @@
 {{:parallel.jpg|}}
-===== Serial port(s) =====
+===== Serial port(s) $10 each =====
 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|}}
+Unfortunately, ours were miswired, and had 'alternating' pins soldered instead of 'incrementing' - you can fix this pretty quickly with some soldering.
+{{:mboardcom.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!
 {{:serial2.jpg|}}
+===== Total! =====
+Personal machine: $200 + $150 + $80 + $30 + $50 + $20 + $10 + $20 = $560 - Nicer processor & 4 G RAM & wifi
+Business machine: $200 + $40 + $40 + $30 + $50 + $10 + $20 = $390 - Cheap processor & 2 G RAM & no wifi
+Which means that we met the budget of $500 (averaged together)
+I rounded up because I didnt include shipping. The keyboards and monitors were recycled.
+We've been happy with this set up, hopefully it will be useful for someone :)

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