Cybernet Manufacturing Elite-II 'Zero Form Factor PC'

[james42519]

you do know commodore still makes stuff?

[TheColinputer]

Is there a reason the resolution is so bad? Like is it a limitation of the machine or that monitor? or do you just have it not set vary high?

And this video reminds me of something i did a couple of years back. Was given an old laptop which worked but had a broken screen. So took it apart and totally took all of the screen off it. Then just used it connected to a old CRT i had and a USB mouse.

[uxwbill]

@TheColinputer What you're looking at is a 15" Compaq CRT. I run it at 800x600 because that is the best resolution for such a monitor. It will sync up at 1024x768, though using that resolution makes everything very tiny. This computer's onboard video will run up to a 1280x1024 resolution.

[wotldthe2006]

to your comment you left me the old pc I had its CPU went out on it at last but as of now im looking for another one to replace it since them kind of dells are still used in some places.

[wotldthe2006]

Yeah I did a video on it half way till I seen that the cpu and the fan was off it when its clip broke

[wotldthe2006]

Seeing this Video makes me want to get my Old Pentium III out to see if it still works and uploading a video of it on YouTube .

[uxwbill]

@wotldthe2006 It probably still works pretty well, and if it has problems, they are likely to be easily fixed.

[thecooldude9999]

firefox rules! seriously. 

[uxwbill]

@thecooldude9999 I like it reasonably well, though as of late I'm less than totally impressed with some of their feature set decisions and "rapid release" cycle.

[thecooldude9999]

@uxwbill yeah, it is kinda excessive to go from 3 to 4, then 5,then,6,then 7.

[thecooldude9999]

@thecooldude9999 so quickly

[Dell0304]

Their website looks like Apple's website a bit lol

[Lachlant1984]

I looked on the Cybernet website, or what I thought was the Cybernet website, but all I could find was information about medical equipment and computers designed for use in medical facilities and other industries, I didn't see any direct mention of the computers on their website, I mustn't have been looking hard enough.

[uxwbill]

@Lachlant1984 You want to be at cybernetman dawt com. When you're there, you should see links to the All in One Keyboard Computer (as they call it now).

A lot of their products do cater to the medical/dental industry and other specialty fields where a wall-mountable PC-in-a-screen would be nice to have.

[poopskinTheLiar]

Is that the Windows 95 Resource Kit? I've got the 98 resource kit, Vista Resource Kit, and one book from the 2000 Server Resource Kit.

Also, another notable "keyboard-in-one" would be the MSX computers, which were popular in japan (and were actually the main gaming platform before the NES Came around). Some notable series actually got their start on the MSX, including the "Metal Gear" series.

[uxwbill]

@poopskinTheLiar Why yes it is! I don't think that I have the matching CD, but the book itself is an interesting read (and I probably have an ISO image file somewhere for the CD part). I have lots of computer books around here. Most are highly technical in nature (assembly language programming and the like). I do have the Win2K resource kit, and probably ought to look up the Win98/WinNT ones before they get scarce and expensive.

[rhblakeman]

Take the display off of a laptop and you have basically the same thing

[rhblakeman]

pretty sure Cybernet still makes SFF type machines. I've worked on a lot of these for point of sale setups.

[Matthew55904]

how much did or does this cost? how big is the HDD and does it have a 3.5 or 2.5 form factor what is the MHz or GHz of the processor and is it PC100 Desktop or PC100 Laptop RAM?

[MixerVM]

@Matthew55904 PC100 Desktop RAM, 40GB HDD 3.5, 1.2Ghz P3 Tualatin

[stydel311]

i have a laptop that the hinges are ruined on the screen, but i have no intent to fix them being the laptop is 12 years old running windows 98 origionally, and 2000 now. I guess i could take the screen of and use it like this, lol

[yelnam2manley]

@stydel311 Yep, you can just remove the screen and then use it just like that, in fact. I have a Dell latitude with a Core 2 Duo, the screen was broken, but with a help of S-Video and/or VGA, I can use it as a desktop PC.

[TheQuezonCityGeek]

If you have a laptop with a broken screen, you can take off the screen and convertit to a desktop PC just like that.

[fixitdude74]

Good video Bill, i never had a commo64, but a friend of mine did, and i used to play on it, program basic etc....cool pc's

;)

[CPQ5360]

That's really cool!

The SiS 620/630 were relatively decent chipsets, with video power comparable to probably an ATI Rage Pro, and okay stability, at least with my experience with a 620-based Windows 98 machine. I'm surprised it works fine with Windows XP, though, because I know the SiS 530 absolutely pukes on XP, with video, stability, and hardware issues. (The 530 is a very poor chipset to begin with, though.)

The Tualitin Pentium III is indeed still a performer, even today!

Great video!

[0Fluxor0]

Hey Bill, You should check out Commodore. Looks like they could be offering computers again.

[gmax341]

Love Firefox!

[TOXIXIFY]

Didn't they make these because they were lacking the technology for LCD displays? Also why wouldn't you just get a laptop. ALSO if you spill something on it you're screwed. So this is just a dumb idea.

[WinVistaUser2]

What's the Hard Drive Capacity? I'm planning to get this kind of computer for my brother pretty soon since upgrading a computer costs a lot.

[uxwbill]

@WinVistaUser2 Both of mine have 40GB hard drives in place. I don't know if they support 48-bit LBA or not. (Meaning there may be a 137GB size limit.)

[Lukeno52]

I saw a whole set of Pentium 4-powered things like these on eBay a while back for about £25-35 (I forget the exact price). Didn't buy one though!

[MacintoshUser1986]

That is pretty awesome, reminds me a modern day Mac Mini.



[Maxxarcade]

That's cool! Looks like it has good caps in there too. I can't tell in the video, but they look like Sanyo.

The P3 Tualatin is still quite useful for office work to this day. They run nice and cool too.

[prt1667]

It'd be awesome for Ubuntu.. I mean.. it's easy to transport.. lol perfect..

[blazerlover25]

neat computer ya got there uxwbill but I got a question a bit off topic that I think you can answer, Ok I am wanting to buy me a new computer but all they offer is windows 7, well I only like windows xp because it's the easiest to operate and been using it for nearly 7 years is it possible to have windows xp installed on the new computer and what is involved in switching over? also can windows 7 be kept on it if I decide to switch back over oneday?

[pepsiru1es92]

I saw one of those at the local PC shop about 4 years ago. They had it set up as a POS device, like you said. Not sure if that would count as in the wild, though.

[THEtechknight]

thats exactly what i would put in the PCI slot. is a video card.

[ncrdisabled]

Yes I have a commodore 64 and 128 and one even further back TI 99 now those were real computers I remeber running a BBS off the 128 using a 300 baud modem back then you could get a second line for 10bucks a month and no taxes .

Man those were the days!!!

[AlwayzBringDaChoPPa]

has server potential

[naterade21]

wow nice that thing is as thick as my old thinkpad

[moarfeene]

commodoreusa(dot)net/CUSA_Phoe­nix(dot)aspx

:)

[CavemanPerson]

That's a neat little machine! I do remember seeing ads for those (as well as P4-based) Cybernet "Smart Keyboards" in PC Mag a few years ago. :-)

Definitely surprised to see a Tualatin in there. That's a great little processor! I have a 1.4-S overclocked to 1.6GHz on an Asus TUV4X motherboard. With a Radeon 9800 Pro and 1.5GB of RAM, it makes a great guest bedroom TV, as it handles 720p H.264 TV episodes downloaded from the net just fine.

[Ltb0b]

just don't rage at the keyboard...

[Samthebam4044]

uxwbill yep the more modrn varieties use Intel's Core 2 quads, slightly older now but still quads in this form factor not bad. You can also get all-in-ones that have the newer i3,5 and 7 chips with ATI Mobility Radeon Graphics still not up to much gaming wise but it's a laptop in a different style really, like the iMac is

[MAG315]

There's a certain simple elegance to this form factor. Sort of an "everything you need, nothing you don't" type of system. I'm surprised that this type of computer hasn't become more popular.

[Samthebam4044]

Very very cool bud. Be very funny if you could have one of the newer ones with a PCI-Express slot that could take a reasonable ATI or GeForce GPU for Games. Then you'd have a somewhat laptop form factor style computer albet with more desktop-like components and maybe a separate portable monitor to lug about with you Haha wishful thinking eh?

[scott93257]

and not a THING wrong with Mozilla Firefox...I have Ubuntu 10 dual booted on one of my computers and the choice of Web browser for Linux is Mozilla...I've had good results with it...

[scott93257]

VERY cool...I like that

[mjmcomputers]

One of my customers has a cybernet all in one, the pc is built into the monitor. It's actually dead right now, I suspect the dc power supply. I have a IBM all in one pc built into the monitor, it's also dead but looks to be a bad motherboard.

[valdarmort]

can it do 1080p video ?

[uxwbill]

@valdarmort Not from Youtube, and I doubt it elsewhere. If it had a GPU that could offload the decoding legwork, quite possibly yes.

[zk61]

Thanks Bill for another nice video!

[Knaeckebrotsaege]

oops.. misread Sansui350A's post... (i kinda read "if only atoms were stuffed into keyboards..")

also ignore the "just" in "you can just only watch .."

note to self: don't do quick edits to your post without proofreading the whole thing >.<

[adamxp12]

Windows 95 in background #lol

[nelizmastr]

my p3 600mhz computer runs XP now, but it hits the pagefile way too fast (256mb rdram). If it would accept DDR or SDRam, I'd upgrade it, but RDRam is really expensive.

[Sansui350A]

EPIC!.. hell, I thought only atoms were stuffed into keyboards.. lawl @ us not having any majorly new ideas in at least 10years.. heh.

[Knaeckebrotsaege]

@Sansui350A uhm.. they are O.o

the Asus eee Keyboard is one of them.

owning an Atom based netbook, i'd prefer something with more oomph though.

i mean.. you can just only watch 480p on youtube with it. 720p ("HD Ready") is already too much for the atom (choppy video).

i bet uxwbills "keyputer" in this video here would easily beat my Atom N280 (1.66GHz) based netbook.

i'd actually like to comare them..

@uxwbill a geekbench run to compare them.. :D?

[bamdadkhan]

wow, i mean WOW! that thing supports smart?

[nemoviesnews]

What exactly Does that "Kensington Lock" thing do? I see them on almost every computer and have always wondered

[Knaeckebrotsaege]

@nemoviesnews it's basically a piece of metal wire with a lock on it used to lock the PC/Monitor/Laptop/whatever to the desk or something to prevent it from being stolen.

en.wikipedia . org/wiki/Kensington_Security_S­lot

[bamdadkhan]

i happen to love the mess that's your computer room, and i would appreciate more videos done there. it feels like i'm home in my basement with uxwbill. :)

[randomrazr]

thats a pretty cool idea.

kind of like apple putting the entire computer in a monitor they have now.

downside with combining a computer and akeybvaord is when he keyboard wears out.

[grawey77]

Wow we like the same browser and have the same home page. My long lost brother. I also noticed speedfan.

[Ltb0b]

That is so awesome

[adrianjcc]

@vwestlife Are you thinking about commodoreusa "dot" net?, last time I checked they had a 3D modell, this time they had a plastic print-out. I don't know anything about their shiny silvery commodore though.

I remember reading about the Web.IT Commodore 64, and to be honest I thought it was stupid. 16MB ram, 66MHz AMD Elan SC405 and this is the odd part: Windows 3.1 running on MS-DOS v7 with a built in Commodore 64 emulator (probably just installed software). And all this in 1998.

[Jerkwad152]

I didn't have a Commodore, but I did have a Texas Instruments TI994/A. That was an interesting device. I was fortunate enough to have the ginormous expansion box.

[Lachlant1984]

I'm sure bbishoppcm has/had something like this, it was a white one I believe, I think his was from 2002 and had been tested for the school system he works in according to the video he uploaded. If you were to put something like Ubuntu Linux on it I bet this machine would scream along at a fast clip if the CPU is fast enough and the memory plentiful enough. Is there a heating furnace near your computer room? I ask because during the video i start to hear a lot of noise.

[talldude123]

That machine would be perfect for libraries or schools, since they're usually limited on space. I remember back in my school days we used desktop Dell GX110's with Hansol CRT's...and it used the whole workstation. I'm impressed with the performance for how small the machine is!

[Knaeckebrotsaege]

you should replace the harddrive with a modern one. the older ones were slow as hell (maxing out at 40-45MB/s), and i found them to be the one main part why those P3 computers are considered sluggish by most people =/

my own PIII-S 1.4GHz with 1GB RAM has a relatively new (2008) WD Caviar Blue singleplatter IDE drive of 160GB (7200rpm, 8MB Cache).

avg. speed of that HDD is around 75MB/s in HDTune. this REALLY makes the P3 fly :D

certainly much much faster than any intel Atom SFF PC :)

[uxwbill]

@Knaeckebrotsaege If I used this machine more regularly, I would probably do that. I'm not sure, but I think the last time it was really used intensively was in late 2007! I used to do a lot of typing on it, along with watching DVDs while I'd wait for some other computer to do something. Then it got kind of displaced and put in storage. Since I am cleaning my computer room (a Herculean task, to be sure), I found it again, dug it out and thought I'd make a video.

[wobblyman2000]

i had an Amiga back in the 90"s and i still love amiga os even today the amiga os is still better in a lot of ways

[uxwbill]

@wobblyman2000 At some point in time, I'd like to try an Amiga and see what all the fuss is about. I'm not in a big hurry or looking to own one, though.

[XeonProductions]

Haha, wow... I misread the title at first, I thought it said "malfunctioning". So the whole video I was expecting a BSOD or something, only to realize it said "manufacturing".

[Knaeckebrotsaege]

lol.. i should watch the videos to the end before posting comments *facepalm*

[Knaeckebrotsaege]

depending on what chipset it actually is (SiS 630/630E/630ET/630S/630ST) it would also support Tualatin Pentium 3's up to 1.4GHz. If it's a Server grade P3 (called PIII-S w. 512KB L2 Cache) it can easily outperform an early Pentium 4 of around 2GHz.

all the 630's support 512MB per RAM slot, so if this thing has 3 slots (which i kinda doubt), it maxes out at 1.5GB SD-RAM. pretty impressive, especially considering the formfactor :)

Also supports hardware mpeg2 (DVD) decoding btw..

[uxwbill]

@Knaeckebrotsaege I might have a 1.4GHz P3, although I'd really have to look. This is definitely a P3-S CPU and it wouldn't surprise me if it could handily outperform a P4...I've been down that road. There are only two DIMM slots here. At some point, I had the technical reference for the SiS 630/730. This talked about the integrated video in great length. Considering what it is, the SiS video core that they used seems quite good.

[jdcrispe95]

@uxwbill It would be nice to upgrade that keyboard computer to a 1.4Ghz Pentium 4, but I am a bit concerned about the temperature that the CPU will be at. As we all know Pentium 4's like to produce a lot of heat. I do not favor the SiS Chipsets at all, but I will say you could get pretty far with this computer, Happy computer, Great video. Thank you for taking your time to upload this for the community.

[Knaeckebrotsaege]

@jdcrispe95 uhm.. not a P4, a P3 at 1.4GHz. yes, these do exist and they also don't run anywhere nearly as hot as Pentium 4's do.

SiS chipsets aren't great for gaming stuff and tweakers, but for low-end to mid-range cost-effective computers, they're great.

SiS also released quite a bit of unusual stuff. they're for example the only chipset company to build a Pentium 3 Chipset (Tualatin ready) with support for DDR-RAM (SiS 635T , one motherboard using this is the ECS P6S5AT)

[jdcrispe95]

@Knaeckebrotsaege Yes, sorry about that, Its very early in the morning and I cannot think properly.

SiS are good for people who dont know much about computers and only want to do some basic internet browsing and maybe watch some 360p video (480p if you have a good enough chipset). I do not like SiS because all i have had is continous problems, I once ran a server with a SiS chipset, 3 months later the motherboard stopped working because the compacitors leaked. Thanks for shedding light on SiS.

[Knaeckebrotsaege]

@jdcrispe95 what do leaking capacitors have to do with the chipset? lol

sure.. SiS chipsets are found more on budget boards than high end stuff, and the manufacturers of those cheapo boards tend to cheap out on the capacitors aswell (especially junk like ECS aka PCChips).

after a recap, those boards run rock solid.

the server in a company i used to work for uses a MSI P4 board w. SiS chipset. Caps are all Rubycon. that board is running 24/7 since 2004 .. not a single problem with it :)

[vwestlife]

I have an older one of those, a Pentium-133 or so. It has one 16-bit ISA slot and a nice clicky keyboard, but no built-in optical drive (or room to add one). Also its noisy 2.5" hard drive and CPU fan conspire to make it a less joyful experience than the silent, fanless computers of the '80s. Anyway, there is some company in Europe which now owns the Commodore name, and I believe they had plans to sell these Cybernet keyboard PCs rebranded as the "new C64". I dunno if that ever happened or not.

[uxwbill]

@vwestlife You know that you're probably leading me to ask about another possible video request, right? :-)

The keyboard on this one isn't nearly as nice. It's just a rubber-dome board and pretty quiet (read: boring) at that. I dislike the shape of the enter key.

I wish the fan was quieter. At least it can be slowed down, so I'll take what I can get! I remember reading about the "new C64". It seemed somewhat interesting at the time, but like you, I have no idea if any were made or not.

[Knaeckebrotsaege]

@vwestlife they're bankrupt by now. they also wanted to release custom commodore gaming PCs.. never came that far though. the cases and powersupplies of these do pop up on ebay though, so if you're a hardcore commodore fan (and have quite a bit of money on hand), you could get yourself something really unique :) some ebay article #'s (paste into ebay search) 220745030942 220729734473 220714242914 220720751523 220715824215 220715819080 220715816799 esp. the last ones look awesome :D

[Lachlant1984]

@vwestlife I've heard of what Commodore USA is doing, I wonder if in fact they're just using rebadged Cybernet PC's with much newer hardware, I believe they're bases on an Intel Atom CPU and NVIDIA Ion graphics chipsets, I'm really sceptical about what they're doing.

[seanieb64]

holy crap, a 1.2GHz PIII, fancy faaancy!

[Knaeckebrotsaege]

@seanieb64 nothing too special. i've got a PIII-S (server grade) clocked at 1.4GHz.

with a little bit of tweaking it would overclock to 1.66GHz no problem. easily outperforms earlier Pentium4 PCs and it's certainly a sh*tload faster than any Intel Atom Small Form Factor (SFF) PC, like the ones in Netbooks or integrated into LCD Monitors and stuff like that.

[TheGeek1028]

bbishoppcm has something similar to this o.o

[gmcnewlook]

thats pretty cool, id love to get one of those, but i really dont need more computers :) i already have 3 i barely use two dell desktops and an asus EEEpc (replaced by a android tablet)

[MrOne2watch]

somewhat faster than my old Commodore 64. LOL

that would be great for a small office.it has a neat form factor

was that firefox running? ain't nothing wrong with that because it's the best !

once again thanks for sharing.....

[kbhasikevin]

windows 7?

[Knaeckebrotsaege]

@kbhasikevin it would run Win7 no problem, but it's a little low on RAM and Aero (transparent window stuff) wouldn't work, as the integrated graphics card only supports DirectX 7 (Aero needs DX9)

[joytech23]

And sorry for all these comments but i just checked their website, the best they have are C2Q's and intel IGP's but that's way more then anybody who doesn't do hardcore gaming or video rendering can ask for.

Now Iv'e added one of them to my "Think about buying" list.

[uxwbill]

@joytech23 Huh...I was sure that at one point (can you guess that I considered buying one new?) they had at least the i5 processor available as an option. Interestingly, someone put an ATI Rage card of some kind in the single PCI slot on the white one that I have. As I am not one to generally be unhappy with integrated graphics, I put that in some other desktop PC and went back to the SiS integrated graphics.

[joytech23]

Oh and PS, I want one of those!

[Qwakkeddup]

Very nice. I remember a friend having an IBM that looked like not much more than a thick keyboard. I also remember him loading games on it with a cassette tape drive. He also had a 5" floppy drive, and I believe he had a 3.5" as well. They were all separate units and had to plug into the outlet as well as the computer.

You think a single core 1 Ghz pc is slow? Try 20 minute load times with a cassette drive for a program with only 5 or 10 mb!

[uxwbill]

@Qwakkeddup Hmmm...I wonder what kind of IBM product that might have been? Closest thing I can think of would be the PC convertible or PCjr...yet neither really come close enough to be "right" in line with your description.

I'm definitely not unhappy with a 1GHz P3...I could get by with a 486 and appropriate software for a lot of the things I do! (Of course, editing videos would require something more...as would playing Rigs of Rods!)

[theimaginator16]

Just bought one to make a media center for my entertainment room!

[joytech23]

Asus has a all-in-one computer in a keyboard, it even has a screen built into it + can be plugged into a external monitor/other peripherals.

[1638490]

soo an asus eee keyboard interesting

[uxwbill]

@1638490 Close, but the eee keyboard (never seen one) is a much newer product. These were out before the eee was probably ever conceived at Asus.

[yamahonkawazuki]

haha, i might have to get ym hands on one of these thigns for my game room. would be great for comms. service

[nsub6]

that's really cool im not sure why but it puts me in the mind of lug able computers.

[Dell0304]

That's cool. The Commodore 64, but modernized.