So I got the idea of building a “Janus” style portable computer, for wireless surveys, and mostly for something to do. It was going to be completely DC powered, but finding a DC powered LCD that didn’t cost more than all the other components put together was pretty much impossible. After deciding that wasn’t going to work I installed a small form factor power supply. Top plate is a piece of hard board painted with a hammered silver krylon. I’ve installed a ps2 extension and usb port in it so I can hook up a keyboard and my gps to it. As soon as I can find a good small form factor keyboard, it will be semi permanently installed like the mouse and I won’t need the ps2 port any more.
Update!
The first box didn’t work out. It was too short and after I had everything mounted, the display touched stuff inside and the lid still wasn’t quite closed.
Update 2!
I added a reset button to the power button. Easier on the power supply than just yanking out the cord. They were originally Power Book G4 power buttons. Wonder where they came from?
I also picked up enough antennas to populate all the pigtails. Now I need to start acquiring jumpers to get the antennas away from the box.
Link to the original computer:
http://www.mini-itx.com/2006/08/31/the-janus-project
Specs for this computer:
AMD Athalon XP2200+
1 Gb DDR2 ram.
4X WLM54G 200mW 802.11 b/g mini pci cards.
1 Tb sata hard drive.
250 Gb sata hard drive.
Ubuntu 8.04
Update 3!
The mini-itx board would freeze up if I put anything processor intensive to it. So now there’s a full size atx board with a 1.8Ghz AMD processor in there. There’s now two 250Gb sata drives. It’s got Ubuntu 8.04 installed on one drive and I boot BackTrack 3 beta off a 6Gb mini usb drive. I also picked up one of the new Apple aluminum usb keyboards. It will fit in the box with the lid closed! Much more portable now.
Update 4.
Swapped out one of the 250Gb drives for a 1Tb drive. I’ve also redone the OS install. Now it’s running Ubuntu with an encrypted drive setup. Both drives are encrypted and decrypt at boot with a password. Finally got around to painting the top case so it doesn’t look like particle board any more.
