Maurice Kinal wrote in a message to Roy J. Tellason:

 MK> Hello Roy.

 MK> 04 Sep 03 04:07, you wrote to Tom Walker:

 RT> That's probably a little high.  I was browsing through an article in a
 RT> magazine a bit earlier this evening that was talking about using linux
 RT> for routers.  They estimated that a P200-MMX or equivalent MB in that
 RT> kind of use would draw maybe 30 watts...

 MK> I am talking 133MHz drawing well under 5 watts.  Heck one 
 MK> distributor claimed 400MHz also under 5 watts but that particular
 MK> one I am taking with a grain of salt.  I'll believe it when I see
 MK> it ... and at his price I doubt I'll be seeing it soon.  Too risky
 MK> methinks and I don't believe we need that much speed anyhow. I
 MK> think I have the answer but it remains to be seen.  Closing in on
 MK> it though.

My point there was that with common off-the-shelf hardware it's way lower
than what people were thinking.  You're looking at somewhat specialized
hardware,  and that's going to give even lower numbers.

 MK> A huge part of the answer was trimming out the unneeded power 
 MK> hungry hardware.  I have achieved that much already.  The next step
 MK> was to build a small ramdisk with everything that was absolutely
 MK> required while leaving open a door for expansion.  That also has
 MK> been achieved.  All that remains is to take the plunge and decide
 MK> which CPU will make the grade and there are a few very good options
 MK> there as long as nobody gets too greedy with respect to speed. 
 MK> Speed can and does kill.

Speed is also nowhere near as necessary as those who sell hardware would
like us to believe.  :-)

 MK> For all that I can think of, sans DVDs, this is extremely doable
 MK> and I believe desirable.  It will happen and I think we can safely
 MK> talk weeks with respect to uptime on a single charge.  I also think
 MK> we can talk about doing all that is needed from a mobile computer
 MK> and leave the silliness home.  There is more then enough
 MK> entertainment in the real world without dragging any additional
 MK> crap along for the ride.  :-)

Agreed!  :-)

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