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Olivier Biot
Amused
Reged: 04/25/05
Posts: 24589
Loc: 51°N (Belgium)
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One thing I'm still feeling a bit concerned about is the Flash based permanent memory. Granted, there are no more moving mechanical parts in your storage subsystem, but how many write cycles can recent Flash memory withstand?
I'd be happy to know my concern is a non-issue today 
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I think you're worth a double serving of happiness!
Tal-200K (#199) with JMI NGF-Mini2M focuser on GEM3 • Astro-Tech AT80ED • Orion Sirius EQ-G with wireless EQDIRECT • Astro-Tech Voyager • Celestron Regal LX 10x42 • Helios 15x70
ATM projects: 14" f/5 truss Dobson: first light Jul 1, 2011  - currently in 'tweak & widget' mode 
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Tom and Beth
Carpal Tunnel
Reged: 01/08/07
Posts: 2019
Loc: Tucson, AZ
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I use ECU as a planetarium and with XP on this little 'puter it would be perfect. About the only downside would be that my AP600 uses a serial cable for interface. I'm aware of Serial to USB converters but would prefer a bluetooth interface.
What's nice is that ECU can be completely installed on a 8 Gig SD card, and include the entire USNO database (which is about 6 Gig). Add in a roll up keyboard and a mouse....
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~Steph~
Texas Wildflower
Reged: 06/11/05
Posts: 26279
Loc: North Texas
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Welllll....I decided "what the heck" and ordered the black 4GB EEE from Amazon yesterday after it showed as having a couple back in stock -- though it also showed as "in stock Dec. 28" so I was getting an estimated shipping date of Dec. 31 and an estimated arrival date of Jan. 3. Figured that would work well enough.
Just got an "it's shipped" notice and I should get it the day after Christmas.  Merry Christmas to me! 
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Steph
Taking it one day at a time...
I'm in the fight! - Support Liver Disease Awareness
10" RCX400 ~~ 4" TV102 ~~ WO ZS80FD ~~ PST
Serenity Observatory
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gripweed44
Pooh-Bah
Reged: 02/12/05
Posts: 1019
Loc: PDX
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Steph-
your going to Hawaii in march? Observing trip??
John
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John
Omega Centauri is the finest Globular I have seen with my own eyes.
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groz
Carpal Tunnel
Reged: 03/14/07
Posts: 1766
Loc: Duncan, BC
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Quote:
One thing I'm still feeling a bit concerned about is the Flash based permanent memory. Granted, there are no more moving mechanical parts in your storage subsystem, but how many write cycles can recent Flash memory withstand?
I'd be happy to know my concern is a non-issue today
I haven't used / seen an EEE yet, but, it's linux based, so I would _expect_ the flash is using the jffs file system, which is designed for flash, and uses wear levelling to ensure you aren't re-writing the same sectors constantly. Modern flash can do 100K cycles per sector, and with a smart wear levelling algorthim, the flash life _shouldn't_ be an issue for regular use. Start using swap on flash, and I wont hedge any bets anymore.
As an example, I have literally thousands of linux based devices in the field, small headless machines using 4 meg flash and 16 meg ram. They do a small write of a text file to the flash every 15 minutes. JFFS provides both compression, and wear levelling, so, we didn't expect flash wear to be a big issue. A little over 3000 devices in the field over the last 3 years, gives us a median of around a year and half life so far, and a high of just over 3 years. We have had a few environmental failures due to temperature etc, but, to date, none of them have had flash failures from flash wear. The only flash failures we've had are premature failures, where a few of them have had flash chips die in the first couple of weeks.
I wouldn't consider putting windows on a flash based device. Between the registry and swap, and no wear levelling file systems, I would expect it to kill some critical sectors (likely registry sectors) within a few months.
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Olivier Biot
Amused
Reged: 04/25/05
Posts: 24589
Loc: 51°N (Belgium)
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Hey that sounds interesting - I never heard about jffs
Regarding Linux & *NIX swap, in principle you could add extra RAM and make a RAM disk I guess?
Thanks for posting that 
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I think you're worth a double serving of happiness!
Tal-200K (#199) with JMI NGF-Mini2M focuser on GEM3 • Astro-Tech AT80ED • Orion Sirius EQ-G with wireless EQDIRECT • Astro-Tech Voyager • Celestron Regal LX 10x42 • Helios 15x70
ATM projects: 14" f/5 truss Dobson: first light Jul 1, 2011 - currently in 'tweak & widget' mode
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Tom Trusock
Reged: 02/26/02
Posts: 33846
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Quote:
I wouldn't consider putting windows on a flash based device. Between the registry and swap, and no wear levelling file systems, I would expect it to kill some critical sectors (likely registry sectors) within a few months.
FWIW, I think that's a bit overly pessismestic, and evidently so do Asus and Microsoft as XP will be offered pre-installed on the EEE in 2008.
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You do not need a parachute to skydive, you only need a parachute to skydive twice...
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~Steph~
Texas Wildflower
Reged: 06/11/05
Posts: 26279
Loc: North Texas
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Quote:
Steph-
your going to Hawaii in march? Observing trip??
John
Hope to get some observing in (will probably take my 80mm scope), but not strictly an observing trip, no. Going with my brother, his wife, and my mom, and none of them are particularly interested in astronomy.
And I didn't really want to lug along my big ol' heavy widescreen laptop for downloading pics from the camera or checking email and CN occasionally for that week but hated not having a way to keep in touch or having to use my brother's if he takes it, so the EEE will hopefully be the perfect answer for that! (See how I was a good little mod and connected Hawaii with the topic? )
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Steph
Taking it one day at a time...
I'm in the fight! - Support Liver Disease Awareness
10" RCX400 ~~ 4" TV102 ~~ WO ZS80FD ~~ PST
Serenity Observatory
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Tom and Beth
Carpal Tunnel
Reged: 01/08/07
Posts: 2019
Loc: Tucson, AZ
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I'd be interested in your opinion of this 'puter. I'm leaning heavily towards getting one...maybe as a PDA replacement? I'm not an early adoptee.... 
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