Needful things – Geek Christmas list

The Christmas music is playing around my house now, and the Thanksgiving turkey hasn’t even been bought. All of this holiday spirit got me to thinking – what would be some of the best geek Christmas gifts this year? I’ll try to post some of the things that friends of mine are talking about (and lusting after) over the next month.

Near the top of my list is an OpenRD ARM based low power computer. The OpenRD comes in two models – the OpenRD Base, and the OpenRD Client.

OpenRD Base $149

• High performance Marvell® Sheeva™ up to 1.2 GHz
• Supports both Big & Little Endian
• Includes MMU to support virtual memory
• 512 MB DDR2-800 SDRAM in 2 banks of x8 devices and 512 MB NAND Flash
• 12 Volts power supply
• SD Card
• 1 USB 2.0 Port with integrated PHY
• 1 GbE Port with GMII and RGMII support
• SATA/eSATA Ports with integrated Marvell 3 Gbps SATA PHYs
• 1 x PCI Express (PCIe) Port
• UART with RS232 (Yay legacy!)
• USB Interface for Debug supports JTAG & Serial Console
• Operating System: Linux 2.6.22.18 & Fedora 8.0

OpenRD Client $249 (Additional features)

• 7 USB 2.0 Port with integrated PHYs
• 2 GbE Ports with GMII and RGMII support
• VGA support up to 1280×1024 at 60 Hz
• UART with RS232/RS485 interface

I’m itching to use the OpenRD Client to

• run my web and DHCP server off of battery power (7 watts at idle)
• be a MythTV client
• Provide In-room touch screen information

There’s also a smaller member of this family – the Sheeva Plug. It’s built into a wall wart sized package, it’s got the processing power of the OpenRD boards, and just a USB plug for output.

Any of these could excite your geek this holiday season.

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