POSTED BY

Rob Beschizza

AT 6:27 PM
Thursday July 2, 2009

Computers

sheevaplug

Marvell SheevaPlug fits computer inside wallwart

shivaplug.jpg

SheevaPlug is even tinier than the Fit PC 2 reviewed just a day or two ago, and does away with the power brick by being the power brick. It's an entire computer housed in similar fashion to Apple's Airport Express -- the key question being whether it has any more computing power than a router.

Not a lot, frankly, but what is there is interesting enough: USB and gigabit ethernet backed by a 1.2 GHz CPU, 512MB of flash storage and 512MB of RAM. There's no video output on the reference design (pictured), but it could be added by an OEM, or even piped through USB. It's clearly intended for use with Linux derivatives -- are drivers available for the recent batch of USB displays?

Marvell_SheevaPlug_Product_Brief.pdf">Product Briefing (PDF) [Marvell]

0

5 Comments

Rickyneck

#1 – 7:58 PM July 2, 2009

I'm actually quite impressed. I would love to be able to update some of the inards. Adding more memory should be easy considering you can purchase 64+ gig thumb drives.

killdeer

#2 – 8:35 PM July 2, 2009

I'd like to see the insides. Someone crack one open for the rest of us?

phisrow

#3 – 11:28 PM July 2, 2009

Gallery(not my pictures, incidentally, Martin Michlmayr is the man with the plan when it comes to Debian on ARM.)

technogeek

#4 – 6:13 AM July 3, 2009

I'd like to see them cram in 802.11 (or IP-over-powerlines?)... but it's still cute.

Anonymous Anonymous

#5 – 8:01 AM July 3, 2009

You can see the insides here:

http://www.cyrius.com/debian/kirkwood/sheevaplug/gallery.html

But you can see the entire schematic here:

http://www.plugcomputer.org/index.php/resources/plugtop-documentation

Interestingly the SoC is prepped for eSATA ports, another ethernet port, and a few other tricks. They're just not connected in the SheevaPlug. However Marvell make the OpenRD based around the same SoC which is a little more expensive but much more interesting.

And yes, I ordered one.

Leave a comment