I has a WRAP. Nooo they be stealin' my WRAP!

April 7, 2008 7:41 PM

I have a WRAP. Suggest some creative mini-projects for this out-of-production little beast...

My WRAP is a small embedded PC, in a metal case.

Specifications:

• 233 MHz AMD GEODE Processor


• 128Mb/RAM


• CF Card reader (w/ 128mb card but can get larger one)


• 1 x miniPCI card slot


• 3 x 10/100 Ethernet ports


• 1 x DB9 Serial Port

I have somewhere, or can aquire, a wireless card for the miniPCI card slot.

Obviously this is designed for some kind of wireless router, but I now have all these bases covered. It can run embedded Linux/BSD and has done in the past.

Anything internet based would be extremely cool. Unfortunately it's headless and unable to drive a display which throws out the Chumby-like ideas I was having...

Anybody have any big ideas for my little box?

posted by puddpunk to computers & internet (4 comments total)

Also, I should mention I have a 1tb+ NAS with a bunch of free space. I can set up a NFS or Samba share on there to use with this if needed...
posted by puddpunk at 9:24 PM on April 7

it's headless and unable to drive a display which throws out the Chumby-like ideas I was having...

There are serial LCD displays that could display a tiny amount of text. But couldn't you get a miniPCI video card?
posted by Zed_Lopez at 10:46 PM on April 7

Hmm -- wire the serial port up as a MIDI port and plug it into an old synthesizer or Disklavier to have a network-accessible player piano!
posted by moonmilk at 11:17 PM on April 7

security camera, mp3 player (sound card in the pci slot, remote control on the serial port, files on one of the NICs), remote monitoring (weather, temperature, etc), robot (mount it on 4 wheels and give it a battery), web server, something to send/receive SMS (requires a SIM modem), some kind of relay for wifi or other radio, PVR for radio shows, hooking up a dot matrix printer, running folding@home very very slowly, hook up a GPS and a WiFi adapter, throw it under the passenger seat of your car and go wardriving, have it tap a relay to simulate pulse dialling for the world's most ungainly autodialler...

"Mini ITX projects" and "serial port projects" would probably be good search terms.
posted by Leon at 5:49 AM on April 8