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Video: Little Guys, Episode 1 (Patreon)

Published:
2024-02-29 19:32:38
Imported:
2026-06
Tags:

Content

This is a new series I'm starting that's intended to be cozy, unscripted and low effort. I'm not planning on retiring the studio or anything, but I really need to do more videos that don't require all that setup and prep or I'm gonna burn out, plus it's actually harder to use that environment for off the cuff stuff like this. I really want to put out some ten minute episodes if I can manage it, it's a goal I've been pursuing for years and by golly I'm gonna do it if it kills me. If anybody has any Little Guys to contribute, shoot me an email (cathoderaydude@gmail.com - patreons messaging system is unreliable garbage) and I'll see if I'm interested. Remember, the criteria are that it be intended for commercial use, and PC based... though if you have anything close enough you can just send it anyway and I'll see what I think.In particular I'm interested in finding an OPS compatible monitor and modules - if you know, you know, otherwise I'll explain what that is when I get one, haha. Anyway, enjoy!

Files

Lil Guys Ep 1 RC2

Support me on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/cathoderaydude Tip me: https://ko-fi.com/cathoderaydude

Comments

Zen The Fox

With a name like Little Guys I'm incredibly intrigued already :3

Chas Becht

That was a neat little guy.

schtiehve

I already love this new series. These little purpose built PCs are super fascinating to me. I run a Jellyfin Server on one of these passively cooled "Firewall" PCs (a lot newer hardware). I think these are also great as Linux machines (servers etc.). Regarding the "Ubuntu" entry: I've seen this before it's pretty much like you guessed remains of an old boot entry left in the efivars. I've "cleaned up" these entries before using efibootmgr but I'm sure there's also a windows utility for that. PS: Don't burn out putting to much energy in your videos. If you need a break take it im sure your subscriber's will understand. And if Videos like these are a lot less work do more of them. I can say for me at least that I enjoy them just as much.

Danny Forche

I just started watching this video and I'm immediately interested in the subject. I have a HP Thin Client with an embedded CPU that I dual-installed Windows and Linux on to use for video capture - but it's still quite large for putting beneath a TV and using like a DVR. I've been on the lookout for the smallest possible computer that has a PCIe slot or two, since I need to put my capture card(s) in there - and no, USB is not an option for the main one for reasons (look up vhs-decode if you're curious). Is there a "little guy" that has an expansion slot that's usable? Low-profile is fine, the HP Thin Client intends for you to use this for a GPU for CAD purposes (they're business machines after all) but of course you can absolutely stick a capture card in there. The CPU in mine is some AMD x86 processor, it's quite potato but it does run Windows 7 just fine as well as Ubuntu. tl;dr what is the smallest "little guy" PC I can get with at least one PCIe slot?

Danny Forche

5 minutes into a 52 minute video: "There really isn't anything to say about them" That runtime would say otherwise 😂

cathoderaydude

So, your best bet for a tiny machine with a PCIe slot is probably a Lenovo ThinkCenter, they are little baby machines that often have discreet GPUs that go into x16 slots internally. You won't necessarily have a clean way to mount it, but I would expect they are full fat and have all the lanes. Don't quote me on that though, I've only seen these, I have not actually tested one. Alternately, you may be able to find a machine with a mini PCIe slot and a matching video capture card, I know for a fact that they exist because I have a machine (seen in this video but not mentioned) that has two Avermedia mini PCIe cards that'll do everything from standard def analog up to 1080p30. I can't give you a specific model or suggestion unfortunately, but those are some leads you can look into.

cathoderaydude

Well hey I just have a talent for finding something to say about nothing :p

Danny Forche

I don't need to mount it, my idea was to put it under the TV, like above my VCR. I thought it would be really wild to shove PC guts into the body of a DVD recorder (since that already has the optical drive sorted) but the amount of effort and drilling that would take to fit the slots is probably not worth it. Obviously these machines are a little taller than a DVD recorder, and that's fine - I just want something with a tiny footprint. I'm familiar with the ThinkCentres, but the smallest of them (now called, appropriately, the "tiny series" on their website) definitely don't have the space for PCIe - the middle size might, I'd need to measure and see how it compares. FWIW, what I have is the HP T730 thin client. There's a little screw-attached base so it can stand up vertically, or you can remove the base and lay it flat. It's fine for what it is, but still I've seen smaller PCs (like those "micro-desktops" as I call them, the tiny ThinkCentres and similarly-sized Dells) so I was curious

Danny Forche

Dude, me too, I just ramble so nobody watches my videos. I've really been meaning to get into it though. I have a lot of obscure tech to show off, I recently made one about a super useless mid 2000s USB sound card I was gullible enough to buy as a teenager.

cathoderaydude

Oh sorry, what I meant by Mount was in regards to the card. I know they have full width PCIe GPUs in some of these things, but they don't have back plane brackets like a desktop machine nor do they have normal heat sinks, more like laptop style heat pipe systems, so I don't think the machines in question actually have a opening on the back, but I just wanted to suggest it because it might be there on some of them. Honestly probably a weak lead, now that I think about it

Danny Forche

Ah, yeah I know Blackmagic makes a capture card that uses a mini-PCIe slot as well, but no - I'm using this to capture the RF data of VHS tapes (and in the future maybe laserdiscs), it's a very neat project where you can decode the analog video in software and get a much better time base corrected signal than a typical capture card would produce. The card used is a bog stock PCIe AliExpress special with no brand name in particular - but it needs an actual slot, not mini-PCIe. It would be really awesome if one of the big tech YouTubers went down the rabbit hole of doing this type of capture, I've been pitching it to Technology Connections for a while too - it takes up a ton more disk space than a conventional uncompressed 480p video, but the results are great. If I got a case with two slots, then I could stick a regular conventional capture card in there too, for times I want to capture something that isn't a VHS, such as a game console. The first "little guy" you're reviewing looks like it would work, but is probably larger than my HP - and also I'm not capturing in extreme environments where I'd need 20G of shock protection lmao

_Pai

Love the idea for the series! I'd definitely like to see an episode on the Shuttle that you mentioned you're using as a router. I've never really explored what making your own router entails so I'd be interested in seeing what it's like to set up and use, what advantages it has, and what problems it solves (or introduces).

Carl Seiler

Really enjoyed this actually

Nikita Fedorov

I had fun watching this! Hope you have more fun making these videos

Aidan Rayner

I recently picked up a Radxa X2L Celeron based single board computer. It’s clearly designed for coding and such as it’s got an RP2040 built in but I’ve had a ton of fun pushing it by running old games on it. Turns out the Intel UHD 600 built in is crap enough that Battlefield 1942 at high settings, at whatever maximum resolution the game supports (1280x1024 I think, 1600x1200 won’t work on my 1080p monitor), drops frames and stutters lol It’s almost *too much* fun seeing what these little mini PCs can do.

Strawberry Daquiri

:} the steering control system on the boat i work on uses CF cards

Penny Unwise

For what it's worth my gaming motherboard from around 2018 has a PS2 port on the back IO. I couldn't believe my eyes. It's the MSI Z390 Gaming Plus. That may give you something to dig into, cos it's the most baffling thing I saw while building it a few years ago.

Bike Forever

Loving the "little guys" idea. And the relaxed format is cool. And you've introduced another rabbit hole for me to get lost in 🤣

Anderson Manly

I like the "off the cuff" - good stuff man. Keep it up!

Chris Jeter

I really like this “little guys” concept. Video was excellent and informative/entertaining. LOL @ “Chekov’s Plug”

Dante Blando

The PS/2 plugs have an interesting reason to exist on modern equipment. Remember that such devices are terminators, not buses. This means if there isn't one plugged in at boot time, you can't be guaranteed that plugging one in will suddenly work -- no polling mandate. This means you can block boot access to the USB ports and require that someone boot the box for video console access.

Kerne

Ya, AliExpress has a ton of ITX (industrial mini ATX) motherboards. I've been using a five year old Qotom box for my pfSense router for years as well. I also recently built a ITX form factor celeron-based 1U rack server for running a Unifi controller. I think part of why most of these boxes have a Windows license is because M$ licenses are often cheaper in other countries. Btw, RS-485 (those four RJ-45) serial ports are common high speed serial connections for industrial equipment. One of my shoeboxes came with a massive PCI RS-485 multiplexer card. I also love shoebox form factor industrial SBC PCs, since I have limited shelf space...I have three of them with various SBC (single board computers...486 to Core i7) in them. https://retrotechrestoration.com/wp-content/uploads/PXL_20240302_0213204022-scaled.jpg

Dante Blando

Seconded! I love these little guys in my home -- old thin clients, boxes that scream for some odd reuse. Right now I'm turning an HP t620+ into a router. This box from 2013 has 8 GB RAM, some kind of Celeron with more L2 cache than any server in 2000, lots of internal mini slots, Display Port, and a full-sized PCIe x16 slot. I got this one populated with a 4-NIC gigabit card. These jobbies rawk and don't wanna die.

_Pai

Vintage lil guys! Are the ones with the on/off switch AT or is that just there for some other purpose?

Kerne

Nothing on an industrial PC is for looks! That's why I love them (also because of the the heavy gauge steel cases). So for us technically they're "retro", but they're still used in a wide range of industrial applications...and they're designed to last. Tom Lawrence has mentioned how one of his company's clients still has an industrial machine that runs OS/2 Warp. To answer your question - https://retrotechrestoration.com/wp-content/uploads/1-scaled.jpg - mine all did come with AT power supplies, as they mostly had late Pentium class or Celeron SBCs in them. These SBC cards do use the older PICMG 1.1 standard as illustrated by the example card up top, which was the last revision to include an ISA bus. The box on the left is an Intel 486 DX4 with an AT PSU while the box on right is a 4th gen Intel I7 which I modified with an ATX PSU to support that later SBC. Having sturdy, compact little boxes with both PCI and ISA slots is fantastic for testing purposes in my shop.

Kerne

See my reply above ... a particularly strong beer led to an errant mouse click.

viviridian

i enjoyed the video, the overall concept and referring to these as little guys is very fun

Yaniv Levinsky

I used to work for a company that builds such fanless industrial computers called Compulab. One of the devices you had on your desk at the beginning looks very similar to Compulab's fit-PC3. Am I right?

Yaniv Levinsky

Wow great! Can't wait to see the video about it. I actually still daily use computers I "borrowed" from Compulab when I worked there, and they are great. One is used as HTPC (model Airtop2) and one is at my home lab (model IPC2) . Them being fanless is a great advantage. Compulab's computers are being manufactures almost entirely in Israel, which you can guess is a huge challenge to compete with Chinese manufacturing with good access to parts and cheap labor.

Yaniv Levinsky

BTW if you got some questions regarding the fit-PC2 I can forward them to a person who was involved with the development of that model. I keep in touch with him. Me unfortunately joined much later. Worked there on the development of Airtop3 and Tensor-I20.

FennecTECH

LEDs loose brightness over time. I wouldn’t be surprised if this stayed on for lots of years

adorfer

43:37 these bleeps when (un-)plunging USB devices, even with different pitch for different USB mass storage keys: common on (older) SuperMicro Server boards. really helpful when troubleshooting without the display in sight in a rack.

adorfer

45:18 BIOS option PSU type "AT/ATX" means "always on" or "power up at tactile switch impulse". Yes, the wording is bad.