Most, if not all, of the Thayer-based readers of this blog will have used one of the print release stations spread through our building. Each release station requires a computer to run the release software on. The computers at the release stations are not new, but still quite beefy (and power hungry at ~70 watts) for the job they have to do.
Enter the DecTOP. The DecTOP is relatively old technology, designed by AMD years ago, with a 366 MHz AMD Geode processor, 10 GB hard drive, and a whopping 128 MB of ram. This is not a machine you would like to run hefty computation on, but it is perfect for a print release station. The DecTOP is inexpensive (less than $100), and consumes just 8 Watts of electricity. For the print release stations, it runs a cut down version of Ubuntu GNU/Linux. No longer is the print release station a poor use of a power-hungry, underutilized computer. It is now an appliance: a single purpose machine running on inexpensive, efficient hardware just powerful enough to get the job done well. Over the next few weeks, the current hardware at the print release stations will be replaced by DecTOPs. You can see these machines already in place in M210 and cg23 (the copy room).
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