I think they are similar, but the mini-ITX is made by VIA. The motherboard is
very complete. I put together an ME-6000 system with a DVD player and a TV
card. Its powered off a "brick" although you could probably use boat DC power
if you weren't afraid of regulation issues. (I would simply use a small
inverter.)

I've been a bit disappointed - the case had a noisy fan and trying to slow the
fan allows the cpu to overheat. And some of the advertised features simply
don't work because VIA doesn't always supply promised drivers. But it is cute,
and low enough power to leave it on all the time. And like a desktop machine, I
can take it apart and swap out components.

http://www.mini-itx.com/store/



wrote in message
...
You might look into Mini-ITX. Its the size and power consumption of a
laptop,
but with pci slots and replaceable disk drives, etc. Of course, not that
much
bang for the buck, compared to off the shelf stuff.

Do you mean small form factor computers like this
Shuttle?

Like one in link?

http://us.shuttle.com/SB81P.asp

If yes..... this is the model I was wondering COULD be
used for boating applications.