VIA Technologies is celebrating the 10th birthday of Mini-ITX, a small motherboard (and case) form factor whose first reference design was created by Robert Kuo, Assistant Vice President, VIA Technologies. The idea was to build a 17x17cm PC motherboard that could spark a new wave of computer industrial design – and it did!
The new small form factor has enabled all kinds of PC “mods” (modifications) allowing PCs to go everywhere (cars, scooters, robots…) and look like anything (vintage radio R2D2, millennium falcon – you name it!). Enthusiast from all over the world have kept Mini-ITX alive, and although today small computers are much more common, there is no doubt that small is indeed beautiful.
You can download the free book as an ePub (ebook) or PDF (Acrobat file). I have not had time to read the 155 pages yet, but it basically gives you a great historical perspective on Mini-ITX and it goes through some of the best Mini-ITX designs of the past 10 years and provides interesting background information about each. If you want to glance at some of them, check this photo gallery.
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