In my previous post, I outlined the decision making process that led to my selecting the Via Artigo Pico-ITX kit with which to build a prototype of an embedded device.

There are already videos available of unboxing and assembling an Artigo (in case you don't like to RTFM), so won't go into this in detail here. However, there is a useful tip below, so please be sure to read on :)

The Artigo kit contains everything you need to construct the foundation device for many prototyping projects.

The kit contains a motherboard, case, power supply board and all the necessary cables. Additional serial IO, DVI, PS/2 and ATX power cables come in the box.

The (demure) case exposes a power switch, power LED, HDD LED, 4 x USB 2.0 sockets, microphone in, audio out and holes for the VGA and network sockets mounted on the motherboard.

Core to the unit is the EPIA-PX motherboard. This tiny (approx 72mm x 94mm) board houses VIA's C7 CPU and the VIA VX700 Unified Chipset that provides all IO, video and audio capabilities. Pin connectors for the case's front panel connectors are arranged towards the front of the board. An IDC and SATA connector for a HDD are mounted to the side. VGA and network sockets are mounted at the rear of the card. The motherboard chips are shrouded by a heatsink and fan to expel unwanted heat.

Note that this is a low-power consuming CPU from a PC perspective, but not from an embedded perspective! VIA have recently announced an updated VX800 chipset and Pico-ITX board that supports the new 1.5GHz C8 x86 CPU or a fanless 1GHz Eden low-power x86 CPU. No word yet on when the Artigo kit will be updated to include this new board.

Underneath the board, you'll notice a socket for RAM. Unlike the eBox 4300, this board doesn't support flash RAM, nor does it ship with DRAM - you have to add your own DRAM and HDD. Whilst this may seem like an encumberance, it's actually nice to be able to add considerably more RAM to this board than the 512MB DRAM that is welded onto the eBox.

IMPORTANT NOTE: When assembling your Artigo, be sure to properly mount the DRAM module. If you do not, your device will not boot and you will not see the BIOS boot-page appear when you power on your device. This one problem frustrated me for several hours until I saw mention of this very issue in the VIA Arena Forums. After disassembling my device and examining my Artigo's memory board I saw that I had not pushed the memory board all the way into the socket:

I unclipped my memory board and re-seated it, pushing it home at 45° before clipping it down (notice that the memory board's edge connector is now barely visible and that the locking clips are now properly seated):

Once that was done, I reassembled my Artigo, connected the VGA and the power sockets, turned on my device and saw the BIOS boot screen:

Woot! :) Just don't ask about the Bunny! Let's just say that my girls like to decorate stuff! :D

Next step ... getting some software onto this thing :)