So, after all everything's said and done, you're probably asking yourself "Why would somebody go through all this trouble to build a computer from the ground up? It's never going to be as fast as one that you can buy, so what's the point?"

Ultimately, it comes down to what you're trying to accomplish. If you want the fastest possible CPU, tens of gigabytes of RAM, and four monitors so you can go raiding more efficiently chances are you have a threat model that doesn't approach the level of concern, paranoia, or security requirements that we assumed through the other …

This brings us along to designs that are rather common even though we don't normally think of them as either common or systems. By this, I refer to SoC's - Systems On A Chip. As the name implies, they are full (or nearly so) computers implemented as single mother-huge silicon chips (relatively speaking). On the die you'll find a CPU or microcontroller, supporting electronics for same, an MMU, and enough interfaces to do whatever you want, be it plug in a USB keyboard and mouse, an Ethernet adapter, or a simple USB-to-serial converter circuit. An excellent example of a SoC is …