Compact, Portable PC from Wave Digital

Wave Digital Systems of Ringwood, New Jersey, is has introduced the MicroWave, a Wave Digital Portable PC, at the 2001 AES Convention in New York City. The ultra-portable MicroWave is arguably the worlds smallest computer, measuring in at only 6.15" x 5.75" x 2.2" and weighing a mere 1.9 pounds.

The MICROWAVE features four USB ports, two IEEE-1394 Firewire ports, as well as Ethernet, Audio I/O, AV and S-Video, modem, parallel, Serial, VGA, LAN, and two PS/2 ports for mouse and keyboard, and Microphone in and line out jacks. The MicroWave even supports infrared. An 18volt DC wall wart provides power. Two Firewire ports means the consumer can use multiple Firewire devices, such as a multi-channel audio interface, secondary external Firewire hard drive, Digital Video Camera, etc. The Microwave features a CD-ROM/DVD ROM CD-RW drive standard.

The MicroWave can run Windows 98 Se, Windows 2000, Windows NT and Windows Me. The MicroWaves processor is an Intel Pentium III processor in FCPGA package. The MicroWave supports a 370-pin socket, upgradeable beyond Pentium III 1Ghz with a system bus frequency at 100Mhz and 133Mhz.

The MICROWAVE memory consists of one 144-pin DIMM slot for PC1000/133Mhz SDRAM, upgradeable to 256MB. Video memory is an Intel 82815 chip with 4MB of shared memory, supporting up to 1280 by 1024-pixels at 24-bits per pixel. There is a 15-pin mini D-sub VGA connector with one S-Video port, one AV-video port. The unit features 16-bit stereo audio (sound blaster / Adlib compatible), with the built-in speaker. The MicroWave features a 56K V90 modem and it supports any standard PS2/USB mouse. One 2.5-inch hard disk and 9.5mm high supporting Ultra DMA 33/66 is also on-board. ATAPI-IDE interface high-speed DVD-ROM or CD-RW external hot swappable units are optional.

"The ultra-portable MicroWave," according to Wave Digital President, Gil Griffith, "is the smallest full-featured Pentium III PC on the market. The MicroWave is of special interest to Mac users who have been frustrated with the lack of loop-based music creation software programs for the Mac."

Continuing, Mr. Griffith points out, "Since lots of Firewire, USB and Ethernet ports are important to musicians and producers, the MicroWave can be used as a stand-alone hard drive, a hub or a network computer that will enable Mac users to use PC loop-based sampler programs such as ACID and GIGASAMPLER. No longer will Mac music users be left in the dirt drooling over the lack of the ability to run these PC programs."

Wave Digital will also offer a custom case for the MicroWave by leading case manufacturer, Calzone Case Company. The case will be manufactured of a new corrugated plastic that offers the same rigidity of plywood, at 1/20th of plywoods weight.

The customized case will include some extras that will make the MICROWAVE package almost irresistible to musicians. At only the same size of a four-space backpack rack, the case will feature a 15-inch flat panel LCD display monitor mounted in the lid of the case. The MICROWAVE will be secured in the case alongside a 75-gig external Firewire hard drive with the keyboard and track pad. An 8-channel snake will allow quick interface to any audio mixer, with a MOTU 828 Firewire audio interface handling up to 18 channels of audio I/O. The entire system will weigh less than 14-pounds. The complete MicroWave system can also be custom configured with any music software applications the user requires.

The MicroWave CPU is available from Wave Digital starting at $1999.00. The complete MicroWave system including case, MOTU 828, LCD, keyboard and 75-gig hard drive is available from $3399.00. Software applications are additional.