Comment by bayindirh
3 hours ago
Also, it was the last serious push of VIA as a processor vendor.
I genuinely miss that era of computing. Simpler, more fun, and with way more but not as crippling problems (except Linux support and WinModem. I'm glad that we're past that).
That era was great - think PC Engines, Soekris, early Mikrotik RouterBoard, etc. Felt proper elite at the time.
I still have one of those C3 embedded aluminium boxes with a pass-through Ethernet bypass port pair. I ran it as a transparent bridging FW, when power went, it turned into a coupler. This is what got me using pfSense.
Another thing VIA C3 had was the integrated Padlock crypto engine, and this was way before AES-NI, supported on both Linux and BSDs. I remember benchmarking SSL against contemporary Xeons at the time and it wasn't even apples and oranges, it was more like tar and fibre optics. Cisco's AIM module throughput at the time felt laughable in comparison.
Atom was OK, but today Intel's N-series are proving great and we are completely spoilt for choice in terms of good, cheap platforms available.