Remember the olden days of computing, way back when a Web server was laughably massive — at least the size of a box of matches? Those steam-engine days are long gone, thanks to Hariharasubrahmanian Shrikumar, a computer science graduate student at the University of Massachusetts. Hariharasubrahmanian (Shri, to his friends) has developed a Web server that works on a $1 microprocessor the size of a match head. If Shri has his way, these micro-Web servers will soon be everywhere, from alarm clocks to corporate air conditioning systems, perhaps even riding on the backs of small animals as tracking devices.
This micro-Web server, called the IPic, can currently be found here, but — since it gets moved around a fair bit — has its contents mirrored here.
This initial IPic server, which resides on a PIC 12C509A microprocessor, is tiny. Really tiny. No, really, really tiny — in terms of both physical size and software. In just 1K of memory, Shri has managed to build a standards-compliant TCP/IP stack, a telnet server and an HTTP (Web) daemon capable of serving up dynamic content and even (very small) Java applets. The IPic server is currently delivering up to 7,000 hits a day, serving up postscript files, small audio clips and even a brief history of the universe — all from a system whose total size, including data storage, power management and wires to connect it to the network, is less than that of a U.S. quarter.
Shri sees a day when every action that needs to be controlled, from running a bath to setting up a printer, will be managed via a Web interface. With data traveling over electrical wires or wirelessly through the air, every device and system can chatter with the others, making the whole home or office “smart.” Such a vision is conventional wisdom among the digerati, who variously see Sun’s Jini or Microsoft’s “Digital Nervous System” as the means to that end, with a corresponding investment in large servers and system upgrades.
What makes IPic different is that it’s simple, and it works. With a chip that costs about a buck and code so tight it could be handwritten on a 3-by-5 index card, IPic really could be built into everything from light sockets to doorknobs.
But the concept doesn’t stop at urban infrastructure. Cheap, reliable micro-Web servers would be a boon for everyone from environmentalists to United Nations inspectors to worried parents. Add a micropower radio transmitter and a tiny Charged-Coupled Display camera to the IPic, and you have a remote monitor the size of a pack of chewing gum (including battery) and accessible from anywhere over the Internet. Stick them to endangered species, to missiles, to wayward kids … and really have something to worry about when the message comes back “404 Not Found.”
