Developer stuffs Linux computer in his business card

A developer has managed to embed a working Linux computer into his business card. In total, the components cost no more than a few dollars, making it cheap enough to give away, he says.

The business card has a USB port and can boot in six seconds, says George Hilliard. In addition, it is possible to use the card as flash storage, although the space of 8MB is not exactly spacious in 2019. Moreover, part of that space is already reserved for the kernel, bootloader and the file system. Anyone who gains access to the shell of the Linux computer will find a readme file and, of course, Hilliard’s resume.

The processor is an F1C100s from Allwinner, an ARM9 processor that can be had for less than 1 dollar. There are no instructions for booting Linux on the processor with 32MB of ram, but Hillard managed to do it through various tricks. The processor and storage are on a pcb with a led, for ‘bling’. The components cost no more than three dollars in total. Hilliard also uses the business card project as a metaphorical business card: designing embedded systems is his job. The project is on GitHub.