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Well, these guys, these guys, and these guys seem to have no trouble selling 386-based hardware. Not everybody needs the full feature set (or the cost and power requirements) of a Pentium.

I imagine thetemperatures involved in the rover (both in flight and on the ground) are higher than allowed by IBM microdrives.

I'm going to assume you mean lower, not higher. The operating temperature of micro-drives are 0 to 65C. The non-operating temp is -40 to 65C. Thus we need to keep the drive above freezing during operation. That's not really a problem though. Since I'm talking about a sealed computer case for shielding, the heat from processor operation alone, should keep the device nice and toasty.

Microdrive Specs

Looking at standard flash cards, their operating temperature actually seem to be worse. (0 to 55 C)

Example Flash memory

Some of the ones I've seen will go higher than 55C, but I haven't yet seen one that can operate below freezing. Nor have I seen one that can be stored below -20C.

Perhaps someone has a link to flash that can operate at extreme temperatures?

I imagine they hired computer engineers for the parts that required computer engineers, and software engineers for the parts that required software engineers. The scientists would be the guys responsible for supplying requirements to the engineering group.

These are not the same software/hardware engineers you find on the open market. Most of them are scientists or the type who work in scientific fields. They address the problem differently than you or I. That's probably a positive thing for space craft design, but for the "cheaper, better, faster" mantra, you need a very different type of engineering.

• MZ104: One of the most popular SBCs around. Small size and many uses. If you follow the pricing on that page you'll find you'll be paying at least $300/unit for the setup you need.
• PPC-E5: Looks to have almost everything you need, and then some. Unit comes with processor, RAM, disk-on-chip, and even a bundled touchscreeen LCD that fits nicely to the whole thing. It doesn't have USB/CompactFlash/etc.. and it also costs ~$1,000/unit.
• PCM-3350: Made by the same company as the PPC-E5 and actually a better option. 300MHz proc, CompactFlash, onboard VGA @ 1024x768, USB. Slap a screen on this thing and away you go. But, alas, it's still $348/unit and it doesn't come with a screen.
• ViewPad: From ViewSonic. Another all-in-one unit that could probably also work for you. At the time of posting, this unit is going for $200 (a decent deal). But it's only one unit, and it's still twice as much as your mentioned target price.

Now for the obligated troll plug for www.emjembedded.com:

Can you imagine...a beowulf cluster of 386DIMM-computers within a beowulf cluster of 1GHzPentium3-CDROMcomputers within a beowulf cluster of dis-continued 64bit Alpha super-cluster??? Oh the insane in-breeding must stop!

*goodbye, drooling my way to dreamland where my mal-formed dream will be hatched*

(PS. EMJ DIMMPC catalog and division index)

Now for the obligated troll plug for www.emjembedded.com:

Can you imagine...a beowulf cluster of 386DIMM-computers within a beowulf cluster of 1GHzPentium3-CDROMcomputers within a beowulf cluster of dis-continued 64bit Alpha super-cluster??? Oh the insane in-breeding must stop!

*goodbye, drooling my way to dreamland where my mal-formed dream will be hatched*

(PS. EMJ DIMMPC catalog and division index)

Now for the obligated troll plug for www.emjembedded.com:

Can you imagine...a beowulf cluster of 386DIMM-computers within a beowulf cluster of 1GHzPentium3-CDROMcomputers within a beowulf cluster of dis-continued 64bit Alpha super-cluster??? Oh the insane in-breeding must stop!

*goodbye, drooling my way to dreamland where my mal-formed dream will be hatched*

(PS. EMJ DIMMPC catalog and division index)

why not replace your floppy drive with an internal pcmcia or compact flash reader? it would only take up a 3.5 bay in your computer, and it would be recognized as an ide device. this would make botting from it much easier, even with an older bios. this may be a problem if you are using a laptop, but for desktops this would be your best bet.

No problem, they've fit pc's into coffemugs cince 1998.

It's called the DIMM pc. from a company called emj you can get a 386 or 486 monster, and I believe a 586 is right arount the corner.

Hell with the dimm pc in the tiquit format I can fit the pc, storage and power source in your coffee cup.

I think that the current best solution is probably not to have extra-long video cables to the basement.

Try getting a PC/104 or other sort of single-board computer from a place like EMJ Embedded. You should be able to find one that's small enough to fit in a small box, inexpensive, and beefy enough to run Linux. And then put a nice LCD screen and whatever perepherals you want with it.

The people at OpenHardware have some stuff in the works that would be cheaper than any of the single-board computers -- Like the EZ328LCD Terminal, except that you'd end up building it yourself.

This will be more light switch box sized and cheaper than the flat panel computers from ZF Micro Devices, which is also an option already mentioned.

In any case, you can then just string power and ethernet and run things remotely. This works especially well if there is a X server that will work with your display.

Might I suggest http://www.emjembedded.com/ as a source for all things embedded. They seem to have a helpfull staff and show prices online. They also have a WIDE range of small computing devices and accessories.

I haven't heard of such a box and I'm not sure if anybody's made one yet. There are building security systems, but they generally require a whole specilized set of hardware.

On the other hand, there are options. The best one would be to get a USB or PS2 magstripe reader and attach it to an embeddable computer -- Check EMJ Embedded for systems. It's $500-600 for a system with USB, Ethernet, serial ports, and a decently fast Pentium processor. That should get you exactly what you want.

Well, I see that somebody already posted about where to get LCD screens..

For the actual CPU module, I suggest you check out a place like EMJ Embedded systems (or a better deal you find via the web -- They are the only URL I've got).

Really, one of the MIPS or StrongARM heavily integrated processors with the LCD controller integrated would be rather nice. But it seems that nobody's selling general purpose SBCs based on those chips -- at least not as far as I can tell from my limited glances. Linux Devices might have some information you want, however.

Hope that helps. I've been yearning for inexpensive devices like you are wanting that because I'd love to put that sort of feature into my game.

Xybernaut has been doing this for quite some time. There are also quite a few single board computers (SBCs) that are a very good base to build your own wearable. EMJ is a good place to find out more about SBC's. There are instructions for building your own matchbox server at the Stanford wearables page. With the addition of a HUD, this could easily be converted to a wearable. You can even order your own pre-made matchbox server here.


Enigma

Yes this is a powerPC board, but for ~500$ you can get a 3.5 form factor x86 with dual ether, and real video. I got one for dev at work from Advantech The entire thing run off of a 5v suppy. Get a laptop hard drive (44pin IDE) and you have an entire 5v system that will take a standard power plug from your power suppy. Emjembedded also has similar stuff.

As far as security goes, other than floppy disks general lack of reliability, what's the problem with them?

That IS the problem, reliability. Consider the cost of a hard drive these days; A 30gb UDMA100 disk is $100 at Fry's (The Supermarket of Electronics) on a regular basis. Now, it's true that a 3.5" 1.44MB disk drive is $5. But a 2.1gb EIDE disk is $45 and up (according to pricewatch) and really, isn't another $40 worth it to have the basic expectation that the machine will boot on a regular basis?

EMJ Embedded will sell you a M-Systems 16MB IDE-connected flash disk for $69 (In quantity:1.) A 32MB will run you $160 though, so if you can't fit it in 16MB, you probably want a hard disk. Of course, if you can't fit it in 16MB, you *definitely* can't fit it on a floppy disk. This is an ISA card (8-bit) which will provide you with up to 5.76MB (2.88MB of flash, max, but you can fill the thing with SRAM and it has a lithium cell to power it) so maybe that's more your speed; I don't know how much it costs. There are certainly more products available than just those, though. If you could get your hands on one, and figure out how to program it, the Cisco PIX-520 firewall uses either a 2MB or 16MB (Or was it 32MB?) flash ISA card, depending on revision.

Parvus has several for the PC/104 size, as does Tri-M. Digital has some for their products.

There are plenty of generic NEMA enclosures available, up to walk-in size.

Remember you may need a heater or cooler. There are standalone devices, although I also have seen one PC/104 card with thermostats.

You can find an outline of spec here. As for price, EMJ doesn't have the P2-333 listed, but the P-233 version is US$1061 in single quantities. I wouldn't expect the P2-333 to be much more than $1200-1500. Observed maximum power consumption is 14.1W; averages they give for Windows* are 4.2-3W.

You'll probably want (need, actually) to get one of these if you want to actually use the module; the CardPAC provides all the physical I/O. 3.75"x5.3"x1.1" dimensions. Costs $999 direct from Cell Computing.

Doesn't have SB-compatible audio; does have USB though.

Plug a 256MB DIMM in, boot off a CompactFlash card and you've got one screamin' machine!

On the other hand, there have been lots of nifty things going on in wearable-land lately, and it is indeed getting cheaper. You can put together a pentium-class truly wearable system these days for about the cost of a good desktop machine. Check out EMJ ( http://emjembedded.com) and for a truly wearable HMD, look at microooptical ( http://microopticalcorp.com), or at tekgear for the M1 ( http://tekgear.ca). The HMD's are both greyscale QVGA now, but the M2 is expected to be out in a year or so (?) and is projected to be 16M color 800x600, and MicroOptical is also working on a color high-res version of their display.

Make no mistake, wearable computing (IMHO) will be The Next Really Big Thing in computing, sort of akin to the PC in the late 70's-early 80's or the internet in this decade. This won't be for maybe another five years, but those of you who want to be in on the ground floor, start hacking now! :-)
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