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Domain: pc104.org

Stories and comments across the archive that link to pc104.org.

Stories · 4

  1. Exceptional Seeing At Dome C in Antarctica

    Science · Space · · posted by timothy · from the but-it's-such-a-long-drive dept. · 252 comments
    Michael Ashley writes "A paper published in Nature today reports on the exceptional astronomical seeing conditions at Dome C (Coral link) in Antarctica. Obtaining the data posed some significant technological challenges, given that Dome C is uninhabited over winter. The experiment was controlled by a PC/104 computer system that had to survive temperatures down to -85C, and supervise the generation of its own electricity using a jet-fuel powered stirling engine. The computer, running Linux, communicated with the outside world using an Iridium phone. The results are also covered in New Scientist, and the Sydney Morning Herald. Disclaimer: I'm a co-author."

  2. PC/104 Consortium Launches 2nd Annual Contest

    Developers · Announcements · · posted by timothy · from the embeddably-cute dept. · 11 comments
    An anonymous reader writes "The PC/104 Consortium is holding a second annual PC/104 Design Contest. The contest will recognize embedded engineers who are designing innovative products based on the group's PC/104 and PC/104-Plus standards for small form-factor modular embedded computers, and winners in three categories will be flown to San Francisco to receive their awards at the Embedded Systems Conference in San Francisco."

  3. Rolling Your Own Laptop?

    Hardware · Hardware · · posted by Cliff · from the when-off-the-shelf-isn't-good-enough dept. · 412 comments
    rneches asks: "I've been looking around for a Linux friendly laptop, and I've found a couple of reasonable systems. However, there really aren't any laptops out there that really meet the needs of a Linux user. In particular, most laptops are, more or less, desktop replacements. As such, they are loaded with scads of nifty features, beefy processors, and so forth. This is great, I suppose, if you are running Windows or MacOS and want a desktop replacement. If you're a Linux user, and spend most of your time in emacs windows (er, frames), most of that fancy stuff is more of a liability than an asset. In other words, I'm talking about coders, admins and other Linux hackers more than I'm talking about the 'average user'." In short, rneches is looking to find a way to build his own laptop, and if the platform doesn't exist to be able to do this, he's looking for help in creating one. Interested?

    "From a laptop, I want five things:

    • A nice, clear screen. Color is nice, but not critical. It should be big enough so that looking at it doesn't make me feel like I'm stuck in the coach section of a DC-9.
    • Decent 2D video performance. I might just be editing text, but at least it should look good while doing it. In any event, with decent a framebuffer and hardware acceleration, I can use nice anti-aliases fonts and play around with the window settings. This might sound frivolous, but nice-looking text and windows go a long, long way to relive eyestrain, which is exceedingly important.
    • Good physical utility. Too many laptops seem to be designed to sit on your desk, with the occasional trip to some other desk (transported in a deluxe, custom leather briefcase). This is OK if you are, say, the CEO, and don't do any real work in the first place. I want a laptop that is durable, light and small. I don't want to have to transport it in a special bag, or worry about fragile bits getting broken from normal use.
    • Insanely long battery life. I don't mean 'barely survive the flight from NWK to LAX'. I mean 'I'm only going to be in Tokyo for a week, so I won't need the AC adapter.'
    • Good built-in networking. No PCMCIA stuff, dongles, or other junk. The system should have a respected 100base-T card built in, and probably an 802.11b card and high-gain antenna as well.
    If it can do that, I don't care all that much about CPU speed, disk storage, CD-ROM or DVD drives, USB, FireWire, IrDA or integrated late makers. Oh, and it needs to run Linux, or at least OpenBSD or NetBSD. So, basically, I want a tough little system with a StrongARM CPU, a flash disk and grayscale 1024x768 LCD. Insofar as I can tell, no one makes such a thing.

    Which brings me to my point - Is it possible to roll your own laptop? I've looked at pc104 systems that might do the job for a base, and flash disks that would be great for storage and battery life, but the video, screen and enclosure are all somewhat of a mystery to me. I've taken apart Dells and (shudder) Sonys, and the video hardware is completely non-standard and funky. Each major brand of LCD has a different connector, and require a special (as in, not your average VGA compatible card) hardware to drive them. I'm not sure where I'd get a decent PS/2 keyboard that would be appropriate for a laptop. And as for the case itself - well, I'd probably need take out some life insurance, and then get in touch with those folks from the /. story a few months back about making storm trooper costumes from vacuum molded PVC.

    I know this sounds like something of an absurd project, but then again, there once was a day when building a desktop PC was an absurd project. The pc104 standard seems like a pretty good standard to use in the same way desktop system use AT and ATX. Most of the pc104 boards are intended for ultra low power embedded systems, but there's no reason I can see that beefier chips couldn't be used. You'd have to give up the spiffy ZIF sockets, but laptops aren't really that upgradable anyway. Chances are, there's already a pc104 board that will do just about anything you want at very low power consumption. You could cram two or three pc104 boards into a really thin laptop (side by side, not stacked).

    If someone started making pc104 video cards that could drive a host of different LCD screens, that would help a lot too. And, of course, someone would have to make some decent cases.

    Is there anyone out there who's tried this? Any successes, I hope?

    If I actually did go out and build my own laptop, do you think there would be enough general interest to get a community together? Maybe even start a little company to sell pc104 compatible laptop shells and the various adapters, trackpads, keyboards and other doodads that people would need?"

  4. Embedded Linux Consortium Officially Launched

    Linux · Linuxbusiness · · posted by Hemos · from the getting-standards dept. · 35 comments
    Joshua Lamorie writes: "Rick Lehrbaum, the guy behind www.linuxdevices.com, and involved with the PC/104 Consortium has put together a group of heavy hitters from both the embedded world and the Linux world. The press release came out today, and lists the committee members. Also, on the Web site, there are archives of discussions about the creation of the ELC. This adds to the growing excitement about Linux in embedded systems over the past couple of months."