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PC/104 Embedded Consortium Design Winners
An anonymous reader writes "The PC/104 Embedded Consortium announced the winners of its first PC/104 Design Contest, at the Embedded Systems Conference today in San Francisco. The awards recognize engineers designing innovative systems and devices based on the consortium's PC/104 and PC/104-Plus standards. Winners were announced in three categories: Commercial for industrial/medical/transportation/other; Commercial for military/aerospace/COTS; and Research Project. Read the full story at Linuxdevices.com. Lots of images!"
Does this mean full sized keyboards on laptops, numpad and all?
:)
Kickass!
Top prize went to a PC which... controls glue guns? Why does this not seem like a high caliber of utility that you should be able to provide with that much computing power.
Top research prize went to a steer by wire system. This is already employed in race cars and ferrari's alike. How is something already in production considered research?
Maybe I am out of touch with the embedded niche, but this seems totally anti-clamictic and a little lame
can be found Here Promises to be an interesting standard.
I'm not Seth.
PC 104 is basically a form factor, just like ATX, mini-ATX, mini-ITX, etc. It is one of the smallest form factor out there, largely used in industrial automation setup.
The one characteristic that makes PC104 interesting is the "pass through" bus connector. Consisting of 104 pins (hence it's name), you stack modules of extension card on the base board, and build vertically your components. See link:
PC104 FAQ with pictures
They tend to be pretty low power consumption, and there are a mind boggling array of PC104 modules out there, from radio modems to GPS receivers to servo controllers and 3 axis accelerometers. For hobby use, I wouldn't really go with them, since they are more expensive than the much cheaper mini-itx boards (which is what I will be using for my next car computer).
Mini-ITX info link
Man, reading through the projects - they outfitted a 1997 Corvette with a "fly by wire" steering. My god, I wish my research lab has the amount of cash handy to buy a corvette for a ressearch project...
-=- Terence
Do you work in industry? I don't mean the IT industry, but some branch of manufacturing?
Modern manufacturing plants are extensively automated. Logic control 30 years ago was all done with hardwired relays and timers, then 20 years ago with programmable logic controllers (PLC's), and now there are virtual PLC's running in x86-based PC's with extensive networking between controllers. There are DSP's in sensors, web guides, vision systems, and even glue gun controls. Technology has driven production speeds higher and higher, and now we need more sophisticated control systems on all sorts of equipment.
For industrial environments with any vibration, normal ISA and PCI slots are a total nightmare, PC/104 connectors are very rugged due to large contact areas and very strong retention. For hobbiests, PC/104 isn't ideal because the volumes are so low compared to commodity PC hardware, making it seem unreasonably expensive. For the people who really need PC/104 it makes perfect sense.
"Prefiero morir de pie que vivir siempre arrodillado!"
Wouldn't water be a bigger hazard on a sub than hammers?
Condensation, yes. But actual flowing water? By the time the pc-104 device gets wet you probably have bigger problems anyhow...
Submarines get torpedoed and depth charged. This tends to rattle the boat. Hard. Can't have your navigation system blink out just because someone is tossing bombs at you.
Maw! Fire up the karma burner!