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PC/104 Embedded Consortium Design Winners

Posted by CowboyNeal on from the best-of-the-best dept.

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!"

3 of 68 comments (clear)

  1. Some Good Info on PC/104 by Michael's+a+Jerk! · · Score: 5, Informative

    can be found Here Promises to be an interesting standard.

    --

    I'm not Seth.

  2. PC 104 in a nutshell by Silicon_Knight · · Score: 5, Informative

    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

  3. Maybe you are by Chazmati · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.