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Tiny PPC Motherboards
An anonymous reader sent us something taht is worth
looking at- this is a tiny PPC motherboard.
Looks like a nice start for that tiny wearable Linux box that
I lust after in my sleep.
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Worth looking at but not worth taking time to spellcheck?
I don't remember linux being ported to the embedded ppc's. Did I miss it?
Could someone translate the page into English?
"Oh yeah, I got a new PC. One of them LD93ND03IDJ39W2N3D9SJ30-2JS03's"
And really isn't a standalone motherboard:
(a) A compactPCI card which needs a cPCI chassis - not exactly small
(b) An 860 PPC which is different than a 603/604 based PPC that LinuxPPC runs on.
I need Embedded - Info about Linux/PPC embedded PowerPC systems
Nuff said!
Looks like the board from a dissected Furby...
Could it be that they're hocking body parts from Furbys thrown away by annoyed owners?
I feel nauseated . . .
We boot on it. The code isn't merged into the
main tree yet but it's coming.
It's a nice board.
Unless you can talk (or afford paying) BE into making a special ver of their OS that will run in 4megs of ram (which is the standard amount for that board) and run without a gui (a classic gui like Be's is almost useless in a wearable computer), then BeOS would suck for this.
Since Linux is open source you can make the needed tweaks yourself. Or easily pay one of thousands to do it for you.
How much is it?
How much is it?
Does it have video/audio out?
Just try _that_ with a Pentium II or a Celery-On. You'd get a wearable computer that burns up your butt, then drags your pants down to boot!
Trolling in the Chip Wars
I'd check out the biscuit PCs at www.advantech.com. 486 processor, vga, ethernet, IDE controller, all on a board the size of a 3.5" hard drive. A little bigger than those PC/104s, but a lot cheaper. I am planning on using one in my wearable... good luck.
That board is pretty slow; didn't I hear that it's 60MHz or something? That wouldn't make much of a desktop computer.
The 823/860 embedded PPCs are somewhat nice, but too slow for MPEG playback, without floating point, and have no MMU. Linux does run on them, but I prefer a StrongARM.
Gary's Encyclopedia "Embedded" page.
But what about FULL SIZE PPC motherboards?
That would *really* be news.
WHO THE HELL NEEDS IT???
like cool linux embedded watch servers? who doesnt?
it's a PC104 form factor - it's small (regardless of the fact that the picture has been doctored :)
Try http://www.cybernetman.com/. They have what's called the "Zero Footprint PC" in both 486 and 586 flavors. Entire PC fits under your Keyboard.
Well punching out commands at the shell of a hand held
device isnt exactly fun either.
Linux will RUN with 4 megs of ram. It isnt fun either.
How many do you want to buy?
You can always take Motorola's Yellowknife reference design and have it build at your local board shop. It's a 4 layer ATX board, so the cost wont be too bad, but you really need to build about 50 or so to amortize off the setup charges and to get quantity discounts on the parts. I'd estimate about $1k per board, populated with all the chips but the CPU. At least that's what they cost last time they had some built. They do run Linux, I've seen it running at Somerset. The board will not run MacOS or NT, it does run VXWorks and other embedded OS's. The architecture is described in the CHRP documents. The market is just not there for PPC machines that dont run MacOS, thats why you'll probably never see anything else run PPC. Too bad, the chips are pretty nice.
Incorrect, the MPC860 has an MMU, but no floating point.
Anyone else notice the howler in the Lite
version's pdf file?
There is a couple of copanies that make PC/104 Intel boards. Check out this board from MicroDesign or Aaeon.
Hi !
I wrote to them some time ago, if I can by a unit. They wrote back, how MANY Id need. I answered "one", and they never wrote back...
Please, I want one, and it doesnt matter if it is PPC, ARM or Alpha based, just not x86 ! There are masses of x86 based boards available, but I dont like the x86 architecture.
Jens
Try the MPC8240, it comes in both 200MHz and 266Mhz, anmd is a complete 603e core, with additional PCI and RAM controllers. Boards bnuilt upon that would be very cheap i think since you save lots of logic, and the processor only costs 59$ at 200MHz. And unless the ARM it got a FPU ...
...
but still it would be nice when they start making embeded G4, with altivec unit
Friendly,
Sven LUTHER
Get two different metal rods... say, zinc and
nickel, and embed them in the brain. Voila!
Instant battery. Kinda like the potato clock,
but with a longer shelf life.
Note that this is exactly not what I asked for, stupid.
Perhaps interested Slashdot users should unite :-)
Ok at least one person (me) asked VA-Research suggested to sell that kind of product, with links to this slashdot thread, and URLs from this thread.
Put it together with a couple quarter size IBM Harddrives and you may have a good control system for a battlebot. HEHEHEhehehe...
They should also consider using an ARM processor...
Codifex Maximus ~ In search of... a shorter sig.
How about a computer that runs off of body heat with a watch battery for backup?
:)
:))
They could also have you wear a propeller on your head or use a small solar panel on top of your hat!
This is majorly cool.
Codifex Maximus ~ In search of... a shorter sig.
Uh... Well... You may want to take it off to take a bath? It could be made waterproof though...
:))
Every system needs a backup... right?
Codifex Maximus ~ In search of... a shorter sig.
Yeah... you know? When you get up to go to the fridge or the necces'ry room. Exercise!
Codifex Maximus ~ In search of... a shorter sig.
They could use a generator based on the magnetic lines of force surrounding the earth. As you move though the field, a microcurrent is induced in a coil of wire. The technology would probably require the use of SuperConductors though; so it could be cost prohibitive. :|
Codifex Maximus ~ In search of... a shorter sig.
Posted by rooker:
Here is the inevitable question: Since no one can seem to find a PPC PC-style motherboard and processor combo at a decent price that is non MacOS...Could a setup like this be bought cheaply and then used to build a desktop LinuxPPC only box
at a decent price point??
Posted by Rizla+:
Try looking at Blue Chip Technology The price for a Intel P133, 32MB is around 570 UK Pounds, about 800 or 900 US Dollars Paul
These things remind me of the 68HC11 (a common motorola microcontroller) board we're using in our MOBOT (me, dscherer, mfeghali, keg). We bought that (or, scherer did) for $100 from some guy who makes'em in his basement. I could beleive some professional guys with real equipment and fabs and all could put together a nice PC on a chip. After all, the IBM 500-series laptops aren't all that ar from this -- they just have a 2.5" HD, batteries, , PCMCIA slots, a keyboard and a screen.
I think the real ones are a bit harder to play with than the 6800-series tho....too bad....
Our mobot rulez now, it would whomp some serious tail with a real PC running linux!
A QUIET Linux box for installation in a home theatre, mainly for MP3 playback and minor network activity.
:-( But with a 10 or 100T LAN connection everything can stream in anyways. Obviously this means net booting off another machine. What do you think -- is MP3 going to require too much power to forgo a fan?
StrongARM and PowerPC's are supposed to sip power and not generate much heat. No hard drive since noone makes a quiet drive.
Does the Corel Netwinder ship in a fanless diskless configuration? I read they were thinking about such a config. Does the NW have sound?
(I prefer a ready to go system because I'm not very experienced with building hardware...)
Does anyone know where I can find a small intel chipset motherboard? It doesn't need to be /that/ small, but something a lot smaller than the average AT board? BTW, 486/586 is plenty fast - no PII stuff, of course.
Send your friends messages of love at fuck-you.org
...and make a tiny working laptop for my Original Steve Jobs Action Figure!
teleny, friend of cats.
No, but we have planned the Bill Gates Raggedy Andy Doll, the Hockey-Action Scott McNeely, the Debonair Fashion/Samurai Fantasy Larry Ellison, and the Wozniak Soft Toy!
(Send me your email if you want a picture of the Steve Jobs doll. He lives on my printer.)
teleny, friend of cats.
I saw a wearable once that stored energy from the compression energy in your shoe when you walk. If you batteries get low.. go for a 15 minute stroll...
cool, eh?
--- "The problem is not that the world is full of fools, it's that lightning isn't being distributed correctly." -- Mar
Epson makes some PCMCIA-sized PCs - complete with video and the works. You can check them out here and here
[to original poster of "Tiny Intel MBs" thread]: PCs have been around in this form factor for ages - take the base m/board, then stack a video card, sound card, multi channel analog converter (the PC104 heritage is in embedded systems) to get a nice cube, industrial strength, 2-3x the price of a standard PC of equivalent power.
martian
"There are two major products that come out of Berkeley: LSD and UNIX. We don't believe this to be a coincidence."
OS/9 is a wicked little OS. Fully re-entrant, ROMmable, multitasking, multiuser, real-time interrupt handling, etcetera. Plenty o' power for many tasks. Popular machine controller OS, I understand. Runs nuke power sites and the like...
--
Don't like it? Respond with words, not karma.
It just looks like someone spliced the quarter in to "demonstrate" the size and they did a bad job of it. The quarter should be larger from the looks of the ports and the rest of the board.
"I may be Love's bitch, but at least I'm man enough to admit it."
You could ask here:Brian Fowler Systems
No idea how much it would cost.
These things are only available in quantity. It would be a lot cheaper to buy a used PowerMac, install LinuxPPC, and away you go. Why do you care if (once) was a Mac?
And doesn't that photo with the US Quarter for comparison look like the Quarter has been doctored into the photo?
Strange.
You think THIS is bad?? You'd probably have a mental breakdown if subjected to an irc chat session. :)
Interesting looking, but I wish they had clearer promotional information on their web site.
try this its intel's embedded processor module... not something you just buy then use... just a base for developing something cool.
Great. Now where can I find an ATX form factor motherboard for PPC. And don't post any "I think you can find one here" or "Oh, it's easy to find one" crap! If you see one on the net, post it's URL!
... okay, 'c' isn't for chip. It stands for 'cookie,' and it's good enough for me.
The MPC860 is a communications controller, so no FPU. However, with some additional Phy H/W, these little buggers could make cool routers. How about Enet to Frame Relay? If they have one with the MPC860SAR, you could do a cool IP (Enet) to ATM.
-- hgc
-- hgc
Linux: There is no infringing code.