The Advantech _is_ the target board. It's a 486 "biscuit" pc with a
PC104 connector, 2 simm sockets, networking, video and all the goodies.
We will use a Sandisk Flashdrive as the only IDE device and there will
be no floppy.
Mr. Xymoron mentioned that I could just use dd before I put the flash
drives in, but these systems will be built by an outside vendor and I
don't want them to have to do this. It would require installing the
flash drive into a computer, booting the system, doing the dd, shutting
down the system, remove the flash drive, rinse, repeat.
Also, in the event that the flash drive becomes corrupt or otherwise
will not boot, the box will have to be opened up and a floppy drive
installed. I want the ability to recover without opening up the box.
Since I posted my question, I found the answer.
The Advantech pcm4862 has three sockets for EPROM or flash chips and can
be configured to make these look just like a floppy without any funky
drivers from M-Systems. You can have up to three 27C010 (128KX8), 27C040
(512KX8) EPROM's or the 29C0X0 flash chips.
The EPROM's are only about ten bucks and you need an EPROM programmer,
but I'm looking at one now.
I ordered one of these and I'll post my results to this list.
I'll probably even have custom EPROM lables made with Tux the penguine
on them :)
Steve
-----Original Message-----
From: paul moody [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
Sent: Wednesday, November 04, 1998 12:49 AM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: Advantech PCM-4862 SSD Question
Oliver Xymoron wrote:
> On Tue, 3 Nov 1998, Steve Chandler wrote:
>
> >
> > I have a question for anyone of you who may be using the Advantech
4862.
> > I understand you can use a Flash or EPROM as a floppy. Is this
supported
> > by the BIOS and therefore require no drivers? It actually looks just
> > like a floppy?
> >
> > One more question - Does the little biscuit board from them (4823 I
> > think) have this feature as well?
> >
> > We are building an embedded unit and it would be very cool to have
> > simple kernel in an EPROM with network support so we can boot it up
into
> > an "integration mode" and have it load the hard drive with the
actual
> > software over the network. Our boxes will not have floppies and I
would
> > hate to have to open up each one, install a floppy drive, install
the
> > software, remove the floppy drive, screw the box back together and
pray
> > that I don't have to go through this again. Especially since I'm
talking
> > about possibly hundreds of these things.
>
> If it has a hard drive, you should just boot off of it. Install the
> software by using dd(1) to copy a complete disk image onto the drive
> before putting the drive in. No fdisk, etc., required. Not
substantially
> harder than burning an EPROM and quite a bit more efficient.
>
> --
The Advantek board will ( read should ) boot, it looks like a
standard
floppy ( only faster ). However it is my experience that to boot in the
manner you suggest ( and if your target board has an IDE interface ) you
will
find a 4M flash disk from Sandisk to be not only cheaper, smaller but
with
the advantages as stated by Mr Oxy above. ( and if you need to expand in
the
future you have an easy upgrade path that is not afforded by the
Advantek
board ).
