Gang,
First, thanks to all that have already responded. I've gotten
references to board manufacturers I had not investigated. A helpful bunch
for this question.
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Der Herr Hofrat [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
>
> If you can give more details of what you need exactly
> (peripherals,buses,power-
> consumption etc.) one could provide a more detailed recomendation.
Of course - I should have included much of this information in the
original message. What we absolutely need:
1) PI 133 class floating point at worst - the more floating point
performance the better.
2) PC/104 form factor. If PC/104 peripheral boards will work with PC/104+
CPUs, then PC/104+ CPUs will be acceptable.
3) Some means of storing RTLinux and our application - the easier to use the
better.
4) 64MB or RAM minimum - I don't want to waste time fighting memory issues
and RAM is cheap cheap cheap.
5) Real PC compatibility and decent RTLinux performance (reasonably low and
stable interrupt latency).
What we strongly (STRONGLY) prefer to have:
1) Passive cooling
2) High MTBF and available MTBF figures (Government jobs)
3) Easy to get running with RTLinux and minimum hassles with peripherals /
timers. (see below)
4) Industrial temperature range available (if not standard) (-40C to +85C)
5) Genuine Intel or AMD parts and chipsets
6) Parts with a TSC (for precise small-granularity timing)
What we would like to have:
1) On board Ethernet
2) On board compact flash (more on this latter)
3) On board VGA
4) Development kit available with all the cables made up, etc.
5) Two serial ports on board
Other nice things to have
1) A parallel port on board
2) Any extra parallel I/O possible
3) ADC
4) DAC
I'm sure I've forgotten some things here, but at the moment this is
the list.
As for the compact flash (CF), we intend to store our application
and Linux on CF cards running the ext3 file system. Since we will rarely
(never?) be writing to the CF card during actual operation, we expect that
this is safe for our embedded systems. If anybody knows otherwise, I would
like to hear about your experiences and why this is a problem. I have read
that we should be using JFFS2 or some such, but setting it up is a nightmare
and without some clear instructions on how to do it the first time, I would
rather not waste our energy until the CF/ext3 solution proves to be a
problem. Any recommendations?
As a general overriding characteristic - we sell ten to twenty
systems a year (typically), so minimizing non-recurring engineering time is
paramount. As such, we are more ease-of-use sensitive than price sensitive.
We are currently using RTD boards based on the National Geode and
they are slowly turning into a nightmare. RTlinux causes all sorts of timer
problems with this chip (probably due to the timer emulation) which makes it
impossible for us to use NTP to synch time between systems so now we are
adding GPS clocks to our remote systems in this application. I have also
heard others speak of problems with the Geodes in relation to timers and
interrupt latency. Suffice it so say we will not be buying any more Geode
based boards for RTLinux.
Regards,
Steve
--------------------------
Stephen D. Cohen
Engineering Manager
Xybion Sensor Positioning Systems
11528 53rd Street North
Clearwater, FL 33760
Voice: (727) 299-0150
Fax: (727) 299-0804
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
www.xybion.com
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