Hawdware for Embedded Controllers?

the_arrow asks: "The company I work for is thinking about updating our control computer to something more modern. Does someone know of a good (and of course cheap) hardware with a small footprint, with at least two serial ports (one of them should be RS422) and an ethernet adapter? It must be able to run Linux. The other question is if we should buy Linux from someone (like Lineo) or try to make our own 'distribution' with our own drivers? The computers will be controlling both airport passenger boarding bridges and aircraft docking guidance systems (and maybe some of the other things we make)."

Re:This shouldn't have made it to ask slashdot!

[tzanger]

The reason you ask slashdot is to get the answers that you won't get from rounding up the usual suspects (google, etc.), or to get a good, custom-filtered synopsis of what you would get from other sources (you do a search, find info on PC104 or whatever and then you have to wade through all the sales pitches and personal experiences not relevant to the reason for your interest, big chaff to wheat ratio).

I agree. Totally. But it sounds like this guy hasn't even done basic research and that is what pissed me off. If you've done your research and have several choices you're looking for good technical opinions on, past experiences, etc. then sure, ask slashdot. But I'm sick of the "I want to do this, how?" bullshit that seems to get in here from time to time.

This shouldn't have made it to ask slashdot!

[tzanger]

Have you done ANY research at all? The back of every single electronics magazine I've ever seen has dozens of ads for PC/104 systems and small embedded systems. Networking mags have some ads for this stuff too. Expensive but a good starting point for a web search. Google returns over 500k items for "small embedded computer" -- refine that a bit to "small embedded computer RS232 RS422 ethernet" gave me 263 and the first 5 results gave good info. Are you that lazy? Did you do ANY research before asking slashdot?

Now that that's over: You want to stick with the PC platform even if you go to PC104 or some small system. Why? Standard Linux will run and there's no dicking around. uClinux or any other embedded language will cost you lots in time. I assume you want this in and working now, not in three months.

Re:This shouldn't have made it to ask slashdot!

[unitron]

The reason you ask slashdot is to get the answers that you won't get from rounding up the usual suspects (google, etc.), or to get a good, custom-filtered synopsis of what you would get from other sources (you do a search, find info on PC104 or whatever and then you have to wade through all the sales pitches and personal experiences not relevant to the reason for your interest, big chaff to wheat ratio). When you ask slashdot and give your reason for asking, potential responders can tell better than any search engine whether they have anything worthwhile to contribute and can leave out the non-relevant stuff if they do respond. Of course you get a lot of responses that are nothing but moderator bait as well, but with everything on one page you can get to the good stuff faster than checking out a bunch of links from a search engine.

uclinux ..

[josepha48]

try uclinux .. http://www.uclinux.org/

Or try http://www.saintsong.com.tw/taiwan/www/it/english/ ithome.htm they have small computers..

I don't want a lot, I just want it all!
Flame away, I have a hose!

Hardware Vendors

[eric2hill]

In the past, we've used Advantech [advantech.com], mainly becuase they have a solid foundation (been in the industry for a while) and provide decent customer support. Their prices are a little high compared to do-it-yourself PC's, but they offer some nice embedded equipment (biscuit PC's, PC/104, wall-mount boxes...) that makes installations look good.

Hope this helps!

Tini

[Winter]

Check out TINI [ibutton.com]

It is the size of a DIMM (Actually it IS a DIMM)
It features 2 serial ports (rs232, but it is very easy to make a 232 to rs422 converter, I have schematics laying around somewhere),
and also a 10BaseT network interface, plus 1-Wire Net, CAN, General purpose IO, and expansion bus.

It is a neat embedded architecture. It is not running Linux, but has an embedded Java VM
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Re:Hardware Vendors

[Coward Anonymous]

Or you can find a ton of PC/104 vendors at www.pc104.com [pc104.com]

Don't forget...

[ebbe11]

...to have an upgrade path for the hardware wou choose. Having the ability to switch hardware to something with more processing power will make your life a lot less miserable.

In fact, all the SW-developers on the project I'm working on right now are more or less ready to kill for faster processor. Unfortuantely the processor board is an in-house design so we have to live with it.

depends on how you define embedded :)

[StandardDeviant]

I mean, if you duct-tape a Sparc Classic to the side of whatever, you've got the ethernet and serial ports (I think they have or can easily be made to have a 422 as well), and you can run sparc linux on it. :-) So I know that's not really embedded, but what the heck, maybe your controlled device is really big (like a huge pump or valve) and something the size of a lunch box could work...

--
News for geeks in Austin: www.geekaustin.org [geekaustin.org]

Re:depends on how you define embedded :)

[StandardDeviant]

(plus they're super cheap on eBay. A sparc classic is maybe USD 50 or so, not that this is a serious suggestion per se.)
--
News for geeks in Austin: www.geekaustin.org [geekaustin.org]

Buy education, not an embedded disto

[bgat]

I teach for the Embedded Systems Conference, and there are literally a *ton* of vendors there hawking lots of hardware that appears to fit your requirements. If you can't attend, go to http://www.embedded.com and check out their PC-104 buyer's guides.

I doubt someone like Lineo is going to be value-added for you, because their speciality will be along the lines of extreme kernel mods or getting the kernel running on obscure hardware--- which you can avoid needing if you pick something mainstream like a basic PC-104 setup.

What's left is just application-specific general programming, and Lineo et al won't be any better than you are already for that.

By your question, I suspect that you're new to Linux altogether. Take a course like Red Hat's RHD248 (which I wrote and teach, btw) before you get too far along with your Linux evaluation. Focusing an entire week on embedding GNU, Linux and eCos will set you on the right path faster than $$$ for a Linux disto, and you'll understand more of what's going on to boot.

b.g.

Hawdware?

[AntiNorm]

Hawdware for Embedded Controllers?

Uhhh...shouldn't that be hardware?

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The AOL-Time Warner-Microsoft-Intel-CBS-ABC-NBC-Fox corporation:

Re:Hawdware?

[Dancin_Santa]

Not if you're flying out of BOS.

Dancin Santa

In general

[Dancin_Santa]

It will cost you a lot more in time and resources to come up with your own embedded solution instead of buying a solution from someone else.

Is there any reason you want to limit yourself to Linux? There are several other embedded system providers out there which could give you similar functionality.

Dancin Santa