I have been using several Wafer LX 800 for embedded development work over the course of the last year, they have dual ethernet, compact flash slot on the back, use regular laptop ram and have both parallel and gpio for ouput. They are a bit more expensive than basic types but i'm sure they can be sourced for less than $200 with dual ethernet, parallel and gpio.
http://www.orbitmicro.com/global/35sbcwithamdgeodelx800onboardprocessorcrtlcdlvdsduallanandsata-p-832.html Regards Jarl (Dallur/Rugludallur) On Tue, 2007-10-30 at 22:47 -0700, Rafael Skodlar wrote: > Jon Elson wrote: > > Jarl Stefansson wrote: > > > >> I would like to point out that ARM processors aren't the only way to go > >> embedded, there are very decent x86 embedded systems available with AMD > >> (Geode LX/NX) and VIA (CN/CX/C7/Eden) CPUs. > >> > >> > As others have pointed out, miniITX and such do not solve the problem > because there is no appropriate IO available in most of them. > > >> System based on these can be sourced for less than $100 in bulk and as > >> an added benefit none of the code needs to be ported. > >> > >> > > Unless you are going to put a hard drive on there, you still > > have to problem of where the G-code files come from. > > > NFS. You don't need it much, only to copy the files to slave system from > the server and you can disconnect the network afterwards for security or > latency reasons. > > There are other possibilities to go about this: http://www.emdebian.org, > http://www.ltsp.org, or http://www.etherboot.org for example. Bootup > takes only a few seconds so it would be possible to rebuild the whole OS > and simply reboot the slave system. Other advantages are low initial and > maintenance costs, one non-RT server could feed a number of diskless EMC > systems on the shop floor, etc. Default OS with basic EMC functionality > could still be stored in EMC system flash memory. > > Providing "virtual appliances" for bootup from the net and testing would > also be easy with virtualization now being mainstream. Instead of > generic EMC, a set of preconfigured appliances could be built to help > new users. > > >> Perhaps it's time to experiment with building a custom distro to run > >> EMC2 or a subset of it on embedded systems booting from flash NAND/NOR. > >> > >> > > I guess there are special file systems that reduce unneccesary > > writes to the flash memory. or, you could put all the writable > > files on the system with the GUI. Do these systems still have > > parallel ports? I'm guessing these systems still have VGA > > ports, too, so you don't really need a separate system for the GUI. > > > >> Instead of porting the code our time might be better spent optimising > >> for x86 which would benefit all users. > >> > >> My main question is how hard would it be to run EMC in a "distributed" > >> way so that the motion controller could run remotely from the pulse > >> generator? > >> > > Hmmm, well the MPG could still be connected to the system > > running the RT section of EMC, but I'm not sure that's what you > > are asking here. > > > > Jon > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------- This SF.net email is sponsored by: Splunk Inc. Still grepping through log files to find problems? Stop. Now Search log events and configuration files using AJAX and a browser. Download your FREE copy of Splunk now >> http://get.splunk.com/ _______________________________________________ Emc-users mailing list Emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users
