Date: Mon, 09 Nov 1998 12:55:52 -0800 From: Mike Smith <mike@smith.net.au> To: chr.ang@biella.alpcom.it Cc: small@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: PC/104 and picobsd Message-ID: <199811092055.MAA00855@dingo.cdrom.com> In-Reply-To: Your message of "Mon, 09 Nov 1998 12:23:29 %2B0100." <3646D0B0.55D997F5@biella.alpcom.it>
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> > What I need now it's some more information about the use of picobsd in a > pc/104 environment. I read the info on the Mesa site, but I still lack > some basic startup hints: what items should I buy to completely develop > a prototype and so on. Are all the devices implemented on that cards > (Flash IDE, ethernet,..) completely supported by picobsd ? May I install > something like PPP on that cards ? This has been pretty well covered; most PC-104 boards are just miniature PC systems. The PC-104 "bus' is just ISA on a different connector. > Someone with more experience than me could tell me what kind of problems > I could find with such a setup ? Your biggset problems will be: - Onboard flash is often board-specific. If you don't need much/any nonvolatile storage, this is fine - just boot a big ramdisk image. - The PC-104 form factor was designed by a complete idiot; the boards are hard to mount, there is no standard for interface connectors, and if you want more than one or two boards, you end up with a very large, dense block which can be very difficult to fit into your unit. (I have heard several tales of stacks of 10 or more boards.) Aside from that, you can do almost all your early prototype work with a standard PC, cutting over at the last minute and saving lots of time and effort. -- \\ Sometimes you're ahead, \\ Mike Smith \\ sometimes you're behind. \\ mike@smith.net.au \\ The race is long, and in the \\ msmith@freebsd.org \\ end it's only with yourself. \\ msmith@cdrom.com To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-small" in the body of the message
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