Single board PC?
Avalanche, Fri Mar 03 2006, 03:35PMI've just found what looks like a single board embedded PC, see attachment.
It's a socket 7, ?RAM, IDE, and a cirrus GPU chip is on the board - although there does not appear to be a header for a monitor. Also it has a PCI and an ISA connector on the same side of the board
Sockets at the back - 2 serial ports, 2 ps/2 ports (keyboard/mouse?)
Just wondering what it is used for (guessing some kind of realtime system), and if I can use it as it is, or is part of a larger board? (can't fing any power or monitor headers, guessing it's on either the 'PCI' or 'ISA' connectors). Anyone ever seen anything like this?
It'll probably end up on eBay anyway, that's if it's worth anything. Interesting find anyway!
Re: Single board PC?
Bjørn, Fri Mar 03 2006, 03:58PM
It looks like it is supposed to be plugged into a passive backplane with ISA/PCI connectors and a PSU. Quite a few years ago they were not very uncommon. Some suppliers that have parts for industrial applications sometimes still have backplanes and CPU cards like that.
Bjørn, Fri Mar 03 2006, 03:58PM
It looks like it is supposed to be plugged into a passive backplane with ISA/PCI connectors and a PSU. Quite a few years ago they were not very uncommon. Some suppliers that have parts for industrial applications sometimes still have backplanes and CPU cards like that.
Re: Single board PC?
Steve Conner, Fri Mar 03 2006, 04:27PM
We bought a couple of those passive backplane machines a few years back. They are just like Bjoern says. I'm not sure how much use your board is without the matching backplane for it, and I don't know whether the backplanes are standard or not.
As far as I know, the monitor connector is not on the backplane, it should be on the CPU board somewhere. Our machines had a VGA socket on the CPU card.
Steve Conner, Fri Mar 03 2006, 04:27PM
We bought a couple of those passive backplane machines a few years back. They are just like Bjoern says. I'm not sure how much use your board is without the matching backplane for it, and I don't know whether the backplanes are standard or not.
As far as I know, the monitor connector is not on the backplane, it should be on the CPU board somewhere. Our machines had a VGA socket on the CPU card.
Re: Single board PC?
Bjørn, Fri Mar 03 2006, 04:48PM
I can't see any sockets suitable for video signals, it is probably meant to run side by side with a standard PCI graphics card.
Bjørn, Fri Mar 03 2006, 04:48PM
I can't see any sockets suitable for video signals, it is probably meant to run side by side with a standard PCI graphics card.
Re: Single board PC?
Tetrafluoroethane, Fri Mar 03 2006, 06:34PM
I have come across several boards like that. They are mostly useless without the backplane, unless you are feeling adventurous.
I have powered a similar board through the ISA connector (look up the ISA pinout and connect the right contacts to the output from a normal computer power supply).
The couple I found did have an integrated graphics controller, just not built-in d-sub connector. There may be a VGA header on the board itself. And is that a Cirrus Logic chip I see on there? And it looks like there is some DRAM next to it. That is a good candidate for a GPU, but check the number on it since Cirrus made quite a few other things.
It would be a pretty nich market trying to sell that on eBay, but you never know. If you have the time to put into getting it running it would be a great little "I don't care if I blow this up" PC.
Tetrafluoroethane, Fri Mar 03 2006, 06:34PM
I have come across several boards like that. They are mostly useless without the backplane, unless you are feeling adventurous.
I have powered a similar board through the ISA connector (look up the ISA pinout and connect the right contacts to the output from a normal computer power supply).The couple I found did have an integrated graphics controller, just not built-in d-sub connector. There may be a VGA header on the board itself. And is that a Cirrus Logic chip I see on there? And it looks like there is some DRAM next to it. That is a good candidate for a GPU, but check the number on it since Cirrus made quite a few other things.
It would be a pretty nich market trying to sell that on eBay, but you never know. If you have the time to put into getting it running it would be a great little "I don't care if I blow this up" PC.
Re: Single board PC?
Alex, Fri Mar 03 2006, 09:07PM
There seems to be a steady supply of boards like that on ebay. A quick search for "single board computer" finds quite a few. I'm not really sure if they sell. Maybe you should pick up a backplane and a couple more and start building a BOINC node or something.
Alex, Fri Mar 03 2006, 09:07PM
There seems to be a steady supply of boards like that on ebay. A quick search for "single board computer" finds quite a few. I'm not really sure if they sell. Maybe you should pick up a backplane and a couple more and start building a BOINC node or something.
Re: Single board PC?
Avalanche, Sat Mar 04 2006, 01:03AM
cool, ok, I have decided I am going to try and get this working, (supposing that really is a GPU and I can hook a monitor to it) then install Damn Small Linux or something. It should make a nice little 'elite' computer
I wonder if there is a real PCI bus on the board, or if that is what the 'pci' connector is. Hooking an ethernet card to it would be useful!
Just have to find something to mount it in now...
Avalanche, Sat Mar 04 2006, 01:03AM
cool, ok, I have decided I am going to try and get this working, (supposing that really is a GPU and I can hook a monitor to it) then install Damn Small Linux or something. It should make a nice little 'elite' computer
I wonder if there is a real PCI bus on the board, or if that is what the 'pci' connector is. Hooking an ethernet card to it would be useful!
Just have to find something to mount it in now...
Re: Single board PC?
Hazmatt_(The Underdog), Sat Mar 04 2006, 01:48AM
mini server?
Hazmatt_(The Underdog), Sat Mar 04 2006, 01:48AM
mini server?
Re: Single board PC?
Philcogrump, Sat Mar 04 2006, 03:47AM
Is it possible you could get one of those ISA "extenders," you know those boards with extra ISA slots which plugs into one main (probably ISA) port on the motherboard... those are used often to change the board orientation to horizontal rather than vertical.
With that kind of board, perhaps you could add an ISA video card to it using that "extender" board and hook up the PSU like Tetrafluorethane suggested? I don't know if that would work though, perhaps the BIOS would not recognize it or so?
Philcogrump, Sat Mar 04 2006, 03:47AM
Is it possible you could get one of those ISA "extenders," you know those boards with extra ISA slots which plugs into one main (probably ISA) port on the motherboard... those are used often to change the board orientation to horizontal rather than vertical.
With that kind of board, perhaps you could add an ISA video card to it using that "extender" board and hook up the PSU like Tetrafluorethane suggested? I don't know if that would work though, perhaps the BIOS would not recognize it or so?
Re: Single board PC?
Tetrafluoroethane, Mon Mar 06 2006, 04:11PM
Chances are you can hook various ISA devices to it, if you can do the wiring. Normally the backplane these things plug into have a hookup for a PSU on them. The backplane just connects all the ISA slots together and whichever one has the CPU board in it controls the rest.
Mine didn't have a PCI slot, but I wouldn't be surprised if that extra connector was PCI. You could probably order the FoxConn ISA and PCI connectors and rig something up pretty easily.
If you cannot find a video out, you might also want to check for a serial port console. Many embeded and industrial computers use them to save on hardware. Just hook up a null modem cable and pop open your favorite com program.
Tetrafluoroethane, Mon Mar 06 2006, 04:11PM
Chances are you can hook various ISA devices to it, if you can do the wiring. Normally the backplane these things plug into have a hookup for a PSU on them. The backplane just connects all the ISA slots together and whichever one has the CPU board in it controls the rest.
Mine didn't have a PCI slot, but I wouldn't be surprised if that extra connector was PCI. You could probably order the FoxConn ISA and PCI connectors and rig something up pretty easily.
If you cannot find a video out, you might also want to check for a serial port console. Many embeded and industrial computers use them to save on hardware. Just hook up a null modem cable and pop open your favorite com program.
Re: Single board PC?
Michael Witt, Fri Mar 10 2006, 12:26AM
I've got a few Advantech PC-104 computers, and when I was researcing 'em, I saw something looking almost identical to that. It's for embedded computing, it seems to be used as more of a cluster node than anything, as when it was designed it would have been used for (inexpensive) parallel computing.
Oh, and BTW: that is a VESA card.
Michael Witt, Fri Mar 10 2006, 12:26AM
I've got a few Advantech PC-104 computers, and when I was researcing 'em, I saw something looking almost identical to that. It's for embedded computing, it seems to be used as more of a cluster node than anything, as when it was designed it would have been used for (inexpensive) parallel computing.
Oh, and BTW: that is a VESA card.
Re: Single board PC?
Avalanche, Fri Mar 10 2006, 05:02PM
wahey, I just had a proper look at the board and spotted this, looks promising. It's underneath a serial port socket, which is connected to the board via a header. Just need to find an old video card now and remove the monitor socket...
Avalanche, Fri Mar 10 2006, 05:02PM
wahey, I just had a proper look at the board and spotted this, looks promising. It's underneath a serial port socket, which is connected to the board via a header. Just need to find an old video card now and remove the monitor socket...
Re: Single board PC?
Alex, Sat Mar 11 2006, 04:59AM
Hmm, that certainly looks like a video port, HOWEVER: The reason there is no jack there may be because it doesn't have any sort of video device. Are there any other unused pads?
A lot of SBCs like that are built without cetain options, and instead of changing the board design, they just leave components off. Hopefully that's not the case with yours, but that doesn't seem likely.
...it's worth a shot though.
Alex, Sat Mar 11 2006, 04:59AM
Hmm, that certainly looks like a video port, HOWEVER: The reason there is no jack there may be because it doesn't have any sort of video device. Are there any other unused pads?
A lot of SBCs like that are built without cetain options, and instead of changing the board design, they just leave components off. Hopefully that's not the case with yours, but that doesn't seem likely.
...it's worth a shot though.
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