[plug] Linux on a chip

[Beau Kuiper]

Hi,

I guess you could use the 486 as a testbed (saves money if it gets damaged
or destroyed, very easy to do when playing with input power)

for powerdown, you could try:

1) mounting drives read-only on bootup,
2) or using a reseirfs boot partition.

then just let the computer shutdown whenever nessessary.

Using a capacitor is not really what you wan't, you would need a really
hefty capacitor to run a motherboard+hd for more than a few milliseconds.

It may be feasable however, just to have the shutdown occur using the cars
battery, then the computer switches itself off. (you have to add this
feature somehow yourself, since AT boards don't have motherboard power
switches) Designing the shutdown hardware shouldn't be hard anyway, since
you need to develop a power supply for it anyway. Have the poweroff signal
occur over serial connection

Beau Kuiper
kuiperba at cs.curtin.edu.au

On Thu, 25 May 2000, John Breen wrote:
~
> <snip>
> 
> >> Yes, but I don't have a spare Pentium kicking around at present. 
> So
> >> a 486 will have to do it....
> >
> >But, you really won't be happy with the results! 486's simply don't
> push enough
> >floating point power to accurately decode mp3 audio. Even running at
> 133Mhz, a
> >486 just isn't fast enough to do mp3 justice. I have tried
> 
> I see what you're saying, but I DO have a couple of 486 boards lying
> around, and might soon have a pentium.  The 486s will do the job as
> "testbed" boards, then once everything works, go over to the pentium.
> The P/S connctors are still the same as they're all AT boards.
> 
> The main hassle is to implement some sort of shutdown - perhaps a
> large capacitor which charges up while the battery is connected and
> allows linux a few seconds to shut down.  Or maybe the m/b could just
> be running constantly (IDE HDD will spin down by itself if allowed). 
> I imagine power drain and battery wear would be minimal.
> 
>