Embedded Systems Take Off

As Nobel-laureate Murray Gell-Mann described it at the 2002 Embedded Systems Conference in San Francisco, embedded systems is about putting a computer in a bed so the bed automatically moves to best enhance the activities that any couple on the bed may be engaging in (to put it tactfully). The concept extends to more than beds of course, but properly done, it’s clear why this technology will be a winner.

Judging from the products presented at the 2002 Embedded Systems Conference in San Francisco, embedded systems are ready for a number of advertising & marketing applications for the small to mid-sized business, ranging from desktop kiosks to Internet connected coffee makers.

The history of embedded systems goes back at least to the sixties, but the expense and limitations of the early systems limited their use. Embedded systems really took off in 1992, when the PC/104 Consortium was founded by Ampro, RTD, and other manufacturers. The group established a format for Intel microprocessors based on a motherboard approximately four inches square, and just under an inch high. The boards were stackable, allowing a very powerful computer to be assembled in a box approximately four inches square, or even less.

The PC/104 was initially targeted at military and medical markets, where it became widely used and respected. When the processor power increased enough to handle multimedia applications, PC/104-based kiosks became possible, and eventually common.

Today, there are estimated to be well over 100 different companies making PC/104 products. There are PC/104 cards to add ethernet, FireWire, hard drives, RAM drives, video cards, audio cards, general I/O, flash cards, modems, GPS, cellular telephone, wireless Internet, and more, to the PC/104 motherboard of your choice. Some off-the-shelf PC/104 cases can handle up to 13 or more cards, so your budget is your only constraint.

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