Re: Old platforms: bring out your dead

On Wed, Jan 13, 2021 at 09:30:28PM +0900, William Breathitt Gray wrote:

On Wed, Jan 13, 2021 at 01:02:20PM +0100, Linus Walleij wrote:

quoted

On Wed, Jan 13, 2021 at 11:27 AM Andy Shevchenko
[off-list ref] wrote:

quoted

On Mon, Jan 11, 2021 at 11:55 AM David Laight [off-list ref] wrote:

quoted

quoted

basically 486 but have a few extra instructions - probably just cpuid
and (IIRC) rdtsc.
Designed for low power embedded use they won't ever have been suitable
for a desktop - but are probably fast enough for some uses.
I'm not sure how much keeping 486 support actually costs, 386 was a
PITA - but the 486 fixed most of those issues.

Right, we have "last of mohicans" (to date) Intel Quark family of CPUs
(486 core + few i586 features).
This is for the embedded world and probably not for powerful use.

What is the status of PC/104?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PC/104

I have three GPIO drivers for PC/104 machines and these are for
embedded industrial usecases. I am curious about what CPUs these
beasts run on in practice? Are they getting upgraded?

Paging William, I think he work on these daily.

Yours,
Linus Walleij

I don't really see pure PC/104 systems around that much anymore, but
there are still plenty of PC/104-Plus and PCI-104 setups in production.
The PC/104 form factor is popular because users can stack PC/104
compatible modules easily together to build custom solutions; see for
example the diagram on this page:
https://www.advantech.com/embedded-boards-design-in-services/embedded-single-board-computers/pc104-and-pc104-plus

As far as the CPU is concerned, these systems are typically for
industrial applications and run CPUs geared for low-power consumption --
you're looking at processor series such as the Intel Bay trail
(https://www.winsystems.com/product/epx-c414/), DMP Vortex86DX
(http://www.diamondsystems.com/products/helios), and AMD G-series
(https://www.advantech.com/products/1-2jkltu/pcm-3356/mod_0706f4d5-2e44-473a-a7b7-53bd1a7bd1a0).

TLDR; PC/104 is certainly a niche market focused on industrial
consumers, but the form factor and devices are still popular and
upgraded reguarly.

William Breathitt Gray

Oops, I misread what you were asking. If you mean, are the systems that
run these PC/104 stackable devices running older processor series, then
yes that's typically the case.

It seems like newer systems have migrated to the PCIe/104 form factor,
which although having the same dimensions as the PC/104 form factor
lacks compatibility with PC/104 devices; for example:
https://www.rtd.com/i7/default.htm

I suspect the general trend in the market is moving towards these PCIe
modules because PC/104 ISA communication just lacks the bandwidth
necessary for many applications.

William Breathitt Gray