Out in Front

PCI comes to PC/104

Rising performance levels for embedded PCs, especially the adoption of Pentium processors, has prompted Ampro Computers to augment the PC/104 standard it developed in 1992. Beginning with its Little Board/P5i, Ampro has added PCI-bus compatibility to PC/104. The PC/104 Consortium is considering the augmented version, PC/104-Plus, as a new industry standard. PC/104-Plus cards are the same size as and stack with standard PC/104 cards.

Ampro’s Little Board/P5i is the first carrier for PC/104-Plus. Little Board P5i offers a set of PC functions in a 5.7538-in. board, with prices starting at $1245 (100). In addition to 100- to 166-MHz CPUs, the board offers performance enhancers, such as Ethernet, SCSI, EIDE, and enhanced-parallel ports; FIFO-buffered serial ports; and graphical-user-interface-accelerated VGA controllers on board. The Little Board/P5i accepts standard PC/104 and PC/104-Plus add-on cards for function expansion.

Several other companies have announced support of PC/104-Plus. QNX Software Systems’ QNX-OS, Kadak Products’ AMX kernel, and General Software’s embedded-DOS products work with the Little Board/P5i. Ajeco, Diamond Systems Corp, Imagenation Corp, and InSync Technologies have all announced video frame-grabber boards ($400 to $900) that conform to PC/104-Plus. Samtec offers the PC/104-Plus connectors, and Douglas Electronics has developed an adapter board ($175) that allows developers to debug a PC/104-Plus card by plugging it into a standard desktop PCI socket.—by Richard A Quinnell

Ampro Computers Inc, Sunnyvale, CA. (408) 522-2100.

Ajeco Inc, Helsinki, Finland. 358-0-700309200. US Contact: Zytronix Inc, Sunnyvale, CA. (408) 749-1326.

Diamond Systems Corp, Palo Alto, CA. (415) 813-1100.

Douglas Electronics Inc, San Leandro, CA. (510) 483-8770.

General Software Inc, Bellevue, WA. (206) 454-5755.

Imagenation Corp, Beaverton, OR. (503) 641-7408.

InSync Technologies Inc, San Leandro, CA. (510) 895-6800.

Kadak Products Ltd, Vancouver, BC, Canada. (604) 734-2796.

PC/104 Consortium, Mountain View, CA. (415) 903-8304.

QNX Software Systems Ltd, Kanata, ON, Canada. (613) 591-0931.

Samtec Inc, New Albany, IN. (812) 944-6733.