Re: Mini-ITX PC's a the future of HA (was Re: X-10 Mister House Motion sensor problems)

[Marc F Hult <MFHult@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Sat, 10 Jun 2006 23:46:30 -0400, "Robert Green"
<ROBERT_GREEN1963@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
<H5SdneP4M_pqBRbZnZ2dnUVZ_qGdnZ2d@xxxxxxx>:

  ADI chose an intermediate route, interestingly enough, for
>its home automation design.  Much more flexible than any of the alarm
panels
>I'm familiar with because it's essential a micro-PC in a very small box.

ADI  did not "choose an intermediate route for its home automation design"
-- at least according to ADI.  The CPU-XA was designed for industrial
control. The HA market was incidental according to ADI reps.. The ladder
logic it used was from the world of Programmable Logic Controllers (PLC)
that has dominated industrial control for decades. The architecture is about
as far from being a "micro-pc" as  dozens of other microcontrollers over the
years, which is to say, not very close at all. In the late 1980's I used an
Elexor panel for battery-operated field control of scientific
instrumentation that cost about the same, had more I/O, higher resolution
(12-bit), more flexible programming. What distinguished the CPU-XA (nd
Ocelot) was the use of a second micro-controller (IIRC, a PIC) to handle IR.

> I believe that it seems
>like they are locked into PC's and that's why they are pushing the ITX but
>in reality they made "panel v. PC" decision a long time ago and it's only
>with the arrival of the highly reliable, fanless and very small ITX that
>they could finally realize that choice in a HW product.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

More stuff for a wiki:


There have been "highly reliable", fanless, small-form-factor pc-compatible
Single Board Computers (SBCs) for *every*  DOS/Windows platform/combination
since at least 1987 when AMPRO introduced the Little Board. The form factor
exists to the current age and has been used in a bajilllion places.
www.ampro.com.

The Ampro board  has/had the footprint of a 5-1/4 drive and so is 1"
narrower (smaller) than the mini-ITX. It passed the IBM-compatibility  test
of the day (Flight Simulator) and was based on NEC's V20 clone of Intel's
8088. and ran from a single unfussy 5vdc supply.  Ampro had anticipated that
NEC would ship their math cooprocessor (8087 clone) but NEC didn't. So the
first boards had a vacant socket that took up valuable real estate. I
acquired three of these 'defective' (read cheap) boards ca 1989. The board
had onboard serial, parallel, floppy, keyboard and SCSI (which could be used
for general purpose DIO)  and a socket for non-volatile memory with clock
calendar. With a AD-DA-DIO expansion card, one could rule the world. A
GWbasic program to read a voltage and control an output based on the result
could be written with a couple of lines of code.  Once the board booted and
loaded a program from disk, it could run forever spindle-free (no drive, no
fan).

Single board, ISA backplane cards were even smaller that the Ampro. By
386SX/DX days, there were 5-volt-only, fanless 1/2-length, 3/4" thick PCB's
with onboard IDE and video,as well as the standard I/O. Arcnet/connectivity
was easily accomplished with a parallel-port network adapter. These were
eminently suitable for DOS/Win3x/WFWG. My first 386 was a CPU card that i
used in a 12-slot backplane loaded with  all manner of I/O including
IEEE-488. This was at the beginning of WinTel and end of the
"IBM-compatible" era. I recall hooking up an HP mass spectrometer to a 80386
and trying to explain to an HP rep (who was trying to sell me an
idiosyncratic HP 386 that he claimed was 100% IBM compatible) that there was
no such thing as a "386 IBM compatible" because IBM had not yet released a
386.

[Add discussion about PC-104 form factor here ]

Another genre of "highly reliable, fanless" form factor PC's have been
mother boards behind LCD screens. This approach has been most used in
lap-tops, but also in industrial designs and ubiquitous Point Of Sale
(acronym deleted to avoid confusion ;-)  including touch-screens. I ran
CyberHouse (a server-client, TCP/IP, WinTel application) on "highly
reliable, fanless" IBM 7592 industrial 100mhz Pentium with 800x600 touch
screen for years until a virus took it out. This was based on IBM Thinkpad
laptop motherboard.  Serial, parallel, PS keyboard and mouse, floppy
connecting, minuscule expansion chassis with two more OCMCIA slots available
(I have 1 or 2). They can run directly off a 13.8 vdc sealed lead battery.
They dissipate the heat without any fan through an elegant (to my eyes)
black, alloy (magnesium?) aluminum case that is hardly bigger than the 10"
diagonal touch screen LCD it supports.


+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

I have 6 (six) of these IBM 7592's (with PCMCIA ethernet cards that use one
of the two available PCMCIA slots, four IBM power supplies, one floppy,
expansion adapter with two more PCMCIA etc  and other accessories) that I'd
be pleased to sell to someone in c.h.a. for $400 + shipping. .

All booted and ran OS and internet browser when put away. The one that got
infested was running W95b. The others are loaded with OS2 and Netscape.
One has a cracked LCD; one is partially dissembled but all the parts are
there. They all show wear and have about 500-1gb(?)  2.5" hard drives.

Drivers and manuals and such here:
http://ps-2.kev009.com:8080/ohlandl/ic_files/ref7592.html

Pictures here: www.ECOntrol.org/IBM7592 ( in a while).

Email me if interested. Do a clean re-install of the OS with modern browser
and I'll buy two back for what you paid for everything.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

In other words, "highly reliable, fanless" pc's have been here since The
Beginning.

In my opinion, the 17cm x17cm mini-ITX is just one handy pause-point in a
continuum of sizes even within a single form family. There are other
standardized families (CPU backplane, PC-104, disk-sized)  as has been
explained.

PC-XT
AT
ATX
micro-ATX 24cm x 24cm
mini-ITX  17cm x 17cm
nano-ITX  12cm x 12cm

And VIA announced last week that it will join the ranks of those delivering
a "computer on a chip" (CoC).

http://www.infoworld.com/article/06/06/07/79018_HNviacomputeronchip_1.html


And we already have $99 Linux with 16gb flash in a chewing gum stick sized
package.
http://www.gumstix.com/press/gumstix-pricing-Apr-25.pdf


Power over Ethernet (POE) now at 15 watts and soon 30+ watts an will allow
1-cable CAT5 connection to any networked device including mini/nano/CoC PC's
and  Network Attached Storage (which Homeseer's box can't provide because it
is spindle free), IP cameras, IP audio, IP security (Elk and others have
this) IP thermostat and so on  will continue to proliferate making the I/O
capability and the PC's form factor even less important.

Conventional RS-xxx serial will stay in the mix and be joined by USB over
CAT5, and other wired, wireless, powerline protocols. The latter do _not_
have to be connected to a PC. One can already create an Insteon- or
X10-controller-over-IP from  commercially available  ethernet-to-RS232 +
X-10/Insteon/etc controller.

 y making the wired I/O separate from the PC motherboard (for example
through a COMTROL ethernet to eight RS-232 converters) one can have
fail-over capability automagically. If one PC fails, another connects to the
ethernet-to-RS-232 and takes over. I have run two instances of  CyberHouse
Servers (application)  for years. And of course multiple clients everywhere.

In my experience, this is vastly better than buying a spare motherboard as
Bobby has suggested so that when the next Katrina hits, one can spend one's
time on the roof swapping PC parts  <joke intended> . *EVERY* PC capable of
running the HA software can be a "backup PC" no matter where on earth you or
it is.

"(Windows) PC's everywhere?"
"The PC is the network".
"Pervasive computing"

So why are " Mini-ITX PC's a the future of HA " ?

... Marc
Marc_F_Hult
www.ECOntrol.org