trimble@laic.rdd.lmsc.lockheed.com (Gary Trimble) (06/05/91)
I have seen references to a "Business Card Computer" in this newsgroup and would like to find out what this is and who it is available from. Gary Trimble
akarkare@yoda.eecs.wsu.edu (Ashish Karkare) (06/05/91)
The Business Card Computer is a small computer built around the MC 68332 microcontroller. Some of the fliers give you the impression that it is as small as a credit card, but you will need a rather large wallet to carry it around :-). We have found the BCC to be an excellent choice for embedded control applications. It comes with a 128 KByte ROM and 64K RAM. A ROM resident debugger makes application development/debugging quite easy. The BCC has two serial communication interfaces, one asynchronous, and the other a fast ( ~Mbits/sec ) synchronous interface. A Time Processor unit with 16 independent channels allows you to do stepper motor control, PWM etc. with minimal CPU intervention. I believe the BCC with its Evaluation board costs around $300. Details may be obtained from Motorola. Regards, Ashish. (akarkare@yoda.eecs.wsu.edu ) -- Ashish Karkare INTERNET:akarkare@yoda.eecs.wsu.edu Computer Sc. Dept. Washington State U. TALKNET : 509 332 8699 Pullman , Wa 99164-2752
bradb@oakhill.sps.mot.com (Brad Burgess) (06/06/91)
In article <1991Jun5.152359.27047@serval.net.wsu.edu> akarkare@yoda.eecs.wsu.edu (Ashish Karkare) writes: > >The Business Card Computer is a small computer built around the MC 68332 >microcontroller. Some of the fliers give you the impression that it is as >small as a credit card, but you will need a rather large wallet to carry >it around :-). Here's a little trivia: The BCC was originally a demonstration project with the goal of designing a small computer system using a PC board the size of a standard business card (3.5" x 2"). Since 132-pin QFP wirewrap sockets are hard to come by (there ain't none), a second goal was to have the capability of piggybacking the BCC onto a standard wire wrap board (the kind with power and ground planes). We looked at several highdensity wirewrap boards including boards capable of handling mixed 300-mil and 600-mil dip packages. We chose a 2" spacing for the piggyback headers inorder to be compatible with the majority of boards. This blew the board size out to (3.5" x 2.25") :-(. I agree the populated board is a little "thick" to fit in a wallet (1"), though if you remove the headers it does reduce to a nice pocket size (0.3"). Here's some other stuff: The BCC includes: a 68332, 128k-EPROM, 64k-SRAM, RS-232 level converter with charge pump, oscillator circuitry, decoupling capacitors, and pullup resistors all surface mounted on an "almost" business card size PC board. The '332 signals are available through various headers, and there is support for programming the EPROM from off board (the EPROM comes programmed with a fairly extensive monitor - 332BUG). The power requirements are 5v @ 200ma. A second board can piggy back the BCC and provides a "development interface". This BCCDI board supports: programming the BCC's EPROM, address compare breakpointing, and "background mode". Background mode serially communicates with the CPU core and provides the functionality of a monitor without having to use the BCC's EPROM or other system memory. The BCC and BCCDI boards come on a platform board which has: more memory, RESET and ABORT switches, a 5volt converter for the EPROM programming voltage, a fuse, and nice rubber feet. Contact a Motorola Distributer for info, pricing, availability...etc. -- --------------------------------------------- :[]: || _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ ( ) |_)|_) /\ | \ |_)| ||_)/_ |_(_(_
thomas@everexn.com (Thomas Poff) (06/10/91)
In article <1991Jun6.154130.20358@oakhill.sps.mot.com> bradb@kama.UUCP (Brad Burgess) writes: > >Here's some other stuff: > >The BCC includes: a 68332, 128k-EPROM, 64k-SRAM, RS-232 level converter >with charge pump, oscillator circuitry, decoupling capacitors, and >pullup resistors all surface mounted on an "almost" business card size >PC board. The '332 signals are available through various headers, and there >is support for programming the EPROM from off board (the EPROM comes >programmed with a fairly extensive monitor - 332BUG). The power requirements >are 5v @ 200ma. > >Contact a Motorola Distributer for info, pricing, availability...etc. It sounds nice. Is the current pricing still competitive with other people's embedded boards. Does anyone know about similar other hi-performance embedded board. I saw in the magazine "Electronic Products" that there's a MIPS based embedded board w/ 1 megabyte of RAM available for less than $700. It sounds really neat. Any thoughts? thomas@everexn.com - feel free to either email direct or post to this newsgroup -- ====================================== thomas@everexn.com