I suggested this about a year ago . . .

. . and pointed out there's a hardware platform already available - [link|http://www.picmg.com/compactpci.stm|Compact PCI] (cPCI), which has the attraction of not being so greatly different from the PC PCI bus in electrical design.

If say, you based your PC cabinet on the current 3U cPCI format, the size wouldn't be a lot different from current PCs, but all your IO connectors would be at the front of the machine and boards could be removed and replaced without opening a cabinet.

The 3U format can be used for desktop PCs, the 6U format for high end servers. Right now cPCI is used primarily for "carrier grade" equipment, but there's no reason it can't be made in commercial grades as well.

For advanced servers, switched fabric backplanes, hot swap and other advanced stuff is already available in both 32-bit and 64-bit cPCI.

Sparc CPU boards are available from Sun, but other CPUs can be supported just as well. cPCI boards support mezanine expansion boards for a very high degree of customization.

Just do a Google search on cPCI and you'll find plenty of information.

Post #39,169 by Andrew Grygus 5/18/02 9:17:51 PM Reply	I suggested this about a year ago . . . . . and pointed out there's a hardware platform already available - [link\|http://www.picmg.com/compactpci.stm\|Compact PCI] (cPCI), which has the attraction of not being so greatly different from the PC PCI bus in electrical design. If say, you based your PC cabinet on the current 3U cPCI format, the size wouldn't be a lot different from current PCs, but all your IO connectors would be at the front of the machine and boards could be removed and replaced without opening a cabinet. The 3U format can be used for desktop PCs, the 6U format for high end servers. Right now cPCI is used primarily for "carrier grade" equipment, but there's no reason it can't be made in commercial grades as well. For advanced servers, switched fabric backplanes, hot swap and other advanced stuff is already available in both 32-bit and 64-bit cPCI. Sparc CPU boards are available from Sun, but other CPUs can be supported just as well. cPCI boards support mezanine expansion boards for a very high degree of customization. Just do a Google search on cPCI and you'll find plenty of information. [link\|http://www.aaxnet.com\|AAx]
Post #39,172 by orion 5/18/02 9:35:12 PM Reply	Sounds good but who sells these things? Not something I can find from companies who list on pricewatch is there? I was thinking more of a new design that has more IRQs, that can boot the OS from EEPROM for faster bootups, and that has more of the function of the OS in the ROM than the "standard" PC. This may speed things up with the OS boot times, and also force Microsoft to adapt or not. I'll keep searching and looking for it. CPCI. *I am free now, to choose my own destiny.*
Post #39,244 by static 5/20/02 1:53:50 AM Reply	Search for "Compact PCI". With the quotes. "All around me are nothing but fakes Come with me on the biggest fake of all!"

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