Someone mentioned StrongARM processors in the beginning here.  Might I
suggest looking into those?  Many people have made Linux machines out of
a home-made Intel ARM processor and associated hardware, it's definately
more in your grasp, and the Linux kernel supports the processor already.

nick@veys.com | www.veys.com/nick

> -----Original Message-----
> From: pic microcontroller discussion list
> [mailto:PICLIST@MITVMA.MIT.EDU] On Behalf Of Tony Goetz
> Sent: Tuesday, April 09, 2002 6:08 PM
> To: PICLIST@MITVMA.MIT.EDU
> Subject: Re: [EE]: Scratchbuilt computer?
>
>
> I got home, signed on, and looked at the mail box. Quite a response!
>
> Don't get me wrong, guys. I have (and had) little intention
> of doing this myself. Didn't realize just how good that
> mindset was until reading the replies, though! Heck, I have
> to be careful just so I can go out on Friday's with friends,
> much less buy a processor to mess around with, much much less
> start buying chipsets and manufacturing boards. I figured
> someone out there would have done something like this though,
> whether buying chipsets or makign their own (I have no idea
> what's involved in the process, but I get the idea
> it's...intensive). Someone with a ton of time, plenty of
> money, little life, and lots of patience. Looks like you need
> to amplify all those requirements a fair amount... There's a
> site from Stanford U that shows a 486-SX based computer they
> built that's the size of a matchbox. Appropriately named the
> matchbox PC and, likewise, their matchbox webserver each
> running either Win9x or Red Hat 5.2 Linux. I thought if they
> could come up with this, maybe it had been taken a step or
> two further at some point. If you want to see the 486 system,
> go to http://wearables.stanford.edu/
>
> It was said you'd have to buy chipsets costing up in the
> thousands, and part of the thread got into the actual
> physical considerations to account for in lengths of traces,
> etc. I realize the limits you start to push when dealing with
> today's gigahertz machines. The hardware to support these
> processors is no doubt some pretty high performance stuff.
>
> Probably starting another arm of the thread, what about
> yesterday's performance processors? Somewhere in between the
> 486 matchboxPC and, say, dual P4's? For the sake of argument,
> a Pentium 133 or 233, whose support hardware, while maybe
> complex compared to the Pic's we're used to, is possibly
> worth very little to anyone but hobbyists nowadays. With SX
> uC's up to 100Mhz now (I think that's right. correct me if
> it's not), we probably have a good idea of what to do with
> speeds really getting away from the 20Mhz/5Mips systems that
> we use. Okay, I guess I can see the difference between 8-bit
> uC's and 32-bit PC procs. Just trying to dig the hole deeper
> here! Even so, the idea intrigues me, even if I don't have
> the time/money/skill to do it.
>
> It was just a passing thought. Michael said exactly what I
> was thinking, with the reward being a piece of hardware that
> you can take pride in and what is apparently a great deal of
> knowledge learnt. That would be worth a great deal to me,
> though I doubt I could actually follow through and come up
> with something like this myself.
>
> And BTW, as always thanks for everyone replying. Always lots
> of enlightening responses.
>
> -Tony
>
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>
>

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