> William Chops Westfield wrote: > project are to have a device that runs without a PC running 7x24, run > a long time on backup power and be as reliable as is reasonable. The > biggest problem with PC's is it moving parts tend to wear out fast. > I've gone through a lot of drives (CD's, hard drives & floppies) over > the years How about using one of the VIA Epia motherboards and a compact flash card as a disk? No moving parts and they are inexpensive. Sure, they're not as fast as a high-powered system, but they can be made so they don't need a fan! Upload/Install software via a USB drive, disconnect it, and the system should run fine. A good source is http://www.solarpc.com/ -- D. Jay Newman ! jay@sprucegrove.com ! Xander: Giles, don't make cave-slayer unhappy. http://enerd.ws/robots/ ! -- http://www.piclist.com hint: The list server can filter out subtopics (like ads or off topics) for you. See http://www.piclist.com/#topics