Thread: Advantech MOBO

This board is super small but it's only a 586 and not upgradeable to a Pentiuim. I guess it will play mp3's ok but that's it. So if you were planning on watching movies or anyhting else it wouldn't work.

If all you want is mp3's and a super small player I would check out http://www.myplace.nu/mp3/.

My friend and I are thinking of building a few of these just to see what we think.
There are others also, this was the only one I could find quickly...

I think this would make a great MP3 player. True the onboard Cyrix processor is not going to handle DVD, but it would be fine for everything else (MP3, GPS, etc). The built in LCD interface is a big plus, as is the compact flash slot (CF cards are so cheap lately!). If you were just wanting an MP3 player, you could install the OS (DOS or Linux) and software (MXPlay, Cajun, etc) on a CF card and have near instant bootups. The actual MP3s would be stored on the hard drive, but that does not affect boot time.
I just ordered an SBC (Advantech 5862) and I'm thinking about using a Disk on Chip to do this.

I tried this with a 128 MB CompactFlash card but I found out the CF card was actually a lot slower than a hard drive. I ran some diags and the seek time was much faster but the data transfer rate was much slower. I was using an Advantech 5862E and it definitely didn't boot any faster.

Hi Rick. Was this using a CF card (through PC-104 connector or PCI adapter??) or was this a Disk on Chip? Does anyone know how quick a DOC is comapred to hard drives?
I'm glad someone mentionned this beofre I spend the $$ for the DOC...

Mike.

I've hacked a few virgin webplayers...they have 48mb DOC's and according to the members on the board they are not very speedy compared to HDs.

My basic thought is i want something to play MP3s and have Gps capability, DVD is a item i do not need right now however i do reconize the need for upgrading in the future so HEREis another board i was looking at i can upgrade the processer on it in the future

Yes, that board would work (but would be expensive!!) Most of the Advantech SBCs which are 8 X 5.75 (like the 5862 I've ordered) have a PCI slot on them. This would allow you to add a DVD decoder card like this one to handle the DVD playback.

I was using a CF IDE adapter. The CF can operate as an IDE device so this adapter just allows you to plug up a CF card via a standard IDE cable. I had the CF card acting as the bootable C: drive and a normal hard disk as the D: drive. I used 98lite to install the entire OS on the 128MB CF card and just the mp3's on the D: drive. Like I said though, it actually booted slower than when booting off the HD so I switched back to a HD only.