> I ran across an old XT clone with bus board in it instead of a true
> motherboard. I have never seen an IBM PC compatible computer like this
> before. Is this common? I have several XT's, but all the ones I have
> ever seen had an actual motherboard. I just thought this was an
> interesting machine. I have some pictures of it -
> http://24.194.68.104/computerland_xt.html. Does anyone know anything
> about this? Were there other PC's made like this?
Well, I don't know about this particular unit, but one of the
bigger players over here, Siemens, did all their PCs, starting
from the first 286 AT compatible PCD-2 until the Pentiums only
as Slot CPUs - one of the advantage where quite slim desktops.
I liked most the fact of easy upgrades. Just take out the 286
and replace it with a 386 ... and so on. As for the manufacuring
parti using a backplane design is a huge advantage, since you
can modularize all of your systems to a very extreme end. The
very same CPU can be used in a pizza box, a cash register, a
small desktop, a tower or a server system. Especialy for the
non-PC applications you may acomplish the needs of your customers
by using a standard parts without the need to put a bulky PC
case along with the apliance. I think with Pentium IIs they
changed to regular Motherboards.
Backplane PCs are a big thing for controll/automation systems.
You'll get a wide vareity of boards (CPUs, backplanes, etc.)
from dozends of supplieers. For example take a look at
http://www.advantech.com/products/sub_category.asp?Category_ID=1_at_29977
Most systems are still ISA (AT) based, which is, at least for
this segment, a perfect fit. Of course you'll also get PCI
and even VLB backplanes.
Gruss
H.
--
VCF Europa 4.0 am 03./04. Mai 2003 in Muenchen
http://www.vcfe.org/
Received on Wed Dec 04 2002 - 05:17:00 GMT