Specifications
1.1
GENERAL
DESCRIPTION
CHAPTER
1
INTRODUCTION
The
Little
Board/PC
provides system designers with a highly compact, self-contained,low
power, PC-compatible
single
board
system
that
requires no more space than a half height 5-
1/4" disk drive. This unique single
board
system is functionally equivalent
to
a
PC/XT
motherboard and three
or
four expansion cards.
The Little
Board/PC
is ideally suited for embedded microcomputer applications where PC
software
and
bus
compatibility
are
required, and where low power consumption (4 watts),
small
size
(5.75"
x
8"
x
1.1",
wide temperature range (0-70
0
C), and high reliability are critical.
In
addition, its ability to use rugged media like
EPROM
and nonvolatile
RAM
instead
of
disk
drives makes the Little
Board/PC
especially well suited for use
in
rugged
or
harsh operating
environments.
Typical applications for the Little Board/PC include:
•
Data
acquisition
• Diskless workstations
• Portable instruments • Remote data logging
•
Protocol conversion
• Point-of-sale terminals
• Telecommunications
• Network servers
• Security systems
• Distributed processing
• Vending machines • Medical instruments
• Robot and machine control
The Little
Board/PC
includes a CMOS NEC V40 enhanced 8088-compatible microprocessor,
up to
768Kbytes
of
on-board RAM,
and
a full complement
of
PC
compatible controllers.
Peripheral controllers are included for serial, printer, keyboard, speaker, and floppy interfac-
ing.
In
addition, two industry standard system expansion buses -- a
PC
Expansion Bus and a
Small Computer System Interface (SCSI) -- offer system expansion flexibility.
An
expansion connector is provided onboard for Ampro MiniModule expansion boards which
attach directly to
the
Little Board/PC.
When
installed, a MiniModule fits entirely within the
Little Board/PC's outline dimensions.
Standard PC bus plug-in cards can
be
connected to the Little
Board/PC
using a ribbon cable
from the
PC
bus expansion connector. The innovative Ampro StackPlane™ expansion option
permits a
PC
bus
card
to
be
mounted parallel
to
the Little
Board/PC
without additional
hardware.
Also available is a compact
2-s10t
passive backplane, which accommodates two
PC
bus cards.
Support for SCSI direct access devices as
boot
or
data
devices is included directly
in
the
board's
ROM-BIOS. This
SCSI/BIOS
feature allows a wide variety
of
hard
disks, floppy
drives, bubble memory drives,
tape drives, and other SCSI devices
to
be
used interchangeably,
greatly enhancing the ease and flexibility
of
system integration, maintenance, and upgrades.
Sockets
on
the
Little
Board/PC
allow
on
board
EPROM
(up to 256K bytes)
or
battery backed
RAM
(up
to64K
bytes)
to
function as a bootable PC-DOS compatible "Solid
State
Disk"
(SSD) drive. SSD operation offers several key advantages, including improved speed, reliabili-
ty,
and
ruggedness,
and
reduced power consumption. Ampro's optional SSD
support
soft-
1-1