PC-104

Are you sure you really need an SSD? Or, can you just run out of FLASH? (i.e., are you mounting any filesystems R/W?)

Does the display i/f need to be onboard? Or, can you WiFi to an app running on a phone? Or, hard-wired to a remote session?

[There are lots of solutions *smaller* than PC-104 depending on what your actual needs are. And, budget.]

Yeah. PC-104 is aimed at "industrial applications" and the boards and any expansions or peripherals you want that share the form factor tend to be industrial-priced.

If you must have x86, nano-itx isn't much larger than PC-104 (120x120mm vs 100x100m) and e.g. Intel Atom based boards are pretty cheap on the surplus market:

You can use a SD card to CompactFlash adapter for storage, refurbished

128 gig SD cards are $14 on Amazon.

Thanks for the suggestions. The primary function of the box is to drive a VGA monitor; 99% of the time it will host a browser monitoring various systems. It will run BSD or Linux; TBD.

Yes, flash might work vs. SATA SSD

I did see some ruggedized systems in the $1000++ catagory. I'm looking to spend far less.

Looking last night, I found a dearth of PE104 AC power supplies. Guess I need to look harder.

--
A host is a host from coast to coast.................wb8foz@nrk.com 
& no one will talk to a host that's close.......................... 

mandag den 11. januar 2021 kl. 17.55.52 UTC+1 skrev David Lesher:

raspberry pi

There are additional factors that need to be understood to better answer yo ur question (e.g. board form factor, enclosure size constraints, location, environment, cooling requirements, development tools/environment needed, 3 rd party apps required, etc.) Some things that may be useful alternatives to pc104 form factor boards include: mini,micro,pico-itx, the popular raspb erry pi 3b and 4, and similar size boards by Intel (nuc), Nvidia Jetson Nan o, Beagleboard, ODROID-C2 and UX4, ROCKPro64, LattePanda(intel Atom).

Also, you may be hard pressed to find a board with a VGA connector & suppor t, so consider a HDMI to VGA adapter. I have had good luck with the ones s upplied by Dell, Rankie, Ugreen, and Mored.

Google pc104 alternatives, Raspberry Pi alternatives, etc. will turn up som e good alternatives. J

PC104 is good for digital and analog I/O, as well as other special functions that are lacking in standard PC boards. Sound like all you want is PC like functions and PC104 doesn't offer much advantages.

Look for 'Tiny PC' computers. Made by HP / Lenovo / Dell.

These are cheap boxes, 1 litre in volume, with fast x86 CPUs. Makes more sense than Raspberry Pi unless ye are looking for the power savings of the latter.

stuffed 480GB SSD and 16GB of memory in it. It flies as a windows dev server, but will be at home with anything.

Lots available on US eBay. Corporates upgrading.

--
Adrian C

Maybe a Raspberry Pi with a HDMI to VGA converter. USB storage if SD card is not rugged enough.

--
  Jasen.

The Dell/Wyse 3040 and similar items are probably worth considering. The eBay used prices are seriously low, it would be painless to buy one and try it out.

This is a one-off. These boards to go into a 3" deep chassis in a

19" rack.. We have multiple other devices going into the 19"*16" box, so less is more. We can add a fan if needed. It will run a browser; it will talk to a NXP to debug it.

It will run BSD or Linux.

I found some earlier today with a DB-15 , but will keep looking.

--
A host is a host from coast to coast.................wb8foz@nrk.com 
& no one will talk to a host that's close.......................... 

Alas 2GB RAM...

--
A host is a host from coast to coast.................wb8foz@nrk.com 
& no one will talk to a host that's close..........................