Cost of single-board PCs

In the region of UKP150 to UKP1000 depending on spec (386 to Pentium class).

You may be better off posting up the minimum spec you can deal with and asking for reccommended outlets.

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The cheapest VIA boards go for about 100$. Lookup "miniITX" or similar.

Rene

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Right. Get out of the specialty embedded boards and go mainstream if you can. Its amazing how many industrial units actually contain a standard PeeCee motherboard inside.

Be sure to read the recent comp.arch.embedded thread "Challenges with off the shelf PC motherboards in embedded systems?"

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A few hundred for 386,486 models (PC104 types). Same price for non industrial Pentium class miniboards, the advantage of the PC104 models is they will be around for purchase for years (if not decades)

Concentrate on the 80386EX. The lowest-cost DOS-compatable boards all seem to use that.

When you find a good price, be sure to post it here. Thanks!

Which word don't you understand?

Perhaps he isn't inclined to spend many hours calling for prices when the possibility exists that someone here has done so already and narrowed down the hundreds of choices to a smaller number.

I wouldn't mind finding that out myself, if someone has done it.

I've always considered that "call for prices" means that they want to qualify the customer and will then set their price based on your expected quantity, availability of the part, and their opinion of your value as a future customer.

Just "Call" on a web page seems to mean that the part is not in stock, but they will order it if they think it worth the trouble.

Mark Borgerson

Alas, you may have to bite the bullet and make the calls and send the emails. If you decide to do that, may I suggest the following?

[1] Use a throw-away email address. Some of them will sell your info. [2] Say that you are a consultant calling for a client who you cannot name -- even though the client is you. This will minimize salesdroids cold calling you every six months forever. [3] Ask for "price and availability" at quantity 10, 100, and 1,000. The price for 10 will be the same as the price for one. The price for 1,000 is for posting here - some of us only work with larger quanities. [4] Tell them that you need the "engineering price estimate" and avoid using the term "price quote." Tell them that you are researching prices for the engineering dept and that a vendor has not been selected yet.

The impression you wish to give is someone who they want to give a good price to, who has no purchasing authority, who isn't looking for a legally binding price quote that they have to approve with their manager, and who isn't worth harassing in the future.

...and by all means, please take notes and post what you find here!

Juat about every business is like that when the amounts get serious (for the vendor).

Best regards, Spehro Pefhany

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Sometimes

Sometimes

From being the other side of fence as well (for different products) it can be some or all of this NON-exhaustive list:-

Prices are subject to vagueries of price/currency fluctuation and they have a simple website.

They are just one part of an international distribution and don't like showing prices to other distributors or supplier (especially as the price is SUPPOSED to be the same in all EU countries, but isn't)

Distributor/international sales office who does not want their 'local' customers comparing prices to source price and realising they get lousy discount and have to make a large profit (sometimes forced by the parent company).

They don't want companies buying via a different country then getting support locally, why so many companies insist on serial numbers.

The pricing starts at a price which is not usuable without a variety of options.

Prices FROM is a big one to piss people off as they rarely get to see that price for reasons varying from non-availability to the required model or options in that range to meet their needs is always more expensive.

It is a slow moving product line.

Not their core business.

Expensive product not sold off the shelf in boxes so combinations need to be verified actually for customers benefit to get the right product to meet their needs, as distinct to 'features and benefits' that are not required.

Internal polictics/diktats from on high that prices are never published on web sites (mainly because they rarely update the website or somebody's child is more often in school).

There can be many other reasons.

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All of which are good reasons to design in parts you can find in the DigiKey catalog! That works for me---but then a high-volume board for me is a few hundred a year.

Mark Borgerson

Getting back to the original question, I'm surprised nobody is selling PC104 single-board computers in small quantities. Or even something less powerful, but capable of running DOS and Turbo Pascal 3. It would be a nice step up from the Basic Stamp or Rabbit, with a lot of appeal to hobbyists and small-scale experimenters.

Or in the worst case that the product is a complete vapourware, i.e. it exists only on the drawing board and is waiting for a sufficiently large firm order, before making even the prototype :-).

For a board level component or larger, if a picture of the product is not available on the web page or it contains a statement like "the delivered product may differ from this shown" should ring the vapourware warning bell.

Paul

a

In a market where the after-sales support can be time consuming and costly, I see no reason why the seller shouldn't adjust his price greatly depending on his assesment of support requirements. Particularly for one-off sales.

ie if the customer is a twit, the price goes up. Support costs real money.

-Andrew M

single-board

such

publicized. It's a

costly, I see no

assesment of

Surely, in this case, the support should be sold seperately...

Peter

Kelly

Have you looked in the back pages of magazines like Circuit Cellar, Dr. Dobbs and Embedded Systems Programming? They're full of ads for companies selling boards with a wide range of capabilities.

-- Dave Tweed