ESS ports of Call

Oct 10, 2006 21 Replies

This is somewhat of a vague open ended question but I'll put it out there anyway...



I'm heading up to ESS2006 in good ol' Brum (Birmingham UK) on Thursday and, amongst other things, I'm in the market for single board computers with LCD, ethernet, usb and hardrive support.



It doesn't need to be lightning fast or safety certified but I would like to be able to put Linux on it (or WinCE if Linux is deemed too avante-garde by the powers that be).



The exhibitor list gives details of all the folks that will be there but is there anyone that people specifically recommend I talk to about my SBCs? Is there a particular product that anyone recommends.



I understand that there are a lot of things out there that will fit the bill but it would be helpful to know what people have had good or bad experiences with.



As an aside, is anyone else heading up/down there on Thursday?


Yes, I will probably be there both days....but,

Is it just me or is the exhibitor list a little disappointing? No NXP, Motorola, Atmel, Microchip, Keil, ARM, Rabbit, Luminary, ST, Zilog, etc. Or am I missing the point about what type of show it is?

Regards, Richard.

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I thought Rabbit was there. Hold on... .. no you're right. I'm sure I read about someone representing them there though. There's no Sharp either. I think the big players concentrate on the big US show but I'm not clever enough to be able to persuade my lot to stump up for me to go :-(

It does seem to be more of a tools and systems show than a parts show though which I guess is reflected in the name. I suppose System on Chip is not system enough.

I think the ESS vendors are typically system vendors, not the major manufacturers.

I had an invite, but I seem to be either tied to a desk or on the road to fix another problem because some people can't understand simple instructions [grr], so I shan't make it this time.

Not sure of all the people who are going to be there; had decent luck with Phytec (especially on the PXA series), although their WinCE port was done by a French company and left 'much to be desired'[tm].

Pretty expensive compared to putting the parts down on my own board, but not too expensive for small runs.

Cheers

PeteS

According to the list on the web-site Rabbit will be on stand 311. However, companies like DSP Design and similar seem to be rather conspicuous by their absence. I suppose with Silica and MS having a very large stand there this year they felt beaten into submission. ;>

I shall be there on Wednesday, mostly in one of the conference streams but I shall be making a point of taking coffee with Chris Hills at some point during the day (I'll see what I can do about some doughnuts Chris).

******************************************************************** Paul E. Bennett .................... Forth based HIDECS Consultancy ..... Mob: +44 (0)7811-639972 Tel: +44 (0)1235-811095 Going Forth Safely ..... EBA. www.electric-boat-association.org.uk.. ********************************************************************

Silica have a number of silicon + board level manufacturers as sub-sections on their stand.

John Adair Enterpo>

In article , Tom Lucas writes

They were represented there.

Actually the big Nuremberg show in Feb.

\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\ \/\/\/\/\ Chris Hills Staffs England /\/\/\/\/ /\/\/ chris@phaedsys.org www.phaedsys.org \/\/\ \/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/

In article , Paul E. Bennett writes

Hi Paul,

It was good to see you.... thanks for the dog nuts. In the end we dished out 30 litres of coffee and about 150 mini doughnuts and a packet of chocky biscuits another customer arrived with.

Next year PhaedruS SystemS will have coffee doughnuts and it has been suggested a snooker table! (Does anyone have a 1/4 size one we can borrow?

\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\ \/\/\/\/\ Chris Hills Staffs England /\/\/\/\/ /\/\/ chris@phaedsys.org www.phaedsys.org \/\/\ \/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/

THERE WERE CHOCCY BICCIES???!!??!!!! Charming. Just as well I had the XJTAG girls to distract me.

May I suggest Fussball as a more portable arena?

It was nice seeing you again too Chris. See you in Bristol in february I hope for the SSS07 event.

Yes, they were nice looking girls.

Either that or Air Hockey. You'll need a bigger stand though Chris, especially if a championship contest gets going.

******************************************************************** Paul E. Bennett .................... Forth based HIDECS Consultancy ..... Mob: +44 (0)7811-639972 Tel: +44 (0)1235-811095 Going Forth Safely ..... EBA. www.electric-boat-association.org.uk.. ********************************************************************

In article , Tom Lucas writes

Yes. They arrived on day 1...... you arrived late on day 2. Sorry. The biscuits were brought in by a customer.

Unfortunately. More in keeping with the car show of FHM /Loaded type event. It pissed off a LOT of the femail engineers at the show.

Wot's Fussball?

\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\ \/\/\/\/\ Chris Hills Staffs England /\/\/\/\/ /\/\/ chris@phaedsys.org www.phaedsys.org \/\/\ \/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/

OK.... Send me details. As long as it does nto clash with the Nuremberg show.

Hmmmm did you get up close? The wind Rider girls were nicer (and dressed)

I can see we will need to do something..... We can mark out a pitch or something behind the back row.

\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\ \/\/\/\/\ Chris Hills Staffs England /\/\/\/\/ /\/\/ chris@phaedsys.org www.phaedsys.org \/\/\ \/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/

Well, I consoled myself with a sandwich and drink that cost 7 pounds :-o

It also pissed off some of the blokes as well, bizarrely. I think they were a bit religious though. Still, it certainly generated a lot of interest in XJTAG so it was worth it.

Table football - little guys on poles. Takes up a lot less space than a snooker table and games finish quicker giving faster turnaround. As a more far out suggestion, I once went to a wedding where the happy couple had hired a Blackjack table and a roulette table and a couple of croupiers to run it. They dished out fake money and the person who finished up with the most won a prize (or Phaedrus freebies maybe). Cheaper than crumpet in hotpants.

In article , Tom Lucas writes

Not the ones who talked to me. Most of us just seemed to thing it was tacky and out of place.

Not really.It generated interest in the girls. Not what ever it was was on the stands. Also some people who went of the stand to find out said it was distracting. So probably not a good move.

I think the people who do the exhibition furniture do that

Needs a lot of organising and people.

Depends on the crumpet.

\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\ \/\/\/\/\ Chris Hills Staffs England /\/\/\/\/ /\/\/ chris@phaedsys.org www.phaedsys.org \/\/\ \/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/

Note for future reference: it appears to be called 'Foosball' in certain countries. Fussball is German for football (the "soccer" type), Foosball is a "table football".

Hans-Bernhard Broeker (broeker@physik.rwth-aachen.de) Even if all the snow were burnt, ashes would remain.

That's what they call the table on "Friends" which, as always, only speaks the truth! I thought it was the German word actually and would have used the Beta instead of the double 's' if I was less lazy.

Not to cast nasturtiums on anyones age but I believe "Table Football" is a somewhat outdated term now. Sigh, it is a burden to be at the cutting edge of popular culture ;-)

I was a bit disappointed from the point of view of middle-to-high end embedded silicon (at the moment I've a particular interest in NAS and network processors), although I did happen to bump into an FAE I needed to talk to anyway - hadn't expected him to be there but he was on a distie's stand.

From the software point of view the most impressive product on display was pure::variants, which looks to solve a lot of interesting problems in the definition and creation of software product lines. I'm playing with this at the moment and it's just a nice piece of technology that hits a very sweet spot in the market place.

I was quite impressed by Telelogic Tau which might well make UML more acceptable to high-level architecture people who get the hives when you start asking them for some semantics, though.

pete

pete@fenelon.com "he just stuck to buying beer and pointing at other stuff"

The US and German trade shows are traditionally a lot bigger. Then again... where's the money? ;P

pete

pete@fenelon.com "he just stuck to buying beer and pointing at other stuff"

The one thing to avoid is a model railway. ENEA had a very nice little Maerklin layout under control of their embedded/active/high reliability database, Polyhedra, and I think more people were interested in that than the software ;p

Good to meet up with your mob at the show - great to meet a company that

*believes* that passionately in the benefits of static analysis.

pete

pete@fenelon.com "he just stuck to buying beer and pointing at other stuff"

Or watching too much "Friends".

My last company had a table, which I think was used about three times in three years.

pete

pete@fenelon.com "he just stuck to buying beer and pointing at other stuff"

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