Low cost web server board wanted

I'm looking for a low cost stand-alone web server board that I can plug straight into the 10/100 network switch that connects to my ADSL router, and host a couple of small plain HTML web pages out of on-board memory.

It'd be "icing on the cake" if the board also had the ability to monitor a couple of inputs, and better again if it could also switch a couple of outputs.

Am I asking too much? Can anyone make any suggestions? I'm in Australia, but I'm happy to buy from almost anywhere.

Thanks, Peter

Reply to
Pete
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How low cost? Have you considered Rabbit's products?

Reply to
larwe

I didn't have a fixed price in mind, but it'd have to be significantly less cost-wise and power-wise than leaving a PC on to do the same thing.

I'm looking at Rabbit's web page right now, and it seems that it might take me some time to work out which of their many products could be suitable. I can't immediately see anything that seems to work "out of the box" as a web server, though - looks like most of their boards need at least some software development.

Peter

Reply to
Pete

I like to encourage the re-use of old hardware; there are plenty of retired "lan modems" and desktop routers which would fit the bill; even newer devices like certain low-cost DSL routers (~$10.00 on eBay) can be made to run a *nix derivative. One of my favorite older devices is the Telebit Netblazer PN; it is the size of an older external modem (the same size as Telebit modems of the mid 1980's) and comes with two serial ports, 10BaseT and an internal 3.5 in. floppy drive (which is used to boot a netboot loader for subsequent TFTP transactions, or can be used to boot the device standalone). It is x86-based and runs a derivative of BSD (but has a shell oriented to routers) and has TCL; there are loads of TCL scripts including a decent httpd for this box and of course it does TCP/IP, IPX, RIP and other routing protocols and you can script the serial ports to bit-bang devices. The best part is the cost -- essentially zero plus shipping if you search for them.

Another useful antique is the Multitech 1432 series LanModem; it is a

386 or 486 network booted single board computer with up to 128mb ram, 10BaseT UTP and AUI, two serial ports, SVGA video and kbd/mouse ports with Phoenix BIOS -- pretty standard, and is the size of a recent external modem, and is usually a give-away.

Many of these boxes also have a parallel interface (ieee 1284) which you could program to control or monitor devices.

With a little effort one could create a short list of candidate boxes and do a little scrounging on-line; there is no reason to have to spend much money for a task such as yours.

Regards,

Michael Grigoni Cybertheque Museum

Reply to
msg

All of these work out of the box. I've used the edtp boards quite a bit and also have a few students doing projects with them at the moment. Most of the source code isn't for avr-gcc.

You don't say what you micro you prefer or what language you prefer to use with them.

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choice of a few boards pic , avr or adaptor for use with any micro. Pic and avr boards come with full source.

ethernut

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Web cat

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If you have an Atmel stk500 you could use a tiger (just bought one to have a play with)

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Both the tiger and web cat are supposed to be compatable with the ethernut software.

Olimex dev board using Philips lpc2124 arm7 chip

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resell olimex boards plus lots of other good stuff.
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arm7
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arm7

msp430 web boards

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Rowleys crossfire board

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Few embedded ethernet boards here (resell olmex boards)

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There are also the netburner modules

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Good thing sticking with Atmel Avrs or TI MSP430's or arm7 is there is a gcc port available.

Sort of over kill but fun to play with :-) Blackfin stamp Analog devices BF533 dsp @50MHz + 128MB ram or BF537 @500MHz + 64MB ram for around US$200 gcc port or analog devices visual dsp compilers blackfin.uclinux.org

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Few other links

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Alex Gibson

Reply to
Alex Gibson

One of the demos provided with the Dynamic C compiler is a web server. Pretty much all you need to supply is the IP address and the content.

If you're happier configuring rather than compiling, maybe take a look at:

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I understand these run OpenBSD (my server OS of choice), amongst others.

Steve

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Reply to
Steve at fivetrees

have a look at :

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they have a selection of singlechip webserver. from 80Euros @ 1

Rene

Reply to
Rene Tschaggelar

Of the links and information that people have posted so far, the Modtronix SBC65EC (priced at US$70, although they seem to be an Australian company) seems to come closest to what I want:

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Does anyone have any experience with this board or other products from this company?

Regards, Peter

Reply to
Pete

Look at the Linksys WRT54GL, and reflash it with the OpenWRT firmware. The inputs and outputs are probably there, but it might be a challenge to find them electrically and logically.

You can also use older WRT54G units. Linksys changed their basic unit by halving the flash and RAM, and moving to VxWorks from Linux. The "L" version retains the larger memory or the older units.

I think the break between good and bad non-"L" units is version 5-6, but in the store you want to look at serial numbers, not version numbers. I might be able to re-find the data if necessary.

Reply to
Bryan Hackney

Hi Peter,

we did a simple AJAX web-based pin monitoring/switching on a FOX board

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I think you can attach your devices and use fox-demo application as-is:

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bye,

stefano

Reply to
barbato

is a possibility.

I've been playing with it for a couple of days. Picked it up after seeing it mentioned here (or on a related newsgroup).

Seems to have a lot of potential but a dearth of documentation or "getting started" examples for dynamic web page creation. The best chance seems to be a web-search for "web2cob" and go from there.

Distributed through Mouser for about US$50 in small quantities.

--
Rich Webb   Norfolk, VA
Reply to
Rich Webb

Just spotted this in the original post:

Heh - the Rabbit sample does exactly this - or at least it provides a CGI interface to a couple of outputs (LEDs on the eval board). Extending it to read a couple of further inputs is almost trivial.

Steve

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Reply to
Steve at fivetrees

straight

couple of

couple of

I'm

Peter,

This is an Australian (Melbourne) designed and manufactured product:

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Not sure of the price, but it's very easy to use. Tell Jeff I sent you

-Andrew M

Reply to
Andrew M

I don't like to be too picky, but perhaps you might like to diplomatically let Jeff know that there are a lot of spelling and grammatical errors on that web page, and that his aim to "Bring your Factory or business into the 20th century" probably should be updated seeing as how we're in the 21st century now...

It looks too expensive for what I want to do, but I'll download the catalogue and look into it further. Thanks.

Peter

Reply to
Pete

No problem Peter,

I'm picky about those things too :-|

regds, AM

Jeff

and

probably

and

Reply to
Andrew M

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CP2201 costs 19.90 it has example webserver running, you have actually few spare pins and the micro on board has non-fitted USB connector (it is C8051F340)

I dont think you can find anything below that price in qty 1

I do have the board, it does exist and does work :)

Antti

Reply to
Antti

Take a look at our Modules.

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Paul

Reply to
pbreed

Could you recommend a particular module or board? I couldn't seem to find anything there that met my requirements.

Peter

Reply to
Pete

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Reply to
<Newbee>

Unfortunately 2 problems with this one:

  1. Out of stock
  2. Supports pre-canned demos only

Other than that looked good!

Reply to
Vic

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