🚀 go-pugleaf

In article mark@coyote.stanford.edu (Mark Hosang Yim) writes:
>We are currently using two 68HC11 boards on a small mobile robot and
>need to get a board with similar size and i/o but improved computational 
>power. We are thinking maybe a 68000 based board.  Can anyone suggest a 
>commercial board, (not necessarily 68000) and how to obtain one?

We had a lot of success with an Omnibyte Mutlibus board, I think part no.
OB68K1A.  This is a 68010, at least 0.5 Meg memory, 2 serial ports, and 4 
8 bit parallel ports.  However, this is rather antiquated technology.

If the budget isn't tight and you are looking at a multi-processor
architecture, I recommend one of the Ironics single board VME computers.
There are various models available with  68010, 68020, and (just introduced)
68030s.  Different boards have different IO devices and memory
configurations.  The nice thing is that the boards are designed with
multi-processing in mind, and have neat features like dual-port memory,
mail-box interrupts, bus interrupters, timers, bus arbiters, etc.  The
features seem to be well thought out to do just what you actually need 
them to do.  Another thing to think of, going to one of the newer, faster
CPUs may eliminate the need for a multiprocessor system, which would really
simplifying programming the thing.  If you need a multi-tasking system,
there are lots of real-time kernels you can run on these things.

Other companies probaly make similar products (I know Heurikon does), but I
have no experience with them.  If you can't find a local supplier, let me
know and I can send you addresses for Omnibyte and Ironics.

Don Schmitz

Disclaimer: I have no connection with either Omnibyte or Ironics aside from
being a satisfied customer.

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