A few years ago, specmanship regarding personal computer technology was all the news. Faster chips, more memory and so on. Well, computing technology continues to advance–just more quietly. Here is a new embedded computer designed with machine builders in mind. The Industrial Automation Group of Advantech introduced the UNO-1170, an embedded automation computer which features an Intel Celeron M or Pentium M central processing unit (CPU) and 512MB/1GB DDR SDRAM. The UNO-1170 comes in a compact aluminum chassis with fanless and diskless design. It can operate in temperatures up to 60°C and has a 512KB SRAM battery back-up system in the event of sudden shut down.
It contains two Ethernet ports, three serial (RS-232/422/485) ports, three external USB 2.0 ports and one internal secure USB port. The UNO-1170’s front-accessibility makes it convenient for wiring and its DIN-rail design allows easy installation. Operating system and driver support includes Microsoft Windows XP Embedded, Microsoft WinCE 6.0 and embedded Linux. IT is available with a pre-configured Windows CE and XP Embedded image with optimized onboard device drivers.
–Gary Mintchell
January 22, 2009 at 5:18 pm
This PC is another example that industrial PC’s are only a commodity when compared to brand-name PLC’s. Advantech doesn’t have UNO-1170 pricing up yet, but the 1150 (400MHz GX2, 256M RAM, 10/100 Ethernet, CF slot) is $652.
A MSI Wind PC (1.6 GHz Atom, 2G DRAM, 10/100/1000 Ethernet, CF slot, SATA, etc) from Newegg is $160. The CPU doesn’t have a fan, but the case does – but if underclocked, it’s possible it could run without the case fan. It’s also bigger (but still quite small).
So if you don’t need the UNO’s unique features such as DIN-Rail mount, super compact size, battery backed SRAM, or (probably) much longer availability of the specific model, the MSI is a better choice.