MiniPCI dev/proto board

[arhi]

Hi ppl,

I'm googling for few hours but all I found was a bunch of non existing pages and bunch of irrelevant pages, so, maybe someone had exp with it before ...

What I'm trying to find is a development board for miniPCI. So, blank board with pci controller that I can then expand on (add whatever I want to add) and make driver for OS (linux) to communicate with it.

I want either a proto/dev board that I can build upon or a schematic (pcb design would be nice) for such board that I can build myself. A simple hello world (turn led on/off attached to minipci board from OS) board would be nice

I'd prefer design that does not include FPGA (as I do not have any exp with them, do not have programmer for them, do not have any compiler or however is that called for fpga) but wth, if that's the only way to go, I'll do it.

I have experience with ISA boards and limited experience with PCI boards (I used some blank PCI boards that I build on top of).

So, something like **broken link removed** or **broken link removed** but for MiniPCI

Thanks in advance

 

[blueroomelectronics]

Wouldn't USB be more practical?

 

[arhi]

That's what I do now. I use ALIX board with 1 or 2 USB's and use USB to control everything. The thing is that USB is taking a lot of "cpu time" on the uC side and not that little ram if I use the 18f as usb client. The current solution is to use FTDI usb 2 dual fifo (parallel) but I was interested in miniPCI as there are even cheaper i386 compatible boards, very small, without USB but with miniPCI. Now, it all depends on the price and "hobby value of such board".

Thing is I was unable to find any dev tool for miniPCI so I have no idea how "complex" and how expensive thing is. PCI dev was fairly expensive but quite easy to work with. When I find some miniPCI dev tool I will either forget about it (most probably) or get it to play with it