Single-Board Secondary
General Description of Computer Setup
Detailed Description of Computer Setup
Peripheral Specs
Filter Specs
DOS Computer
"Music Machine" Comp.
Planned 64-Bit Comp.
Planned Laptop
Other Things I plan to get
The Single-Board Secondary's processor speed will be 266Mhz. It will have an old 16MB PCI 3D-videocard.
A single-board computer is a motherboard put on a ISA/PCI card. Where the motherboard normally is, there is a passive backplane with no chips on it. The motherboard inserts into the backplane like any other expansion card. The beauty of this system is that if there's any failure in the motherboard, the card can be replaced in minutes. Upgrading the entire motherboard is as simple as sliding the old one out, and the new one in. Single-board computers are most often used in rugged industrial computers, and servers.
The main advantage of the single-board secondary is that it won't use as much electrical power as my primary. It can be used for stuff that is too slow on my DOS computer, but are obsolete/incompatible on my Primary. I also plan to use the "Single-Board Secondary" for tasks that don't need the speed and power of my primary computer. For example, writing school documents, programming, Web browsing and email, Web page editing, some older non-3D games, etc.
I have a DVD decoder card, so that I can watch DVD movies despite the processor. I also plan on capturing video from an Xbox (that I will get soon) into a video capture card. If I do this, I can use my monitor as a display for the Xbox instead of a TV.
And, I would wire the Dolby-Digital-encoded audio from the Xbox onto the Sound Blaster Live! Platinum soundcard, so that I can get full surround sound using my Logitech Z-560 speakers.
I also plan to capture temperature and voltage data with a data capture card.