One of the best things about this board has been its way of bringing people of all different technical backgrounds together but with a common interest.

Since there has been talk of a navigation system and reinventing the software, why not integrate the two, and add a few features in the form of a "mark 3" design. The navigation system and player would benefit from a color vga output. This also makes a remote display possible. Expandability like a PCMCIA slot would be nice too. You could follow the current hardware design or you could move to a PC104 type system with a little bit of custom power management additions. The PC104 system would then run a faster x86 processor so you would not be as limited in the embedded aspects of the empeg. The player would be essentially a PC.

I currently use a Tri-M MachZ+ and a Versalogic Panther for my PC104+ stuff. The Tri-M has everything except a vga controller built into the CPU chip. The panther is two pc104 boards but is very powerful.

I am assuming you could still use the original empeg case or make a similar one. The same display could be used or upgraded. I guess it depends.

If an ARM system is desired or some PC104 additions, I am more than happy to do the engineering and PCB layout.

It is an interesting situation but now is the best time to consider a hardware change. Otherwise the hardware will always be locked.

I'm just throwing this out for consideration so,

Feedback: Good? Bad? Suggestions?

Alex Lear