A thought...

[Robert Harris]

Gentlemen, gentlemen, a minor thought from the peanut gallery.

Ever heard of soundblaster 16 cards.  Carry TWO each 16 bit digital
to analog and TWO each analog to digital converters. Daaaaaaaaaa
Costs about 70 bucks -  can convert or generate almost any wave 
form from very low frequency to at least 20,000 + hertz.  Line in and
line out jacks expect 0 to 1 volt signal.  Everywhere in the electronic
world people are using them for OTHER than just sound cards. If you
are good like me you can put two or more of them in a system.

Now as to power, a PC mother board requires 12vdc, 5vdc and -12vdc 
at very low current.  Any half competent component type can put a
DC to DC power supply meeting these requirements and probably fit
it into the space of a couple packs of smokes.  

The NEW GREEN PC mother boards and chips can power themselves 
down to almost zip current when idle.  So solve a whole bunch of 
start up problems by leaving the board on.  Turn the key - kick out of
sleep mode and avay you go.

Get a mother board with a built in scsi controller.  Use a whole bunch of
ram and a removable harddrive - like a Jazz drive.   Boot the sucker up,
unplug the external drive, put it in a padded box, and go offroading!!!!

BTW, the last process is how many military aircraft computers are done.

Just some thoughts about how much ignored and abused capability you
already have.

Robert Harris <bob at bobthecomputerguy.com>

The only thing that sucks worse than politics is the politicians.
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