Computer question

[LoLay]

This is more like a newbie computer engineering question. I am not asking how to build a complex PCB myself. Our company had a meeting today and I am appointed to look into embedding a webserver onto a piece of PCB.

At a business point of view, I'd guess most hardware companies would just purchase the piece of PCB they need for their application instead of re-designing themselves(considering the piece they need is not the core component of their product).

How does a company hardcode a certain software onto a piece of PCBoard? What is the usual procedure a company has to go through to create a PCB board? Any websites I should take a look?

I have no clue on where to start, what kind of guys to hire, and what should I tell them to do. Well, I guess they picked the wrong guy, but It will be great if I can pull this off.
Please help. Any help is appreciated.
Thanks.

[Vanguard-MnC]

you might want to go to the general pc section of this site. this is just a vb section

[hellswraith]

Start by talking to electrical engineers. They are usually the ones that deal with printed circuit boards. They usually have the knowledge on how to program the individual chips themselves also.

May I ask why your company wants this? What is wrong with the way everyone else is doing things?

[mendhak]

Originally posted by Vanguard-MnC
you might want to go to the general pc section of this site. this is just a vb section

Or better yet, some sort of a hardware/electronics forum.

[Bruce Fox]

A WebServer..............

Ull need more that a PCB! ie HDD etc

As for specific code, it could be written into a ROM. But that
alone will not give u a WebServer.

[LoLay]

Thanks for all the replies.
I will start calling some electrical engineers and if they can get me a circuitry design of the hardware.
I am wondering is it possible to purchase the webserver off an existing company and implement it onto the hardware? Do I need some kind of operating system to keep the software running?
Any companies that you know of are providing similar services?

[Grimfort]

In fact I have worked on a little piece of hardware before that is basically a small board with a network socket on it. You can then actually create a web site inside the board. I dont know how much it can hold or its limitations.

Its like a tiny PC on a board. But somewhere like Maplins (UK btw) have them but i dont know there name etc..

[JPicasso]

That sounds kinda cool.
Does anyone know why you would want/need to do this?
or are there any articles you can point me to that might explain
this?

Seems to me it would be much cheaper to just buy a server from say, Dell and set up a site.

Unless you're buying a piecemeal thing with a few hardcoded
variables.

[LoLay]

Grimfort:

What you did sound very similar to what I am looking for. Can you point me to any resource that has a little more details? Thank you very much.

[Grimfort]

OK, I did a quick search.

Contact these people they seem like they might have an idea.


http://www.embeddedsys.com/


also search the net for - MICRO ETHERNET -

I think thats the area that you want. GL

[Robbo]

if its a webserver you want there are posibly two ways of going about this, letting someone else host your web pages and stuff, this will mean u have to just pay for the site name and maybe monthly cost in keeping it running and some other company will do all your adminstrations for you, or

you could buy ur own server (Dell Compaq) probably in the range of £10,000) get a nice high speed connection to the internet to it, broadband ISDN etc using a decent operating system like Apache or NII and the with some sort of FTP protocol loaduping u should be able to setup after getting a web address and stuff, not entirly sure everything u need here, probably best employing a web server designer to get up going

[Grimfort]

LoLay is after a web server on a PCB, not a web server as a PC setup.

[Robbo]

yeah but simaler problems, sure if you contact Dell or Compaq they have off the shelf product which will meet his needs

why the PCB anyway, less space??

[LoLay]

Embedding a webserver onto a PCB has many functions. You can implement such PCB onto many portable devices for extra services, and this is what our company is planning on doing.

Grimfort:
Thanks a ton. That company you suggested is probably the solution I am looking for. I bet it is a very expensive service they are providing.

[Grimfort]

Glad to help.


Ive actually used them for a device which measures the temperature / humidity / PIR and other devices. The Box is about 4 inch square (hangs on the wall), and you can access the data on it (ie. the current temperature) by the web server that runs on it. Its quite basic but very good.


Btw, my company sells these types of devices (sales pitch) along with software to monitor your workplace.
There used for sites that are manless (ie. empty computer rooms) to make sure that no one enters, or that the air conditioning does not pack up (it also watchs UPS).