Issue 117April 2000
Under the Covers
Part 1: Get Embed(ded) with Windowa NT 4.0

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Start • An Alternate Path • Windows NT What? • Why NT4 Embedded Over CE? • Sources and PDF

I love my job. I get to play with the latest embedded PC gadgets and savor the flavor of exotic and not-so-exotic operating systems. In my business, I never know what the UPS guy will bring for me to smoke test today.

For those of you who dare to follow my adventures every month, you know that everything from tiny Internet appliances to embedded PC backplanes have mysteriously appeared on the Florida-room stoop. You’ve been privy to my mishaps with QNX, Phar Lap’s TNT, Datalight’s ROM-DOS, and most all of Bill’s products. You’ve seen me cuss when I do something stupid and hold my hat in my hand after almost smoking an embedded SBC. You know that I like blinky LED projects, Ethernet, and Bill G.

But, I’m a little miffed at Bill this month. I’ve been begging for Windows NT 4.0 Embedded information for quite a while with absolutely no luck. My mom says, "Pity the rat that has only one hole to run to in times of danger." So, reading between Mom’s lines, I called upon a reputable and well-known embedded PC hardware company for help.

A few days later, my trusty UPS guy delivered a large box with Ampro tape all over it to the Florida room. I was eager to cut it open to see what goodies abounded within.

My eyes just about popped out and fell onto the Florida-room’s terrazzo floor. Your eyes would have been in the dirt too if you could have been here with me to behold what came out of that box. It’s an Ampro Little Board/P5x SBC that you see in Photo 1. It’s even loaded with an IBM 340MB Microdrive! Hold on folks, this is gonna’ be fun.

(Click here to enlarge)

Photo 1—You can’t see it here, but there’s a 3-GB hard disk in this little black box, too. This setup is a hardware heaven. There are connectors on the back of this box for everything you would ever use in an embedded situation.

LOOK OUT, DICK TRACY

Dick always had the latest embedded technology. His two-way wrist radio is still a hit today. Looks like we have the latest in hard-disk technology from the IBM folks right here in the Florida room. Before we get into the Ampro host embedded PC, let’s go back and see how the IBM Microdrive really got here.

Disk storage was coming into its time in the 1950s. On September 13, 1956, a small team of IBM engineers in San Jose, California, introduced the 305 RAMAC (random access method of accounting and control), the first computer disk storage system. This first-of-its-kind, mass-storage device could store a whopping 5 MB of data on 50 24² diameter disks. This random access technology found its way into the airline industry and the space race.

By the 1960s, IBM introduced the first storage unit with removable disks, the IBM 1311. 1966 brought in the IBM 2314, the first disk drive with a wound-coil ferrite recording head. The IBM 3735 was a prelude to the IBM 3340, which was the first disk drive to use low-mass heads, lubricated disks, and sealed assembly. Today, we all know yesterday’s IBM 3340 drive as the Winchester drive. The 3340 Winchester drive featured two spindles with a storage capacity of 30 million characters each, hence the terms 30-30 or Winchester. The ’70s were kind of boring, so while they weren’t doing anything else, engineers at IBM invented the floppy.

The 1980s brought in the 3380 storage array, which could store 6000 times as much data as the original RAMAC arrays. Data recording densities reached 1 GB per square inch using magnetoresistive heads. (I’ve walked around a few 3380s.)

1991 introduced the world to IBM’s giant magnetoresistive heads and the first one-gigabit, 3.5” hard disk drive. My first hard disk was a full-sized 5.25² Seagate that held a mind-bending 5 MB unformatted. I can still remember getting my first 1-GB drive. I had no idea how I could ever fill it.

A new, world record in data density was set with 3 GB per square inch in 1995. In September 1998, IBM developed the technology to build a 1” hard disk drive platter, which would be introduced in 1999 as the Microdrive, the world’s smallest hard disk drive—and I have one! As the little girl on the Shake and Bake commercials used to say.

Let’s get out of the truck for a minute. For those of you not familiar with the Shake and Bake girl, she was a little girl who appeared in TV commercials for Shake and Bake years ago. The commercial centered on this little girl helping Mom cook chicken in the kitchen. When the little girl spouted her line, "And I helped!" you definitely knew she was from the South. OK, back in the truck.

As you know, that same basic RAMAC approach to storage, spinning magnetic disks, and flying read/write heads is still in use today. In fact, the RAMAC name was used again recently by IBM to identify a new line of large system storage, which packed larger disk storage capacity into a much smaller footprint. (It’s a whole lot smaller than the old 3380 boxes, but it still takes a few steps to walk around it in the computer room.)

Take a look inside your desktop or, better yet, inside your laptop. Disk drives have shrunk significantly in size and increased in capacity by more than 5,000 times since the introduction of RAMAC. Think about this. The technology in the IBM Microdrive, shown in Photo 2, puts your already tiny laptop drive in the technological dirt! Taking a peek at IBM’s web site and, noting that the companys incorporating the Microdrive into its products, it’s safe to say that the Microdrive has arrived.

To give you an idea of what kind of affect the IBM Microdrive will have, here’s some of what it can do right now. The IBM Microdrive is believed to be the smallest hard disk drive shipping today.

A 40-MB Clik Disk dwarfs the Microdrive. Get three quarters together, and I’ll give you some dimensions. The Microdrive is exactly three-quarters deep and approximately 1.5 × 1.7 quarters in girth. It weighs less than an AA battery, and can hold 1,000 compressed digital photographs, the equivalent of 200 floppy diskettes, or six hours of near CD-quality audio.

(Click here to enlarge)

Photo 2—You can bet this little puppy is going to get smaller in size and bigger in density. An iOMEGA Clik Disk holds 40 MB.