On Mon, Dec 22, 2014 at 01:15:43PM -0800, Konstantin Olchanski wrote:
> ...
> Upgrading to new hardware depends on the depth of your pockets of course,
> but we also see technical problems - some new 2GHz+ 64-bit SBCs overwhelm
> power supplies originally built to run 0.1GHz motorola 68020 SBCs.
> ...

No low power 64 bit SBCs?  This sounds like a market opportunity! 
Modern deep-submicron processes permit both very fast (Intel i7)
and very low power (Atom) processors, the latter preferable when
power and cooling is limited. 

I am preparing a Zotac ZBOX small computer with SL7 for my wife's
office; 64 bit dual core Atom, 5600 "bogomips", two displays,
terabyte HD, 8 GB RAM ... all drawing 9 to 14 watts.  $220 for
ZBOX and addons from newegg.  It has a cheap low-speed fan, but
I can't hear it running.  Noctua.at makes the lowest noise fans.

I don't know if an FPGA can drive a VME backplane, but those
have evolved towards lower power per gate-MHz, too.  With
all those extra gates, and live reconfiguration, a VME board
could have BIST (built in self test) capabilities for on-line
failure detection and debug.

If there is sufficient demand for a quiet low-power VME SBC
replacement, I know consultants who can design one.  Bringing
this back on topic, if it can be further optimized by kernel
modules, I can think of a distro that could support them...

Keith

-- 
Keith Lofstrom          [log in to unmask]