[luau] another interesting thing I found on another list

[Charles Lockhart]

Hey Jimen, so where do you think the cutoff point is between an embedded 
system and, uh, a non-embedded system (would that be just a pc?)?  I 
agree with you that a lot of the SBC's out there don't really fit into 
the embedded category, as quite a few have more power than the system I 
run at home, but I've never been real clear on what would be an 
acceptable breaking point.

-Charles

> My second comment concerns Linux and embedded systems.  At my new job, I
> am now working with Linux on a single board computer (SBC).  These SBC's
> have PII processors (1.2Ghz), 1Gig RAM, Gigabit Ethernet, etc.  I hardly
> consider this an 'embedded' system.  Though we use this SBC for a very
> specific purpose, I have a hard time convincing myself that I am working
> on an embedded environment.  Of course, I have also worked on the
> Microchip PIC17X processors.  This is an 8bit processor (10Mhz), with 906
> bytes of RAM for data, 32K bytes of RAM for code.  The only communications
> with it is via a serial port or a JTAG emulator.  Comparing these two
> environments, its pretty clear which one is 'embedded'.
> 
> Every time I hear someone talk about 'embedded Linux', I just have to give
> off a little chuckle.  ;-)
> 
> --jc