Diamond Systems Mercator

Introduction

The Mercator PC/104 module integrates 2 PCI-based 10/100 Ethernet ports with 24 user-configurable digital I/O lines in the compact and rugged PC/104 format. This 2-in-1 combination of Ethernet and digital I/O can help lower the size and cost of your embedded system by eliminating one additional board from your PC/104 stack.

The Ethernet ports utilize the National Semiconductor DP83815 Mac + Phy PCI controller chip and are NE2000 compatible.

The 24 digital I/O lines are based on an 82C55 chip and feature programmable direction in 4- and 8-bit groups. All I/O lines contain user-configurable 10K Ohm pull-up resistors for convenience.

Extended temperature capability (-40 to +85ºC) enables the board to operate in environments with extreme temperature swings, such as vehicles or outdoor installations. In addition, the board may be custom-configured with 0-ohm resistors in place of jumper blocks for increased ruggedness in high-vibration environments.

Diamond Systems offers appropriate mating cables for your convenience. Cable no. C-PRZ-02 provides a panel-mountable RJ-45 connector for the Ethernet, and cable no. C-26-18 is a 26-conductor ribbon cable for the digital I/O.

A low-cost version with one Ethernet port and no digital I/O is also available as model no. MRC-100-XT.

Configuration Options

Several features are configurable using either a dual-row 2mm size jumper block or a switch. Provision is made on the board for zero-ohm resistors to replace jumpers to enable a hard-wired configuration.

• Digital I/O base address (8 address options with 3 jumpers)
• Digital I/O configuration: pull-up enabled or disabled
• PCI slot selection for each Ethernet port

I/O Options

Two connection options are provided for the Ethernet ports. To ensure proper operation, only one connection may be used for each Ethernet port.

Software

The industry-leading Universal Driver software is available free with all Diamond Systems I/O boards. Universal Driver provides programming support for the most popular embedded operating systems, including Linux, Windows 95/98/NT/2000/XP/XP embedded, Windows CE.NET, QNX, VxWorks, and DOS. Example programs are provided for each function and each operating system to help you get started with your application development quickly.