Kansas City, USA and Cambridge, England – Arcom is addressing the demand for low cost controllers with network enabled communications and I/O control by offering a new development kit for the 25MHz 386EX based MERLIN fully supported with the eCos embedded operating system. eCos is an open source, royalty-free, real-time operating system built with a TCP/IP stack and a selection of network application such as a HTTP server, FTP client, TFTP client/server, and an SNMP agent.

The highly configurable nature of eCos allows the operating system to be customized to precise application requirements, delivering the best possible run-time performance with absolutely no associated runtime or development tool costs. The eCos based application uses RedBoot to load and run the image from embedded Flash memory as well as providing a reliable download mechanism using one of the serial ports (X or Y modem protocol) or the Ethernet channel (using TFTP). For unattended or automated startup, boot scripts can be stored in Flash to allow a new eCos image to be remotely loaded from a TFTP server.

The complete Development Kit includes the MERLIN single board computer, power supply, Ethernet and serial cables, Quickstart manual and a comprehensive CD loaded with all the application development tools (GCC compiler and GDB debugger) for both Windows and Linux based host systems.

The MERLIN single board computer is a low cost, small footprint SBC which features the Intel 25MHz 386EX CPU, along with 3 serial ports (2 x RS-232, 1 x 422/485), 10baseT Ethernet, 2Mbytes DRAM, 1Mbyte Flash, 512K battery-backed SRAM, real-time clock and an onboard 8 - 18V DC (or 10 - 16V AC) power supply. The board also includes an I/O expansion port for driving custom I/O, an onboard 48-bit unique ID device and a battery.

The MERLIN eCos Development Kit is aggressively priced and available from stock.

About Arcom (www.arcom.com)
Arcom, a Spectris company (LSE: SXS.L), is a leading supplier of embedded computer and communications technology to industry. Founded in 1982, Arcom has developed a broad range of standard embedded hardware and software solutions for control, data acquisition and data delivery systems. From its design centers in Kansas City and Cambridge England, Arcom is also able to offer Design Services to meet the needs of high volume OEM and specialized customer requirements.