Can you add a regular PCI card to an embedded system?
 

I've been wanting to get into embedded systems for toying with, maybe building my own wardriving rig or an Asterisk system, or simply to investigate power usage in these systems. Now, it seems to me that PC/104 and PCI-104 are the embedded standards that are pretty close to a regular machine, or appear to be ubiquitous (which might help learning).

However for the life of me I can't seem to find if it's possible to attach a regular PCI card (or two) to one of these SBCs. I've found Mini-PCI but no converters to from Mini-PCI to full-size PCI (the other way round seems easy to find). Can anyone point me in the right direction?

They are available, traditionally as a sort of motherboard/backplane which hosts the PC/104 stack, and breaks out PCI &/or ISA buses to conventional card-edge connectors. Here is one sold in my locale by TRI-M Systems.

--- rod.

Thanks for the fast response on that, I'm a little far to the east of Canada, but what price on mad science? It'll be very nice for development and toying to be able to use conventional PCI cards will make life a lot easier.