I started writing this blog 7/21/2008. So much has changed I realized this would need a rewrite to make it relevant now. but let me share what I wrote in 2008 as a piece of archeological evidence.
2008 -
Embedded computing has really fascinated me. I have found that the desktop computer as powerful as the one you bought 4 years ago and replaced since then because it was getting slow and clunky, the one that has been taking up that chunk of space besides your computer desk that your current computer now resides in can be built, scaled down, to fit in a cubical box that can fit in the palm of your hand. I know, your saying I don't need another Palm Pilot, or I-Phone or palm top computer. True those are embedded computing systems that serve a specific function as opposed to an end user multi-function device. But what I'm talking about is something that has a small form factor with a bigger purpose in life while carrying a cheaper price tag.
I asked a friend how many personal computers he owned because I knew he was a typical American home owner with a household of perspective computer users. My friend has 2 kids, both teenagers, an active household and he runs a part time business of his own on the side. His answer to me was 2, one laptop and one desktop. His business depends on those computer as well he uses them for personal use. He also shares time on them with his kids too. I probed him a little further to find he had a high speed ISP to get on the Internet and although he wasn't poor by no stretch he was on a budget. His situation was very typical of many folks I run into.
I asked my friend "What if you could buy a couple computers for less than $300 take them home, drop it on your kids desk in their room and tell them to "do your homework"?" I got a big smile out of him. My friend went on to tell me "I could afford that".
Or think about a small business that has 1 computer for each of its employees but all they need is a simple web server to post all of the company's process documentation so that each employee can access it 24/7. The Big Boss goes out buys an embedded PC that runs Apache Web server connected to a $90 UPS to minimize down time and the server backs up its files to an external USB hard drive for disaster recovery. The entire server operation could sit and run from the corner of the bosses desk and as far as anybody would be concerned it would be office decoration.
Computers are getting faster and smaller while we find more to accomplish with them. Our expectations may need to change. I think many people get a warm fuzzy feeling about the tower that sits under their desk while their laptop is meant to be small an portable. Desktop computer sizes are shrinking, servers are being consolidated and our reliance on them is getting stronger. I have a feeling that soon the desktop computer will be nothing more than a nub hanging off the back of your monitor that your network, keyboard and mouse connect wirelessly to. Some folks may need some time to get over that empty feeling they get from no longer being kept company by that whirring fan from that big box that used to sit under their desk that they would kick every time they come into work in the morning and log on.
Present day 2021 -
Oh how things have changed. What I saw in 2008 makes sense in the evolution of computing now as we look back. Computers were getting smaller and cheaper. It is easy now to imagine getting $300 computing devices although you still wouldn't expect a high performer for that price. A year ago I bought my daughter a tablet that cost $100. It worked so well so I bought one for my wife also even though she didn't really need it. That tablet worked well for both of them. The number of devices that we own and connect to my LAN for internet access has multiplied and I have trouble keeping track.
When my daughter started 6th grade, as we are dealing with the COVID epidemic that forced school children into remote learning, every kid was given a Chromebook to guarantee continued education. In 2008 that would never have been a consideration.
My thoughts were on embedded computing. The reason I bring up all this other stuff is because embedded is at one end of a large spectrum of computing. To understand where that fits you need to look at everything to find the gap filled by embedded computing. And the lines get blurred. Mobile computing sits in the spectrum near embedded because they both tend to have similar requirements for small size and low power usage.
Everybody knows about the $35 Raspberry Pi credit card sized computer, or if you don't know look into it. For $10 you can get the Raspberry Pi 0W that is even smaller. Technically these can fall into the embedded class of computer but it depends on how you choose to use them. You can use them as a full desktop computer, or even a tablet with touch screen as well as a stand alone web server/file server on your LAN. There are even these cheap robot kits to add a Raspberry Pi as the brains of the operation. Just a few added parts and know how you can turn it into anything you want. With many projects out there with full documentation to follow where you don't need an engineering degree to create. The Raspberry Pi kind of created this new class of flexible usage single board computing devices. With other companies creating there own versions of SBCs now you have many options to choose within this new market.
Recently I took apart a $300 laptop. I was shocked to find the motherboard was slightly larger, memory and storage included, than a Raspberry Pi. This amused me but made sense. I didn't look into the architecture used or power usage, it was a full sized laptop with such a compact motherboard that allowed for a large battery that took up the rest of the space that gave exceptional battery life. The form factor of a computer is geared to our usage. Computing is getting smaller and allowing for space in that form factor for other benefits.
At the far end of the spectrum is the server market. Could embedded computing or more specifically the Raspberry Pi cause a change on the other end of the spectrum? It already has, or what is used in the Raspberry Pi has. A Raspberry Pi does not have the computing power to replace a large servers. Raspberry Pi uses ARM processors. For many Data Centers the largest cost to maintain the business is power. It takes a lot of power, cooling and space to run many servers. ARM processors tend to be more power efficient. We are not going to have credit card sized server class computers in the near future. But there are companies working to create ARM based server class processors to take advantage of the benefits of ARM architecture. Less power usage = less cooling required. Also if a smaller size can be achieved, less of a footprint needed in a server farm. All this becomes a big cost saving to run a computing infrastructure.
Computer for a long time kept getting faster. Moore's law is the observation that the number of transistors in a dense integrated circuit (IC) doubles about every two years. This speaks to speed and size. The more you can pack on a chip less needs to be on the motherboard to support the chip. This is how we get most Single Board Computers start with a System On a Chip (SOC) which is an integrated circuit that integrates all or most components of a computer.
So we may not loose the 1U server form factor I see in our server rooms today but imaging that those 1U servers in our racks could host 4 - 64 core CPU Single Board Computers with 1 terabyte ram baked into each SOC in the most power efficient package working as a cluster with 12 other 1U machines in a single rack.