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Old junk
The slug
The on board computer will be a Linksys NSLU2 network storage device (the “slug”), which is a low power, small and cheap 266MHz XScale platform that runs Linux natively. It has 32MB of SDRAM, 8MB of flash memory (for OS), a network port, two USB 2.0 ports and a serial port.
CompactFlash cards connected via USB will be used as a storage medium. They have no moving parts and will survive heavy impacts.
We have Debian Etch running on it slug at the moment.
It has the force power on modification, and I will probably remove a resistor to de-underclock it at some point.
I/O
For all I/O tasks, we will use an Arduino board, which is based around an Atmel chip. It has a built in USB-serial adaptor. It has various analogue inputs and digital in/outputs, which can also produce PWM signals for servos.