For 3 decades, x86 processor dominated the PC market.  While the PC hardware marketplace is highly competitive, driven by the demands in the market, competing hardware vendors design and build PC components based on standardized system architecture and I/O interfaces.  Using PC components from competing vendors, an end-user is able to assemble a fully function PC and install common off-the-shelf and open-source operating system.

Company building embedded device based on x86 processor is able to leverage the cumulated hardware and software development resources from the PC industry to develop custom x86 device with much less effort comparing to an ARM based device.

All x86 based devices are built with system BIOS to initialize and configure the hardware to provide common functions in order to support common off-the-shelf and open-source operating system, such as DOS, Linux and Windows.

Using x86 based hardware, a Compact 2013 device can be built with the following standardized data bus and I/O peripherals:

·         ISA, PCI and Mini-PCI internal expansion bus.

·         IDE and SATA interface for storage device.

·         NE-2000 compatible Ethernet.

·         PS/2 keyboard and mouse.

·         RS-232 and USB host interfaces.

·         VGA display conforming to the VESA standard.

A custom designed x86 device built with the above peripherals is able to use the following common device driver to support the hardware and class driver to support designated function, which are provided as part of the Platform Builder development software from Microsoft:

·         PCI Bus driver.

·         USB Host interface driver (EHCI, OHCI and UHCI).

·         ATAPI PCI/IDE Storage block driver to support IDE and SATA hard disk and storage device.

·         PS/2 keyboard and mouse driver.

·         Serial port driver.

·         VGA Linear (Flat) frame buffer driver to support display controller that support VESA display mode.

·         FAT file system driver.

·         USB Human Input Device (HID) class driver to support USB-keyboard and USB-mouse.

·         USB-Audio class driver.

·         USB-Storage class driver.

·         USB-RNDIS class driver.

During startup, an x86 device needs to launch a bootloader, which in turn launch Compact 2013 OS runtime image from the device’s local storage.  As part of the resources included in the Plaform Builder, Microsoft provides a generic CEPC BSP with basic components that can support most x86 device.  The CEPC BSP includes the following bootloaders to support x86 device:

·         Compact bootloader framework.

·         BIOS loader.

·         Eboot (Ethernet bootloader, requires another bootloader to launch).

·         Loadcepc (DOS bootloader, requires the device to boot to DOS).

·         Sboot (Serial port bootloader, requires another bootloader to launch).

Since x86 devices from different vendors are designed based on standardized architecture, data bus and system interface, along with BIOS that initialize the hardware with the same bootstrap mechanism to launch off-the-shelf operating system.  X86 devices from different hardware vendors can use the bootloaders, device drivers and other x86 support resources provided by Microsoft and greatly simplified the development effort needed to support Compact 2013.

Target devices built with x86 processor, from different vendors, are able to use the same DOS bootloader (Loadcepc), BIOS Loader or the bootloader framework provided by Microsoft, to launch Compact 2013 OS runtime image from the device’s IDE, SATA and USB storage.  With minimal effort, it’s possible to develop and launch a minimal Compact 2013 OS kernel on most x86 based devices using device drivers and support resources provided as part of the Platform Builder support resources.

When searching an x86 based hardware platform, look for hardware with the following resources:

·         Device drivers for all onboard peripherals.

·         Ethernet driver with KITL support.

·         Eboot for the onboard Ethernet controller.