There are a multitude of things that I will attempt to describe about the solution I am looking for in this post.
What is needed is a single board computer that:
- has an Atom processor.
- does not use a BIOS or UEFI.
- has all peripheral connectors on the same board, meaning carrier boards are out of the question.
- uses a bootloader solution similar to most ARM based devices
- comes without VGA or LVDS and uses either an HDMI or a USB connection in place of those two.
- the boot ROM (SPI flash) can be modified.
The reason for the lack of a BIOS or UEFI is a design goal of moving some of their functions into software (a bootloader). The hope is to have a device who's first stage bootloader shares similar functionalities as those in mobile phones or other consumer electronics devices.
The reason for preferring an Atom processor is because the bootloader solution described above is usually for SoCs.
As for the absence of LVDS and VGA, one board I found uses USB ports and an HDMI port though it was never mass produced (Toradex's Xiilun PC).
This may evolve into consumer electronics device.
