Move over, Raspberry Pi, your number's up !

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#1 Move over, Raspberry Pi, your number's up !

Post by jack »

Yup - the Freescale RIoTboard is more expensive than the Pi, but its a seriously serious machine for very little... IMHO, astonishingly little (£46+VAT)... This would easily make a very powerful & fast media centre... the Pi can't compete in any way...

Image

http://uk.farnell.com/jsp/search/produc ... ku=2355353
  • Supports Android or GNU/Linux
  • ARM 32-bit Cortex-A9 MPCore processor at 1GHz
  • Parallel RGB and camera interface (Support CCD or CMOS camera)
  • 1GB of 16bit wide DDR3 at 800MHz
  • 4GB eMMC (uSD and SD card interface)
  • High performing video processing unit which covers SD level and HD level video decoders
  • An OpenGL 3D graphics accelerator with a shader and a 2D graphics accelerator
  • 4 x USB 2.0 HOST, type A, high speed, 480Mbps
  • 3 channel PWM interface (Expansion port)
  • 10 pin JTAG interface
  • Boot configuration interface
  • 10/100/Gb Ethernet port
  • HDMI v1.4
  • LVDS
  • analogue headphone/microphone
  • camera interface
  • etc...
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#2 Re: Move over, Raspberry Pi, your number's up !

Post by ed »

nickds1 wrote:... the Pi can't compete in any way...
if you wave it around any more you might get frost bite :)

it's very nearly the same price as a current atom board, If you intend to use all the capability......

for the client type app(which is where pi scores) there is far too much redundant capability...

At £32 I think I'll stick with my BB black, it's got much the same engine as the riot and its much cheaper..

I think there are going to be more and more of these diy type boards in the near future, and the price is likely to come down. I'll bet the pi people are kicking themselves that they were first out of the stable because it's a game of leap frog at the moment.
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#3

Post by jack »

The BBB is similar, but has half the DRAM & half the flash etc.

Indeed, its a game of "leapfrog". Whatever you end up using, the RP is looking pretty sad - a real missed opportunity IMHO...
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#4

Post by simon »

I can see this developing into another one of those techy threads that most of us don't understand :-).

BB black = BeagleBone black?

Are this, the riot thingy, RPi, Arduino all more or less the same thing (to a non-techy) but with different specs and power etc.?
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#5

Post by jack »

simon wrote:I can see this developing into another one of those techy threads that most of us don't understand :-).

BB black = BeagleBone black?

Are this, the riot thingy, RPi, Arduino all more or less the same thing (to a non-techy) but with different specs and power etc.?
BBB does indeed = BeagleBone Black... collectively, all such boards are called "SBC"s (Single Board Computers).

The Arduino is typically based on an 8-bit micro, the Atmel ATmega328 (a member of the AVR family) or similar and uses an IDE (Integrated Development Environment) built on the free/open source GNU C/C++ compiler which can target dozens of different processors. They call their programming language "Wiring", but secretly its just dressed-up C++.

The key difference between the 8-bit stuff and the more serious 16 or 32-bit stuff like the Pi/BBB/RIoT/etc. is that the latter can run *real* operating systems like Linux and tend to come with lots of interfaces on the board, as opposed to plug-on cost-option daughter boards (called "Shields" in the Arduino world).

The 8-bit stuff typically runs stand-alone applications or a very lightweight RTOS (real-time operating system) - they don't have much RAM (maybe a few hundred bytes) and very limited program memory. They also run at pretty low clock speeds, e.g. 16MHz or thereabouts. They are simple, and serve a purpose for very low-end stuff.

The bigger SBCs typically have maybe 256Kb to 1Gb of DRAM and many other interfaces. They tend to be 16 or 32-bit processors and also run at much higher clock rates, e.g. 100MHz or 1GHz.

Apples. Pears.

The bizarre thing is that there is not a huge difference in price - an Arduino is about £18, an Arduino Mega £30, an RP costs maybe £25 (£30 with a pre-loaded O/S on an SD card), a BBB maybe £30 and a RIoT about £45 - each is a step change over the other - they are all "cheap", but with an Arduino you have to buy shields for pretty much any non-GPIO interfacing whereas the bigger boards come with it all as standard.

What is certain is that price/performance, which is already a bit mind-boggling, will only continue to improve...

There was an old engineering truism: Fast, cheap, exciting - choose any two!

With these SBCs, that no longer applies - you can have all three...

HTH
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#6

Post by simon »

Thanks Nick, that is helpful. I find it difficult to appreciate the differences without practical examples of how each board might be used, I was just the same in physics at school - the theory was a bit abstract for me and what I really needed was to see a spectrometer to see what it actually did. I never did see one.

I've been thinking it might be a fun project to build a pre/control amp, as much to play around with C again as it must be 20 years since I programmed. So perhaps an Arduino to control perhaps an LDR volume via an Apple IT remote, source selector via relayss a la WD, and use a nice display so I could see it from the other side of the room.

I don't know whether that's achievable, easy or wise even, and perhaps there's a better way or platform?
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#7

Post by ed »

simon wrote: I've been thinking it might be a fun project to build a pre/control amp, as much to play around with C again as it must be 20 years since I programmed. So perhaps an Arduino to control perhaps an LDR volume via an Apple IT remote, source selector via relayss a la WD, and use a nice display so I could see it from the other side of the room.

I don't know whether that's achievable, easy or wise even, and perhaps there's a better way or platform?
entirely achievable, see post 3 here:

http://www.audio-talk.co.uk/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=5462
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#8

Post by jack »

simon wrote:I don't know whether that's achievable, easy or wise even, and perhaps there's a better way or platform?
You don't need an Arduino - a simple low-end ATmega chip (or a PIC, although I prefer AVRs greatly) would do the job perfectly well.

This is exactly the sort of job that suits AVRs and PICs down to the ground, i.e. simple process control.
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#9

Post by simon »

Thanks ed, I'd seen that but hadn't plucked up the courage to start researching what it meant.

Thanks again Nick - Google and Wikipedia are my friend!

So in essence I need an Atmel XMEGA chip? For £3 and a programmer for £30, some kind of breadboard, then the inputs and outputs of my choice? And then an environment to code within - AVRDUDE? Is that a good start?
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#10

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simon wrote: So in essence I need an Atmel XMEGA chip? For £3 and a programmer for £30, some kind of breadboard, then the inputs and outputs of my choice? And then an environment to code within - AVRDUDE? Is that a good start?
Expertness is all relative Simon. :wink:

What you have written above make you the expert, compared to me. :lol:
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#11

Post by jack »

simon wrote:So in essence I need an Atmel XMEGA chip? For £3 and a programmer for £30, some kind of breadboard, then the inputs and outputs of my choice? And then an environment to code within - AVRDUDE? Is that a good start?
Are you Windows or Linux based?

My AVR chip-of-choice is a ATmega328P. Olimex do a whole range of cheap development boards & programmers etc. - see https://www.olimex.com/Products/AVR/ - they also have an eBay store at http://stores.ebay.co.uk/OLIMEX/AVR-/

If you go for their development boards with an LCD included, e.g. the AVR-MT or AVR-MT128 (https://www.olimex.com/Products/AVR/Development/) then that takes another load of bother away - example code is also included.

The development environment for normal work on Windows is AVRStudio - http://www.atmel.com/microsite/atmel_studio6/ - basically its a instance of VisualStudio with the avr-gcc compiler and libraries - very nice indeed.

There are many similar boards on eBay at around the same money or less, or you could go the Arduino route....

Personally, I think that even blue LCDs are a bit naff and much prefer VFD displays... far sexier... (but not as cheap)
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#12

Post by Ray P »

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#13

Post by jack »

Looks good to me...
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#14

Post by simon »

pre65 wrote: Expertness is all relative Simon. :wink:

What you have written above make you the expert, compared to me. :lol:
I'm only 5 mins reading of Wikipedia ahead of you ;-)

Thanks again Nick, even more research required. Think I need to start simple and build up.
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#15

Post by simon »

Oh, Linux (Ubuntu) in the play room. I'm much more comfortable with Windows though. C's C though right?
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