Creating a new ARM/AVR platform

[Liam Proven]

On 29 February 2012 18:48, Jacob Mansfield <cyberjacob at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> I can't thank you all enough for the help you're providing with this!

You're welcome. :¬)

> On 29 Feb 2012, at 18:00, Liam Proven wrote:
>
> Although if you do want to do something "different", here is a VERY
> small ARM system:
>
> http://www.geek.com/articles/chips/cubox-is-a-sexy-ice-cube-sized-arm-computer-20111221/
>
> There's going low-powered, and there's going no-powered.

The CuBox is /dramatically/ higher-specced and significantly more
powerful than the Rπ. It has a faster CPU, 4× the RAM, on-board
gigabit Ethernet and SATA. It is probably around the power of a
low-end Atom system, for perhaps one-tenth of the electrical draw and
heat dissipation and 1% of the space.

> Or use Raspberry Pi, of course. ;¬)
>
> that's becoming a serious option for us at the moment

They won't be available for weeks yet - the first run of 10,000 units
sold out in about three minutes this morning - and are fairly poorly
specified. No SATA, the Ethernet is over USB, and proprietary blobs
for the bootloader and the graphics drivers. Not ideal for FOSS
development, sadly. But then, it's meant as a very cheap educational
tool for schoolkids.

> at the moment, this is looking like a very plausible solution. However
> none of our team know where to even begin with writing a custom driver for
> linux, is there documentation for such a procedure?
[...]
> All of our team have experience with both microcontrollers and
> microprocessors.

I think if you're up to that sort of thing, a Linux device driver or
two won't be a massive challenge for you. :¬)

--
Liam Proven • Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile
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