This won’t ship for another three months, but they already have the alpha version running Debian
It’s a credit-card size board running Linux with GPIO, I2C, I2S, serial, and SPI. They are targeting $35, or $25 with no ethernet, only one USB, and less memory. It looks like they would be happy to have DP offer boards that interface to it.
Via the forum.
Love this idea Ian. :) Hope to get one of the boards to test it out.
When they go public that is.
Oh man… I want one! Or more… NOW! :D Waiting for these boards since I first read about it.
This comment was discouraging:
“Yes, there are risers for peripherals (camera, LCD) that won’t be on the final board as people won’t be able to access them anyway (no end user access to the GPU). They are there for testing and development purposes. Some of the signals may go out to GPIO so you can attach things though, esp. camera.”
So, closed GPU (not that big a deal but a bummer) and limited direct I/O, so you’ll still have to build USB peripherals for everything, I guess.
For an embedded system like that at the price, it’s a big win. If I can get a low-power ARMv6 linux box with 2 USB ports, SD card, some spare I/O pins, and 10/100 ethernet for $35 then they can keep their GPU :-). Try searching for “arduino ethernet” and see what it costs just for a 10 Mbps ethernet adaptor board by itself, to put an Arduino to the net, not counting the Arduino. Likewise, consider the price for a USB host adaptor.
I know about OpenWRT hacked into various routers, but those always have some drawbacks based on what I’ve read.
I guess my concern is how usefull the GPIO pins will be. If for instance, they only support the most basic IO functions, without any SPI or I2S or anything else, then in all likelihood you’re going to need a totally separate USB microcontroller for all IO anyway. And need to program it. Or use a buspirate or arduino, I guess. Seems like you’re kinda defeating the purpose at that point.
Something like this that actually exposed some serial peripherals and IO pins and already had kernel drivers for it would be a dream come true, frankly.
Well, the description in the article says:
“It’s a credit-card size board running Linux with GPIO, I2C, I2S, serial, and SPI.”
So, without an actual system tech spec to dissect and /or “fold, spindle & mutilate”, I’m just going to take them at their word… There may not be oodles of GPIO, but it sounds like there is at least some.
And hey, for $35 bucks it costs less than an Ethernet shield + Arduino..
I do see that in the comments of the FAQ. Hopefully linux drivers will be available. If so, pretty damn amazing at that price point.
Seems like an QFP Chumby compilable board would be possible. SMSC makes USB to ethernet in QFP also. No HDMI though. May have minimal point given Chumby cost. USB wifi probably is better than USB ethernet PHY anyway…
Closed GPU and patent-mined HDMI are really a pain…
Welcome to the wonderful world of closed hardware!
Almost all of the “arduino ethernet” shields use the WIZnet chip. It’s much cheaper to buy one of the SPI based ENC28J60 boards on ebay for $8 and use an arduino library targeted for that platform. And for that matter, use a borduino, RBBB or one of the QFP based arduino clones to knock down the cost and size. But you can’t do much with an AVR/ethernet anyway.
Also note that the chumby is only $50, in the form of the Best-Buy Infocast 3.5″. They
still haven’t sold out, probably because the wifi is blocked by the shielded case so they get lots of returns. It has unpopulated I/O headers on the board.
Thanks Jim Narem for the ebay tip- I have a device online now using a ENC28J60 board I built onto a JeeNode, which does work. I had not seen the much cheaper ebay versions though.