6 ms·

Can it be that those prices are imaginary until there's stock? It seems like a nice board (I have a old BBB, with ethernet, and it's solid), but the CHIP [1] ge

Can it be that those prices are imaginary until there's stock? It seems like a nice board (I have a old BBB, with ethernet, and it's solid), but the CHIP [1] gets you wifi and BT for $9... 1: https://getchip.com/pages/chip https://getchip.com/pages/chip

hackcasual 10y ago
Beagleboard's come with PRUs, for which, if you need a lot of very fast GPIO, there's no substitute. I've driven 9000 LEDs at 100fps with Octoscroller
- blacksmith_tb 10y ago
  Which is admittedly very cool, for some applications - but the PRUs can't account for the huge price difference by themselves, I wouldn't think.
  - hackcasual 10y ago
    It's more of a case that is a niche feature, so only pricier chips include it.
- jwatte 10y ago
  Just use one of the for cores on a rpi2 locked to GPIO duty and you can run them as fast as you want...
  - sigkill 10y ago
    I've heard this mentioned before in the passing. How does one actually do this.
kscz 10y ago
But the CHIP uses an Allwinner CPU, and for those of us who like to support manufacturers that actually play nice with the open source community: the CHIP is a no-go. The specific CPU in the CHIP appears to have mainline support, so it's less terrible than things like the "Banana Pi M2+" ( http://linux-sunxi.org/Sinovoip_Banana_Pi_M2%2B http://linux-sunxi.org/Sinovoip_Banana_Pi_M2%2B ), but I like to support CPU manufacturers who aren't Allwinner.
- hak8or 10y ago
  While the motives are nice, there is no way I am willing to reward a company like the one who makes the beaglebone black that effectively scams its customers by charging such a huge amount relative to other products.
  - stephen_g 10y ago
    How is that a scam? They don't have a monopoly and it's not an essential item - so they should be able to charge whatever they want, and if people feel that the BeagleBone's features are worth the price then they will buy it. What's the problem?
  - kscz 10y ago
    Well, I'm not really qualified to talk about the BoM costs relative to the sale price because I don't do manufacturing, but the Beaglebone Black team claims they charge at margin based on the BoM: "Currently there is $0 margin on these boards [...]" [0]. I normally compare the BeagleBone Black to the Raspberry Pi in terms of cost: the initial Raspberry Pi cost $35, but came with no internal flash. So with 4GB of internal flash the BBB seemed like a reasonable deal at $50. If you're willing to go without HDMI, the Beaglebone Green is $39 [1] The Allwinner CPUs are always extremely cheap, but I don't support the company because of what jerks they are to the open source community [2] [0] http://elinux.org/Beagleboard:BeagleBoneBlack#Revision_C_.28Production_Version.29 http://elinux.org/Beagleboard:BeagleBoneBlack#Revision_C_.28... [1] http://www.digikey.com/product-detail/en/seeed-technology-co-ltd/102010027/1597-1007-ND/5482485?WT.z_slp_buy=seeed_beaglebone-green http://www.digikey.com/product-detail/en/seeed-technology-co... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allwinner#Linux_controversies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allwinner#Linux_controversies
  - bsder 10y ago
    The level of ignorance in that statement is stunning. First, the Bill of Materials for the BeagleBone is publicly available. I'm quite sure the BeagleBone guys would welcome your help in finding parts that are significantly cheaper than what they have now. Second, the BeagleBone comes with a bunch of very standard connectors that are optional or hobbyist installs on a lot of the other boards. Ethernet jack, 2 usb ports (one OTG), an actual power adapter jack that isn't USB, both big headers already installed, mini-HDMI already installed, uSD card holder installed and probably a couple others that I forgot. Those connectors are not cheap AND they often have to be installed by hand. Third, most BeagleBone's come with everything you need. You don't need to buy a USB cable. You don't need to buy a flash card. You plug it in and it powers up and you can do stuff on it. RPi's used to make you buy both a cable and a uSD card--maybe that has changed. Finally, the BeagleBone is actually quite a bit more powerful and has more peripherals than most of these other boards. The BeagleBone always came with a processor capable of running stock Linux even from it's release in April 2013--the RPi didn't get that until the RPi2 almost 2 years later. Quite a few things on the BBB hang directly off the chip and have their own functional modules that don't conflict with other things. On the BBB, for example, Ethernet is wired to the chip--it does not suck up USB bandwidth like the RPi. While you can plug in a USB audio stick on the BBB, most capes actually access the McASP block so that they get direct DMA and again don't clog the USB bus. I can do a lot more things simultaneously on the BBB than I can on the RPi before bogging it down. If you can use the RPi for whatever it is you are doing--great! It's a nice product. But there are a lot of us quietly using a lot of BeagleBones because it is way more powerful and had these things from the start. RPi adopted these things later and, funnily enough, needed to increase their price when they did so. It's no coincidence that the RPi3 and the BeagleBone Green are almost identical in price.

hackcasual 10y ago

Beagleboard's come with PRUs, for which, if you need a lot of very fast GPIO, there's no substitute. I've driven 9000 LEDs at 100fps with Octoscroller

blacksmith_tb 10y ago
Which is admittedly very cool, for some applications - but the PRUs can't account for the huge price difference by themselves, I wouldn't think.
- hackcasual 10y ago
  It's more of a case that is a niche feature, so only pricier chips include it.
jwatte 10y ago
Just use one of the for cores on a rpi2 locked to GPIO duty and you can run them as fast as you want...
- sigkill 10y ago
  I've heard this mentioned before in the passing. How does one actually do this.

kscz 10y ago

But the CHIP uses an Allwinner CPU, and for those of us who like to support manufacturers that actually play nice with the open source community: the CHIP is a no-go. The specific CPU in the CHIP appears to have mainline support, so it's less terrible than things like the "Banana Pi M2+" ( http://linux-sunxi.org/Sinovoip_Banana_Pi_M2%2B http://linux-sunxi.org/Sinovoip_Banana_Pi_M2%2B ), but I like to support CPU manufacturers who aren't Allwinner.

hak8or 10y ago
While the motives are nice, there is no way I am willing to reward a company like the one who makes the beaglebone black that effectively scams its customers by charging such a huge amount relative to other products.
- stephen_g 10y ago
  How is that a scam? They don't have a monopoly and it's not an essential item - so they should be able to charge whatever they want, and if people feel that the BeagleBone's features are worth the price then they will buy it. What's the problem?
- kscz 10y ago
  Well, I'm not really qualified to talk about the BoM costs relative to the sale price because I don't do manufacturing, but the Beaglebone Black team claims they charge at margin based on the BoM: "Currently there is $0 margin on these boards [...]" [0]. I normally compare the BeagleBone Black to the Raspberry Pi in terms of cost: the initial Raspberry Pi cost $35, but came with no internal flash. So with 4GB of internal flash the BBB seemed like a reasonable deal at $50. If you're willing to go without HDMI, the Beaglebone Green is $39 [1] The Allwinner CPUs are always extremely cheap, but I don't support the company because of what jerks they are to the open source community [2] [0] http://elinux.org/Beagleboard:BeagleBoneBlack#Revision_C_.28Production_Version.29 http://elinux.org/Beagleboard:BeagleBoneBlack#Revision_C_.28... [1] http://www.digikey.com/product-detail/en/seeed-technology-co-ltd/102010027/1597-1007-ND/5482485?WT.z_slp_buy=seeed_beaglebone-green http://www.digikey.com/product-detail/en/seeed-technology-co... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allwinner#Linux_controversies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allwinner#Linux_controversies
- bsder 10y ago
  The level of ignorance in that statement is stunning. First, the Bill of Materials for the BeagleBone is publicly available. I'm quite sure the BeagleBone guys would welcome your help in finding parts that are significantly cheaper than what they have now. Second, the BeagleBone comes with a bunch of very standard connectors that are optional or hobbyist installs on a lot of the other boards. Ethernet jack, 2 usb ports (one OTG), an actual power adapter jack that isn't USB, both big headers already installed, mini-HDMI already installed, uSD card holder installed and probably a couple others that I forgot. Those connectors are not cheap AND they often have to be installed by hand. Third, most BeagleBone's come with everything you need. You don't need to buy a USB cable. You don't need to buy a flash card. You plug it in and it powers up and you can do stuff on it. RPi's used to make you buy both a cable and a uSD card--maybe that has changed. Finally, the BeagleBone is actually quite a bit more powerful and has more peripherals than most of these other boards. The BeagleBone always came with a processor capable of running stock Linux even from it's release in April 2013--the RPi didn't get that until the RPi2 almost 2 years later. Quite a few things on the BBB hang directly off the chip and have their own functional modules that don't conflict with other things. On the BBB, for example, Ethernet is wired to the chip--it does not suck up USB bandwidth like the RPi. While you can plug in a USB audio stick on the BBB, most capes actually access the McASP block so that they get direct DMA and again don't clog the USB bus. I can do a lot more things simultaneously on the BBB than I can on the RPi before bogging it down. If you can use the RPi for whatever it is you are doing--great! It's a nice product. But there are a lot of us quietly using a lot of BeagleBones because it is way more powerful and had these things from the start. RPi adopted these things later and, funnily enough, needed to increase their price when they did so. It's no coincidence that the RPi3 and the BeagleBone Green are almost identical in price.