4 ms·

Very cool, but i'm not sure how he can get it to an actual cost of $25 unless it's heavily supported by donations, grants, "give one get one" etc. For small run

Very cool, but i'm not sure how he can get it to an actual cost of $25 unless it's heavily supported by donations, grants, "give one get one" etc. For small runs (<10K?) the cost of production has to be a large multiplier on that. Other options in this space (far more expensive! but similar ARM on a board style) http://gumstix.com/store/catalog/index.php http://gumstix.com/store/catalog/index.php (although sadly they don't seem to carry the basix/connex, which are the same kind of power class as this) http://beagleboard.org/ http://beagleboard.org/

angusgr 15y ago
The cost of $25 looks a bit more believable compared to similarly specced devices like the VT8500/WM8505 series <$100 netbooks/tablets[1], or the FriendlyARM Mini2440 which sells on ebay for $98 as a bells-and-whistles development board. The board he's built would have lower BoM cost than either of those. And if he's manufacturing them in similar quantities then maybe he can get the cost down. If he's looking at production runs of similar numbers to wireless routers then I think $25 is completely believable, as cheap end wireless routers approach that cost new now. [1] http://s.dealextreme.com/search/wm8505 http://s.dealextreme.com/search/wm8505 [2] http://www.friendlyarm.net/products/mini2440 http://www.friendlyarm.net/products/mini2440 [3] http://cgi.ebay.com/320583793422 http://cgi.ebay.com/320583793422
- brianwhitman 15y ago
  Sure... but realistically, what kind of quantities is he going to pull off? And is he really going to contract out to a chinese factory? I mean, i'll get a few :) but if this is for education and nothing else.... I'll check back in a year for sure. For now, the Trimslice is pretty exciting (and shipping, and of course in a very different world) http://trimslice.com/web/ http://trimslice.com/web/ Thanks for the pointer to the Mini2440 -- i haven't seen that one yet.
  - wtracy 15y ago
    Trimslice looks cool--I didn't know there was Linux support for Tegra yet. (At launch, it was WinCE-only.) The FriendlyARM stuff looks damn cool--thanks to the grandparent for pointing this stuff out!
  - angusgr 15y ago
    what kind of quantities is he going to pull off? I don't know, I mean presumably he's thinking OLPC-esque. I could see this being at least as popular as the WM8505/VT8500 devices just on price (price having being those devices _only_ selling point), and then the education angle picking up some more bulk deals with education departments. is he really going to contract out to a chinese factory? Does anyone not contract out to a Chinese factory of some kind, these days? For now, the Trimslice is pretty exciting That is exciting, I hadn't seen those before! Thanks for the link. Of course, as you say that is a "different world". The Trimslice is four-generations of ARM along the line, in x86 spec equivalents it's a Pentium III compared to a Core 2 Duo.
    - steevdave 15y ago
      I have a Trimslice Dev-Kit (I'm a Gentoo developer) and I have one of the 32GB on order. There are probably other things incorrect in your comment but the main point I want to address is the "equivalent to a pentium 3"; this is definitely not the case. Just because it is a dual core running at 1ghz doesn't mean it's slow. In fact most ARM machines are slower than their equivalent chips, but not as much as people would think. An example is the EfikaMX (Cortex A-8 @ 800MHz) runs only ~20% slower than an Atom clocked at 1.6GHz. But at a fraction of the power usage. My apartment is full of ARM machines and I have a build farm of ~20 that are compiling software (Ubuntu and Gentoo) 24/7 and my power bill was 40 dollars. They also generate much less heat, and don't require fans, and most run off integrated SSD drives (PATA and SATA) so there are no moving parts at all in them. And... They are cheap. I can get a brand new ARM based netbook for 200 dollars that gives me ~ the equivalent processing of an Atom netbook of the same price... Except the Atom netbook is a refurb. Cheaper, lower power consumption, and almost the same processing power. It works for me, sure I can't use proprietary software, or something like dropbox that requires a proprietary daemon, but I don't really miss it much. At first you notice but as you use it more, you come to realize that you really didn't need it. Sorry if this was a huge wall of text, I am responding via my phone.
      - angusgr 15y ago
        There are probably other things incorrect in your comment but the main point I want to address is the "equivalent to a pentium 3"; this is definitely not the case. Just because it is a dual core running at 1ghz doesn't mean it's slow I meant the analogy the other way. That the USB stick computer is the Pentium 3 equivalent and the Trimslice is "four generations along the line", something like the Core 2 Duo. Believe me, I'm extremely excited about the performance/costs power nexus of these new ARM cores. :). And well jealous of your Cortex-A8 build farm. (I did get at least one thing wrong in my reply, which is I somehow thought the USB stick computer was ARM9 not ARM11. So it's only 3 generations of ARM before the Cortex A-9, and that's disregarding all the other lesser-used ARM cores that came between.) PS Please don't make sweeping statements like There are probably other things incorrect in your comment, that's just plain rude.
  - regularfry 15y ago
    If the thing has decent IO breakouts (or can interface with something like the Android IO board), he'll start eating into the Arduino market.
sedachv 15y ago
Gumstix is way overpriced. If this really does come out for $25, it will be really disrupt the hobbyist embedded market. The closest similar systems are Bifferboards (http://bifferos.bizhat.com/ http://bifferos.bizhat.com/ 35 pounds for 150mhz 486) or the Teensy++ ($24 for an AVR).

angusgr 15y ago

The cost of $25 looks a bit more believable compared to similarly specced devices like the VT8500/WM8505 series <$100 netbooks/tablets[1], or the FriendlyARM Mini2440 which sells on ebay for $98 as a bells-and-whistles development board. The board he's built would have lower BoM cost than either of those. And if he's manufacturing them in similar quantities then maybe he can get the cost down. If he's looking at production runs of similar numbers to wireless routers then I think $25 is completely believable, as cheap end wireless routers approach that cost new now. [1] http://s.dealextreme.com/search/wm8505 http://s.dealextreme.com/search/wm8505 [2] http://www.friendlyarm.net/products/mini2440 http://www.friendlyarm.net/products/mini2440 [3] http://cgi.ebay.com/320583793422 http://cgi.ebay.com/320583793422

brianwhitman 15y ago
Sure... but realistically, what kind of quantities is he going to pull off? And is he really going to contract out to a chinese factory? I mean, i'll get a few :) but if this is for education and nothing else.... I'll check back in a year for sure. For now, the Trimslice is pretty exciting (and shipping, and of course in a very different world) http://trimslice.com/web/ http://trimslice.com/web/ Thanks for the pointer to the Mini2440 -- i haven't seen that one yet.
- wtracy 15y ago
  Trimslice looks cool--I didn't know there was Linux support for Tegra yet. (At launch, it was WinCE-only.) The FriendlyARM stuff looks damn cool--thanks to the grandparent for pointing this stuff out!
- angusgr 15y ago
  what kind of quantities is he going to pull off? I don't know, I mean presumably he's thinking OLPC-esque. I could see this being at least as popular as the WM8505/VT8500 devices just on price (price having being those devices _only_ selling point), and then the education angle picking up some more bulk deals with education departments. is he really going to contract out to a chinese factory? Does anyone not contract out to a Chinese factory of some kind, these days? For now, the Trimslice is pretty exciting That is exciting, I hadn't seen those before! Thanks for the link. Of course, as you say that is a "different world". The Trimslice is four-generations of ARM along the line, in x86 spec equivalents it's a Pentium III compared to a Core 2 Duo.
  - steevdave 15y ago
    I have a Trimslice Dev-Kit (I'm a Gentoo developer) and I have one of the 32GB on order. There are probably other things incorrect in your comment but the main point I want to address is the "equivalent to a pentium 3"; this is definitely not the case. Just because it is a dual core running at 1ghz doesn't mean it's slow. In fact most ARM machines are slower than their equivalent chips, but not as much as people would think. An example is the EfikaMX (Cortex A-8 @ 800MHz) runs only ~20% slower than an Atom clocked at 1.6GHz. But at a fraction of the power usage. My apartment is full of ARM machines and I have a build farm of ~20 that are compiling software (Ubuntu and Gentoo) 24/7 and my power bill was 40 dollars. They also generate much less heat, and don't require fans, and most run off integrated SSD drives (PATA and SATA) so there are no moving parts at all in them. And... They are cheap. I can get a brand new ARM based netbook for 200 dollars that gives me ~ the equivalent processing of an Atom netbook of the same price... Except the Atom netbook is a refurb. Cheaper, lower power consumption, and almost the same processing power. It works for me, sure I can't use proprietary software, or something like dropbox that requires a proprietary daemon, but I don't really miss it much. At first you notice but as you use it more, you come to realize that you really didn't need it. Sorry if this was a huge wall of text, I am responding via my phone.
    - angusgr 15y ago
      There are probably other things incorrect in your comment but the main point I want to address is the "equivalent to a pentium 3"; this is definitely not the case. Just because it is a dual core running at 1ghz doesn't mean it's slow I meant the analogy the other way. That the USB stick computer is the Pentium 3 equivalent and the Trimslice is "four generations along the line", something like the Core 2 Duo. Believe me, I'm extremely excited about the performance/costs power nexus of these new ARM cores. :). And well jealous of your Cortex-A8 build farm. (I did get at least one thing wrong in my reply, which is I somehow thought the USB stick computer was ARM9 not ARM11. So it's only 3 generations of ARM before the Cortex A-9, and that's disregarding all the other lesser-used ARM cores that came between.) PS Please don't make sweeping statements like There are probably other things incorrect in your comment, that's just plain rude.
- regularfry 15y ago
  If the thing has decent IO breakouts (or can interface with something like the Android IO board), he'll start eating into the Arduino market.

sedachv 15y ago

Gumstix is way overpriced. If this really does come out for $25, it will be really disrupt the hobbyist embedded market. The closest similar systems are Bifferboards (http://bifferos.bizhat.com/ http://bifferos.bizhat.com/ 35 pounds for 150mhz 486) or the Teensy++ ($24 for an AVR).