4 ms·
I agree, the only advantage I see in this product is as a potential teaching tool. There isn't a lot of opensource hardware out there to go with all that softw
by pmorici 18y ago
I agree, the only advantage I see in this product is as a potential teaching tool. There isn't a lot of opensource hardware out there to go with all that software.
This board looses in all categories I would consider important when choosing an embedded linux board. Those being speed, size, and price. As you mentioned for a comparable price Beagle Board is much faster with cooler i/o features. If you are going for price and size the lowest cost Gumstix (gumstix.com) is like a third the size, slightly more powerful and only costs 100 bucks.
- maximilian 18y agoEven as a teaching tool it would suck because it's all surface mount. Sure you could just buy all the parts, but it'd be near impossible to get surface mount working reliably in a classroom environment. My buddies built a robot controller using a gumstix board running linux, so for doing robots like the article said its pretty shitty for being bigger and probably having higher power draw.
- pmorici 18y agoMost things are SMT these days. You can still solder SMT by hand w/o much trouble. People are just intimidated by it. It's a lot easier than it looks. There are some great video tutorials on youTube as well as at sparkfun.com and http://www.curiousinventor.com/guides/Surface_Mount_Soldering/101 http://www.curiousinventor.com/guides/Surface_Mount_Solderin...
- mhb 18y agoSure. But unless it's a board assembly class, the students will spend an inordinate amount of time becoming proficient at soldering, removing solder bridges and replacing burned out chips.
- stcredzero 18y agoloses