For some of you scratching your head about why this board is the way it is, check out this Google+ thread from Darren Hart: https://plus.google.com/10137826836

For some of you scratching your head about why this board is the way it is, check out this Google+ thread from Darren Hart: https://plus.google.com/101378268367730737515/posts/DGQ9Nkr5hjK https://plus.google.com/101378268367730737515/posts/DGQ9Nkr5... In the fourth comment he explains some of his design choices: One of those factors I mentioned above was making sure the board was "replicable". This adds a number of constraints, such as: * The price cannot include any subsidies (otherwise people could not recreate the board at close to the same cost) * The parts must have a long product life cycle (this eliminates some of the other chips that we might have considered) and be readily available (otherwise there would be shortages in supply and people wouldn't be able to source the parts to make their own) * Maker and hacker friendly meant including access to a number of buses and other interfaces, which also limited our part selection as well as impacting cost. There is a fairly lengthy story here, which I'm happy to share with anyone interested. All in all, I think we managed to come up with a very capable board that will allow people to tweak it and hack it and expand it while providing strong performance (especially in terms of I/O) and a decent price point. More on that as information becomes available... Edit: To the best of my knowledge Intel has never focused on releasing designs that an individual can build/modify on their own. To me this represents a very exciting change in Intel's attitude toward "the little guy." Further, to anyone looking to build their own hardware similar to the Raspbery Pi, good luck trying to get Broadcom to talk to you, let alone give you a BSP or sell you chips. Their NDA process/requirements is/are obscene...