Raspberry_Pi furor....

[wb4jfi at knology.net]

Thanks for the info Louis.

I've been playing with the Arduino for a little while now, and yes, it is 
underpowered for a lot of stuff.  I just got a new Arduino Due, which is 
32-bit, and clocks at 84MHz, which should be better.  I've seen tests 
showing speed improvements between 3.5 and 8 times for floating point 
calculations.

For $35 (plus SD card, etc) the Pi is hard to beat.  The Beaglebone, 
Beagleboard, Odroid boards can cost more, but are also useful.  I'm thinking 
of getting an Ordoid X2 to use as a self-standing SDR, but it costs $135, 
and I'm working on other stuff at the moment.

Have you messed around with these other boards?
73,
Terry, WB4JFI

-----Original Message----- 
From: Louis Mamakos
Sent: Friday, January 04, 2013 3:44 PM
To: wb4jfi at knology.net
Cc: Mike O'Dell ; Tacos
Subject: Re: Raspberry_Pi furor....

There are a bunch of small Linux-based SBCs out there, and have been for 
quite a while.  I'd say for many uses, things like the BeagleBoard or 
BeagleBone, or some of the Olimex boards might be more suitable if you don't 
need to drive a video display.   See 
https://www.olimex.com/Products/OLinuXino/ and note that there are platforms 
out there that are entirely open-source hardware and software designs, 
unlike the Raspberry Pi, and still run Linux.

The Arduino has a pretty extensive ecosystem of libraries and tools, though 
is woefully underpowered as compared to some of the ARM Cortex based parts 
for essentially the same cost.  There's lot of alternatives out there, many 
not even that far off the beaten path though with perhaps a little less sex 
appeal.

louie
wa3ymh

On Jan 4, 2013, at 3:36 PM, <wb4jfi at knology.net> wrote:

> Yes, it seems so.
> If the Pi works out to be as useful and reliable as the old Xerox 820s, 
> then we are in for a fun ride.
>
> I'm seeing Pis being used for IRLP nodes, TNCs, APRS, and other stuff 
> already.  Check out the Raspberry Pi ham radio group:
> http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Raspberry_Pi_4-Ham_RADIO/
>
> It would be nice if AMRAD were to focus on either the Pi or Arduino, and 
> create some ham-specific projects, like we did in the old 820 days. 
> Anybody interested in creating - and documenting - some projects?  Linux 
> is a little like CP/M... (obtuse DDT, PIP, STAT,  etc.. commands)!!
>
> Terry, WB4JFI
>
>
> -----Original Message----- From: Mike O'Dell
> Sent: Friday, January 04, 2013 3:07 PM
> To: Tacos
> Subject: Raspberry_Pi furor....
>
> i'm having deja vu all over again.
>
> the frenzy over the Raspberry_Pi board reminds me a lot
> of when the Xerox 820 boards showed-up in the surplus stream
> for a pittance.
>
>    -mo
>
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