Raspberry_Pi furor....

[Louis Mamakos]

I've not done work with the small embedded Linux boards.  I have done some work with smaller, low power ARM Cortex-M3 parts.  ST Micro has a "Discovery" series of evaluation boards that are really cheap.  The ST Micro ARM Cortex parts have pretty good support in free GNU toolchain cross development tools, and RTOS.  Probably not nearly the same as the more popular Arduino platform, but you don't have to hold your head just the right way to get your code to fit into limited amount of RAM, Flash as some of the AVR parts for larger applications.

I've been playing around a bit with an STM32L152 based part, which has 32K RAM, 128K Flash ROM and very, very low power consumption.  I think that board was around $12, and also includes a USB JTAG debugger onboard as well.  http://www.mouser.com/ProductDetail/STMicroelectronics/STM32L-DISCOVERY/?qs=sGAEpiMZZMuhSiU2%2f%2fjo2iK2MkzqOiaV

For more power, there's an STM32F407 part with 192K RAM, 1024K Flash, single-precision floating point math, running at 168MHz.  Also available as a "Discovery" board for $15 or so, including a companion USB JTAG debugger on the PCB.
http://www.mouser.com/ProductDetail/STMicroelectronics/STM32F4DISCOVERY/?qs=sGAEpiMZZMutVogd4PRSvEN8XDBeCtgD

I've been using Chibios/RT as a small embedded RTOS with pretty good success, too.  http://www.chibios.org/dokuwiki/doku.php    For the larger STM32 parts with at least 64K of RAM, there's also eLua which is intended to be a 21st century "Basic Stamp" sort of embedded development environment, using a real language.  http://www.eluaproject.net/

louie
wa3ymh




On Jan 4, 2013, at 4:02 PM, <wb4jfi at knology.net> wrote:

> 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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>