BeagleBone-Black

[Andre Kesteloot]

On 5/3/2013 22:37 PM, Louis Mamakos wrote:
> It does, however, have a couple of embedded RISC microcontrollers ("PRU" - Programmable Real-Time Unit) which can be used to do various tricks with the I/O pins that might be interesting for some applications.  Sort of what the PIC devices could do; complex programmable bit-banging and I/O vs. having dedicated or special purpose hardware peripherals.  These microcontrollers have some sort of mailbox communication means with the ARM core so that they can each get the other's attention.
>
> http://processors.wiki.ti.com/index.php/Programmable_Realtime_Unit_Subsystem
>
> For example, make a few more extra "soft" UARTs:  http://processors.wiki.ti.com/index.php/Soft-UART_Implementation_on_AM335X_PRU_-_Software_Users_Guide
>
> The Beaglebone Black looks really neat; more I/O pins than the RPi.  I might have to get one, hopefully it won't end up on the pile of all the other cool widgets.
>
> louie
> wa3ymh

Louie,
Mike,

Indeed, the Beaglebone specifications look attractive, but I want, for 
the moment anyway, to concentrate on the Arduino.
Why, might you ask, is André behaving like a luddite?

a) first, because every other week now, or so it seems to me, someone 
comes up with yet a new super-duper board, that does fantastic things, 
but the average Ham still does not get involved with it.
Why not concentrate on what we have?
My intent is to work on Ham projects, not pie-in-the sky ones, that 
might need a 1 GHz clock.

b) second, because the Arduino has an IDE that works with Windows, and 
that is still, by far, what most Hams use.
Using the Beaglebone, one would have to install (dual boot ! etc) and 
learn a new operating system: Linux.
Far too complicated for most Hams, in my opinion.

my $0.05 worth

73,
André