BeagleBone-Black

Sat May 4 01:38:49 CDT 2013

-----Original Message----- 
From: Andre Kesteloot
Sent: Friday, May 03, 2013 11:36 PM
To: Louis Mamakos
Cc: Tacos ; andre.kesteloot at ieee.org
Subject: Re: BeagleBone-Black

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

Andre:
I wrote a real long email disputing the above, but here is the semi-short 
form:

Mike's comments about a "soft" UART are interesting, as that might allow I2S 
to be implemented, which is often used as a nice digitized-audio transfer 
medium.  Excellent for SDR applications.

Regarding a) Why is it that AMRAD seems to be targeting the "average" ham 
anymore.  This club was NOT formed to target average hams (I believe a fact, 
not opinion).  If it is now defined as such, what is the difference anymore 
between AMRAD and Vienna Wireless, Old VA Hams, Loudon County club, etc? 
Our food selection?  Why must this club dumb-down to ONLY Arduinos?  Sorry, 
I like Arduinos, but I've hit their limits many times now.  I can boot up my 
IMSAI and play with a slow, memory-limited processor, and even have a REAL 
(well, semi-real) operating system to play in.  An Arduino is like playing 
with a Commodore C16 (without the OS), not even a C64.  Yes, it can do a lot 
of simple things, but you MUST live within it's severe limitations.

Try to implement Hal's transmitter project in the latest newsletter with an 
Arduino.  It is NOT a pie-in-the-sky sophisticated project, but still WAY 
beyond an Arduino.  Can you implement a simple IRLP controller on an 
Arduino?  Nope.  But, the Pi can.  Again, not rocket science, but beyond an 
Arduino.  How about a complete packet TNC in a Uno?  No?  My IMSAI can.

Newer, faster, better boards, can take us to newer, faster, better projects. 
Sometimes into projects that were not possible with simpler (older) 
hardware.  To bury our heads to these developments is to plant a stake in 
the increasingly further-back past.  We used to be about the FUTURE of 
amateur radio, now we can comfortably wave at it as it passes us via TAPR, 
HPSDR, Austin QRP, Chat With The Designers, and others.  Simply put: Our 
relevance is dimming.

Regarding b) The Arduino IDE is also available in Linux.  I'm not a Linux 
guru, but several of us AMRAD people have been playing with Linux since it 
first came out - 20 years ago!  Linux is NOT a new operating system anymore. 
You might be surprised how many hams use Linux, especially the experimenters 
(remember them: AMRAD's OLD target market).  WE used to be able to point to 
leading-edge Linux things that WE were involved in.  Now, Linux is too 
complicated for us?  AMRAD has not been about MOST HAMS.  Why are we now?

I understand that you want to use and support Arduino.  So do I.  I get that 
you don't want to play in the deep end.  But, let's not dissuade others from 
going there.  I perceive a theme over the last couple of years of trying to 
dumb-down AMRAD to simpler projects using simpler hardware, for the 
"average" ham.  That was NOT the case in the distant past.  We CHALLENGED 
technology, we did not shy away from it.  Your implications above are that 
we should live where the "average" ham is comfortable.  If so, I'm deeply 
disappointed that AMRAD has fallen that far.  We USED to do pie-in-the-sky 
ham radio projects.  Now we should replicate a 12AX7 flip-flop in an 
Arduino?  How impressive.  Not.  How much lower should we set the bar?

Sorry for the bandwidth, but I am worried that we continue to fall into the 
rabbit hole of technology mediocrity.  And irrelevance.
Terry, WB4JFI

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