Intel Rolls Out Raspberry Pi Competitor 214
Rambo Tribble writes "As detailed by Ars Technica, Intel has introduced the Minnowboard, an SBC touted as more powerful and more open than the Raspberry Pi. At $199, it is also more expensive. Using an Atom processor, the new SBC boasts more capacity and x86-compatibility. 'It's notable that the MinnowBoard is an open hardware platform, a distinction that Arduino and BeagleBone can claim but Raspberry Pi cannot. Users could create their own MinnowBoards by buying the items on the bill of materials—all the design information is published, and CircuitCo chose components that can be purchased individually rather than in the bulk quantities hardware manufacturers are accustomed to, Anders said. Users can also buy a pre-made MinnowBoard and make customizations or create their own accessory boards to expand its capability. And being an open hardware platform means that the source code of (almost) all the software required to run the platform is open.'" Update: 09/20 22:31 GMT by T : Look soon for a video introduction to the MinnowBoard, and — hopefully not too long from now — a visit to their Dallas-area production facility.
Re:GMA 600? Last years Atom? $200?!? (Score:5, Insightful)
yeah it certainly isn't a raspberry pi competitor. why buy this when you can buy a netbook for almost the same price??
and check this out, 8 gpio pins. whee... no idea if any da/ad pins.
Ferarri rolls out Kia competitor (Score:4, Insightful)
It just costs ten times as much and lacks the same capabilities. ...
Other than the fact that it's a completely different class of product
Not really notable at all (Score:5, Insightful)
It's notable that the MinnowBoard is an open hardware platform, a distinction that Arduino and BeagleBone can claim but Raspberry Pi cannot.
There's nothing exotic about a Pi. It could be recreated with sufficient motivation. The schematics are available so it wouldn't be a major challenge to reproduce them and generate a compatible board layout.
Also, the average homebrew builder targeted by these products isn't going to have the resources to assemble a board with high density surface mount packages so the value of being able to reproduce them is dubious. At $35 it is far cheaper to buy an assembled Pi and not have to worry about the time involved in acquiring parts, assembly, and verification. Even for those that have the tools to build one it would be a phenomenal waste of time at that price point. If your production volume is high enough to beat $35 then you may as well do a custom design anyway that has exactly the hardware and interfaces you need.
Re:GMA 600? Last years Atom? $200?!? (Score:4, Insightful)
pppppffft!
For $200 I can get a ready made Atom with an Nvidia GPU.
This board is worse than useless. It's insulting.
That's a misleading title if I've ever seen one. (Score:5, Insightful)
The most likely use cases today aren't hobbyist applications but industrial uses, Anders said. "The BeagleBone is a very small, low-power device, and it's targeted for some very specific applications for hobbying. You know, developing small proof-of-concept designs," Anders said. "Our initial offer for the MinnowBoard is actually more targeted toward industrial automation, industrial controls. What you'll find is a lot of manufacturers, companies creating products, if they want to create an x86 design, they have to buy a third-party reference platform which is closed. They have to buy large software support packages, support contracts, and they generally don't get the right to use the existing design as it is. They have to buy additional licenses and things to create the product."
In other words, this is aimed at a completely different market than the ones looking for a raspberry pi or a beaglebone. From Rpi's own FAQ: "We want to see it being used by kids all over the world to learn programming." David Anders says it may reach price point similar to the Rpi or Beaglebone in the near future, but there's no promises. I know this sounds like nitpicking, but framing the discussion improperly with a misleading title is something Slashdot desperately needs to stop.
Re:That's a misleading title if I've ever seen one (Score:2, Insightful)
If they really intended for it to be used by industry for automation and industrial controls, then why does it have *fewer* GPIO pins? You would get more out of just about any other board if that's your goal.
I know the editors have to eat.. (Score:4, Insightful)
Look, I am an EE, this is not the same thing as the Pi.
It's an order of magnitude more expensive, it's complicated, it has a part count from hell, it's bigger, in fact, it's different in just about every way imaginable.
Catchpa is "pretend". Giggle.
Try harder, Intel. ARM is coming for you..
Intel doesn't "get it" (Score:2, Insightful)
$200? They miss the point.
interesting idea, wrong price point (Score:4, Insightful)
Datedness and relative power of components aside, the open hardware platform aspect is a good selling point. Hopefully this lends an economy of scale to the product that ultimately gets it into the same ballpark.
Re:GMA 600? Last years Atom? $200?!? (Score:5, Insightful)
So, do you guys have multiple Beagle Boards, Beagle Bones, Ras Pi's, and other sitting on your bench right now? And you have experience using them? I do.
You haven't looked closely at the Minnow. The I/O is much easier to use and much richer than you find on a 'bone or a raspi. The CPU has more horsepower, and yon don't have porting headaches to get reasonable things running on it. $200 seems like a good value to me. You can't compare a raspi to a minnow until you try to hook up a CAN bus and a camera and start doing vision processing and motor control like you need for a robotics application. The pi will be straining. I have hopes for the minnow.
First, post your benchmarks, and BOM for all the add-on you needed to make it work. Then you can grouse about the price.
Re:GMA 600? Last years Atom? $200?!? (Score:4, Insightful)
Intel seems to have totally missed the mark on this one. People don't buy the Raspberry Pi because they want a desktop PC in an awkward form factor. They buy the RPi because they want a tiny general purpose computing device that sips power and costs so little as to consider it disposable.
The Minnow completely fails on all but one of those criteria - It costs 8x as much, has a 60% larger footprint (almost the size of a NanoITX board!), the CPU alone draws up to 4W (not even counting everything else on the board) vs the Pi's 2.5W total...
If anything, I would have to suspect Intel means to target this as a semi-embedded Epia/Jetway/ECS killer - Though even there, it costs more, still has a larger footprint than readily-available Pico-ITX boards, and lacks the standardized mechanical aspects (ie, mounting holes) you get with the ITX family.
DOA. Simple as that. You can already get more computer for less money, and less computer for a LOT less money.
Re:I know the editors have to eat.. (Score:1, Insightful)
Not very useful for real projects (Score:4, Insightful)
Having created and published projects using both Raspberry Pi and Beaglebone Black, and speaking as someone who regularly publishes electronic projects and open source code (largely on the Arduino software), I'd echo what others have said... this thing really misses the mark, considering the high price and lack of I/O.
Beaglebone Black is really the one Linux-based board that's doing everything right (except for the head start Raspberry Pi enjoys). The price is under $50, size is small, there's a LOT of I/O with advanced capabilities, performance is ok, and the feature I love the most on BBB: it has a decent performing 2 GB flash disk soldered to the board.
As someone who publishes code for projects, a built-in flash disk with dependable performance a huge benefit. With a Raspberry Pi, you have no idea how their system will perform if disk I/O matters. They might use a SanDisk Ultra card (or whatever SanDisk is calling them now), which can do about 1 to 2 Mbyte/sec with random seeks, still slow by PC standards, but fast enough to be useful. But odds are they'll use a cheap SD card, where the random I/O performance can be as slow as 20 kbytes/sec.
If Intel really wants to rule this Linux-based project world, they'll need come out with something in the $40 to $60 price range, maybe with high-end options approaching $99. A good performing built-in SSD, enough RAM, lots of I/O, and good connectivity (USB, Ethernet, Wifi) are the killer features people need for real projects. A faster x86 processor on an overpriced, feature-poor board without SSD is never going to compete with great products like the Beaglebone Black.