Follow Slashdot blog updates by subscribing to our blog RSS feed

 



Forgot your password?
typodupeerror
×
Hardware Hacking Build

Atom-Based JaguarBoard To Take On Raspberry Pi (hothardware.com) 120

MojoKid writes: The tiny single-board PC movement that's leading the Internet of Things (IoT) market is largely dominated by ARM-based processors, and for good reason — they're cheap, low power and capable. However, what if you prefer to work with the x86 architecture? JaguarBoard looks strikingly similar to Raspberry Pi, which is arguably the most popular single-board mini PC. But unlike Raspberry Pi, JaguarBoard allows users to develop for x86, courtesy of its Intel Atom Z3735G (Bay Trail) foundation. The chip is a quad-core part clocked at 1.33GHz to 1.83GHz with 2MB of L2 cache, offering a fair amount of horsepower for IoT applications. In addition to an Atom processor, JaguarBoard also boasts 1GB of DDR3L memory, 16GB of eMMC storage, three USB 2.0 ports, 10/100M LAN port, HDMI 1.4 output, SDIO 3.0 socket, two COM ports, four GPIO pins, and audio ports. It's an interesting device that you could use strictly as a mini PC for general purpose computing, as an embedded system, a learning or research tool, or for whatever DIY projects you can conjure up. It's not the only hobbyist-appropriate x86 board, but those specs are pretty good for $45.
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

Atom-Based JaguarBoard To Take On Raspberry Pi

Comments Filter:
  • by goombah99 ( 560566 ) on Sunday January 24, 2016 @12:36PM (#51361545)

    4 gpio ports? this is not competing against a raspberry pi. And if I'm looking for something that is a computing device not a hacker board then I can take my $45 and get a Amazon tablet with USB IO for that whihc includes batteries, and a powersource. then I've got usb I/O or wifi I/o to a CHIP, Arduino or Raspberry pi $5. So it hits the sour spot between being under ported as a hacker board and over priced as a cheap computer.

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      And do any of those solutions you bring up involve x86? That is the main point for this...
      • Why would anyone care for x86 unless they are trying to run windows?
        • *cough* Linux *cough*
          • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

            by Anonymous Coward

            What do you mean? Linux is already available on ARM, Windows isn't. If you just want Linux, you would be better off with one of the more common ARM boards.

            • Windows does run on the ARM processor. Just Microsoft haven't figured out a way to do that successfully well. With a board like this, I could run a minimalist version of Linux, program in Python (my preferred programming language), and still have plenty of resources left over.
              • You can already do all of that on a Raspberry Pi running Linux - and run Wolfram's Mathematica.
        • I would pay extra for x86 just for the ability to run Teamviewer, which is currently incompatible with ARM devices.

          Yes, I know there are alternatives, but I like Teamviewer.

          • by KGIII ( 973947 )

            Mind if I ask what's so special about it that you prefer it? I've never used it so I'm curious as to what the benefit might be. I do make heavy use of VNC, say VINO and TurboVNC Viewer (my current setup), I don't really make video calls or join meetings with a VNC client, I have, as of late, used qtox for that sort of thing. I'm not doubting or challenging - I'm genuinely curious as to why you prefer it, what you do with it that is so specific, and what its "killer" features are - for you. I read about it,

        • - Closed Source Software: Most closed source software requires x86. Sure there isn't much of that for Linux but there is some, especially for niche applications. Also... Wine. Don't tell me Wine isn't usable.. I've used it.

          - Flash: Thankfully the days when most of the content on the web required Flash are finally over. Good Fckng ridden! But.. there is still some crap out there that requires it. You can certainly live without that but if you really want to say you have access to the whole internet... not

          • by KGIII ( 973947 )

            Err... Doesn't Flash run on non-x86 devices too? I know that there's at least Flash for Android and most Androids are not x86 based AFAIK. Am I missing something obvious?

            • There is Flash for Android although it is no longer supported and hasn't been updated in a few years. I'm not sure if it can even be installed in current Android versions or not. I don't think that it can. I know it wouldn't install on my 'latest' phone which is actually from 2013!

              I'm pretty sure that outdated, discontinued Android apk is the only commonly available Flash support for ARM. As closed source software it's not like you are going to port it over to Rasbian or any other distro/OS either.

              There may

              • by KGIII ( 973947 )

                Thanks for explaining. I'm actually kind of surprised that there hasn't been an open-source implementation - at least an "interpreter" (as a player) as the mechanisms should be, by now, fairly well understood. I'd actually not be surprised to see Flash opened as it is abandoned. I'm not sure if that is a good or bad thing.

                Oh, I think you mean "riddance" in your original post. As in, "Good riddance!" I'm not really a grammar Nazi, as I am far from perfect, and I could be mistaken but (I think) that's probabl

                • There is an open source Flash implementation but it is very incomplete. My understanding is that it can be used to view some subset of Flash videos and not much else.

                  • by KGIII ( 973947 )

                    Hmm... Thanks again! I'll have to take a look at it. I only know of pepper, regular Flash, and the various ones like you mentioned above such as the one for Android. Though Pepper isn't really open-source or anything. sudo apt-get install pepperflashplugin-nonfree I use it because I use Opera, it works. Like you (I think), I'm none-too-fond of Flash. Oh, I like it as a concept - though I'd prefer it to be open. I just dislike the implementation, security aspects, and that it was used in so many inappropriat

    • by LarryRiedel ( 141315 ) on Sunday January 24, 2016 @01:36PM (#51361807)
      I don't know of a $45 Amazon tablet that can be a standalone off the shelf x86 Ubuntu system with performance comparable to a netbook which can host VMs running Ubuntu Snappy Core for IoT applications. Since the JaguarBoard also has I2C, COM and GPIO ports, it can in some cases be a replacement for an RPi, depending on the number of units to be deployed in production, and the profit margin and TCO of the target solution.
    • 4 gpio ports?

      Binary Coded Decimal (BCD) only need four lines to represent 0000 (zero) to 10001 (nine), or a single line into a serial-to-parallel shift register to get eight lines, with the old school logic chips (i.e., 4000- and 7000-series). This board allows you to do more with less.

    • Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • If four GPIO pins are not enough, may I introduce you to the 4006? Or whatever its 3.3V counterpart is.

  • by petes_PoV ( 912422 ) on Sunday January 24, 2016 @12:41PM (#51361571)

    Is its following, community and wide range of available software.

    Without something comparable, all the SBCs in the world amount to very little. For example, consider the Orange Pi. It's based on a different architecture, it uses a different boot-up process. Sure, it runs Linux, it's probably hardware compatible up to a point, it's cheaper: $15 compared to what? $30 for a RPi (I'm not up to date on US dollar prices). Has it taken the world by storm? No. Can you buy it without sending your money to China and waiting 1 - 2 months? Definitely not.

    What it, and all the other SBCs, lack is the ease of use. The wide range of almost-working software. The examples to create your own almost-working software. The documentation about what almost works and the "experts" (those people who can make TWO LEDs flash) who can and will answer questions - preferable with correct answers.

    • by goombah99 ( 560566 ) on Sunday January 24, 2016 @12:56PM (#51361661)

      Yep. I wasted $20 on an Orange Pi PC. Official distro would not boot, eventually found an unofficial on that would boot linux. Only ran on one of it's CPUs it looks like. And not much support for GPIO modes like SPI. it would not work with any of the bog standard monitors I owned. Did get it to work on an HDMI TV but only in certain modes. Problems with KEy boards. Would not recognize some SIM cards despite their meeting specs.

      Sure I could make it work, but would I develop for it? no because if I came back a year later I'd probably fiund anything I created would not work on their unsupported releases and there would be a newer board out. With Rpi I can be productive imediately and know I have path forward for anything I make.

      • by mpthompson ( 457482 ) on Sunday January 24, 2016 @01:29PM (#51361781)

        The problem with the Orange Pi and many other inexpensive systems is that they lack mainline Linux support. AllWinner just doesn't seem to be interested in investing the time, effort and money to make it happen.

        With these types of systems you may be able to find and boot a relatively new kernel (ie. 3.8 or later), but even if you manage that you find yourself stuck in time as the rest of the Linux community and API's continue to progress. I have clients that have chosen to use hardware only supported by a hacked 2.6.35 Linux kernel and they fail to realize the enormous effort it takes to get newer applications and protocols working in such an environment -- if it is possible at all. Not to mention the security issues of not being able to track the latest software versions.

        It's a shame because the hardware is perfectly fine, but with the systems I own and manage, I want to deal with manufacturers that have at least a 5 year horizon for software support with regards to the hardware they produce rather than 5 months which seems typical of the cheap systems out of China.

        I'm intrigued by these Intel based systems if they can indeed run generic mainline Linux kernels. If so, it will be well worth the $30 or more price premium.

      • Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • Is its following, community and wide range of available software.

      Really good point. To draw an Arduino analogy, there are other platforms that offer better bang for the buck (e.g. various STM Discovery boards, some of the Cypress boards) But the community and resulting accessibility make the Arduino much more popular.

    • by chihowa ( 366380 ) on Sunday January 24, 2016 @01:12PM (#51361721)

      The advantage of an x86 based SBC is the ability to take advantage of the maturity and relative uniformity of the x86 platform. The arcane uboot process and the need for specific support for not only different ARM SoCs, but the specific machines built on them, leaves dozens of abandoned ARM based systems stuck on ancient custom-tweaked kernels (and Linux only). Almost all of the problems you list are inherent in any ARM-based system until the equivalent of a uniform and predictable BIOS-type system is implemented for ARM.

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward

        If you want that, it's very important to make sure the Atom-based system is actually a PC architecture system with a normal PC or EFI BIOS. Some of these Atom systems-on-chip have all the same drawbacks as ARM systems-on-chip, namely obscure bootloaders and binary drivers that were hacked into one version of the Linux kernel by some chip vendor. They will never be able to receive a normal Linux distribution to replace the firmware.

        In a moment of carelessness I bought an Atom Z2480-based smartphone thinkin

    • It doesn't need "community support" when the "community" is the default version of practically every Linux distro in existence without even requiring the existence of a specialized "community" distro just to support one board. That's what makes it really compelling over a Raspberry Pi (and I was in the very first wave of people who ordered it too).

      • by amiga3D ( 567632 )

        It looks nice. I notice that the $45 price was for early kickstarter pledges and later it went up to $65. I also notice shipment is delayed until middle February now. I don't see it as a competitor for the Pi though, more like a different niche. The Pi is a throwaway computer. I've purchased a dozen now and have them doing different things. Some A+ models hanging outside with camera mods attached for surveillance, a Pi2 running a media center and one for a file server. They run off a cell phone charg

        • by KGIII ( 973947 )

          As I keep getting and poking at various SBCs, I will have to get at least a couple of this one as well. So far, I've not had the best of luck getting as motivated and as functional as I'd like - this being x86 will, likely, make me at least slightly more likely to actually get a completed project. Actually, I have been poking at another pair - working on my own little pet project. But, if I can move to x86 that'll likely make it much easier for me to get things rolling. (Literally - I'm gonna build a robot

      • That depends on how easy it is to install the standard distros on this board.

        Then there's the GPIO and SDIO support. Is that going to require custom drivers or will it be included in the standard kernel? What about eMMC?

    • by DCFusor ( 1763438 ) on Sunday January 24, 2016 @03:22PM (#51362177) Homepage
      Yup - rather than mod up an already +5, thought I'd chime in myself. It's the community, and the existing popularity - the network effect, that makes the pi a win. I tasked myself with designing a "LAN of things" for my off-grid homestead, intended to last, well, forever - as long as I'll live. LAN because security, and my life depends on Neuman's little helpers. Will I be able to get a replacement for an also-ran that will go off market the instant it's not a huge success, as has happened many times from this source already? I'm not going to count on it.
      Tell me again what advantage there is in X86 if I'm not going to use assembler? Anything running a modern opsys - any of them - will have "issues" doing real time hard-deadline stuff, because the opsys will preempt your code now and then to do its thing - which is why I hang an Arduino Uno or a Teensy off most of the Pi's in my setup - the hardware support for little fiddly bit-bang stuff stinks on all these class of boards, but linux (well, it's all there is, but I'd have chosen it anyway) - and its apps - from NGINX to MySQL, to...you name it, absolutely rocks on a pi.
      It's a total no-brainer if I might want to have a hot spare available well down the road. If not new - so many have been sold I'd bet there's even a thriving used market by the time I'd need one.
      I don't sell anything, I give what I develop away - GPL or just copyleft, I have no reason to care. Interested people might want to check out my forums under software to see some of what I've managed so far along the LAN of things lines. I like to say that surviving off-grid is actually the oldest profession - you have to be alive to do that other one that claims to be the oldest, after all ;~).
      I have nothing against Intel - all my regular PC's are intel, and I like them - including the NUCs (I'm posting from a Haswell one with 2tb of spinner and 500gig of SSD right now). It's not the point, the point is - will they abandon this if it doesn't make money fast? Track record speaks for itself.
      • by KGIII ( 973947 )

        Well, when the RPi came out, I bought six of them. I had a plan! Err... One box was opened, the rest still sit in the package, presumably catching dust, back in Maine. So, if there's ever a crunch and the world runs out of the RPi, I've got you covered. *sighs* And probably a half dozen "also ran" SBCs too. Well, except I'm actually working on my current project - it's actually, sort of, doing stuff. It's not doing the right stuff but it's getting closer to doing the right stuff. I turns out, having it come

    • by Dracos ( 107777 )

      I've made 1024 LEDs flash with an rPi. To do that I had to buy a 32x32 LED matrix, power brick, and a proto hat; solder the necessary connections on the hat, then write a C++ application using a very nifty library I found. It showed the date and time, scrolled text, and displayed images.

      So what's my level of expertise?

      It seems your expectations for Ease of use are too high.

    • by MacTO ( 1161105 )

      Every platform starts with a small community and with a small base of software, including the Raspberry Pi.

      The foundation had several secret weapons to deal with that. The first is that they developed something different. Keep in mind that the hobby platform of the time was the Arduino. They managed to undercut the Arduino in both price as well as performance, and by a quite significant factor for the latter. By addressing the education market, they also fostered goodwill. On top of that, they are acti

    • Is its following, community and wide range of available software.

      Possibly; another important factor is that there seems to be a huge market for exactly what RaspberryPi is: a general purpose computer with low power consumption and sufficient capacity to make it useful as a small server. I'm just waiting for when it comes with 8 GB of RAM, so I can run an Java application server and MySQL.

    • I had a lot of problems with the Orange Pi PC board using the 5v 2a power supply that it called for. I started using a 5.3v 2a samsung charger as my power supply and now it has no problems with any image.

      Just mentioning in case it helps someone.
  • But is it 64-bit like the Atari Jaguar video game console and the AMD Jaguar processor (used in PlayStation 4 and Xbox One video game consoles)?

    The article repeatedly says "x86", not "x86-64", "x64", "AMD64", or "EM64T", yet it mentions "Intel Atom Z3735G (Bay Trail)" which Intel says is 64-bit [intel.com]. But does its firmware support 64-bit mode?

    • Given the memory they spec'ed - 1GB RAM, 16GB storage, I doubt it. For Windows 10, definitely no, not sure about whether it's adequate for a 64-bit Linux. Best OS for this board seems to be Minix, since their Beagleboard port seems nowhere near ready.
      • Windows 10 runs well on my Mom's Nokia lumina phone with 1 gig of ram. Yes it runs the same kernel as server 2016 prerelease and the desktop 10.

        In fact it is very competitive to Linux. It is the other desktop services that eat the ram

        • It may be the same kernel, but Windows 10 Mobile is a very different beast from Windows 10. Unless one is planning to run only Power Shell
          • I have not run IOT (I really really hate that silly acronym where I swear it was invented just a few months ago) but assume it is basically Windows 10 kernel and some mobile features with alot less stuff. Yes powershell would be the UI.

            I want to buy a Pi but have not found a reason yet. i assume the xorg would not be great on it and I would be using ssh to log into it anyway to run code. I find this cool if I can find a niche use for it :-)

    • Is it 64-bit?...

      The processor is 64-bit, I don't know about the rest of it. http://ark.intel.com/products/... [intel.com]

    • by ogdenk ( 712300 )

      The Jaguar was not really a 64-bit machine. Main CPU was a 68000.

      • by amiga3D ( 567632 )

        The 68000 was used as a "manager" but most of the work was done by two custom 32bit RISC processors.

      • by tepples ( 727027 )

        Atari Jaguar had three CPUs: a Motorola MC68000 used as an I/O processor, a proprietary 32-bit RISC CPU called "Tom" on the GPU die, and a proprietary 32-bit RISC CPU called "Jerry" designed for audio signal processing. Some games ran game logic on Tom, others on the 68000, but graphics rendering was all Tom. The 64-bit part of the Jaguar was the data bus to the GPU.

  • Missing Stuff (Score:2, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Missing:

    -No commercially available case
    -No SPI port - [besides sdio, not accessible]
    -No secondary i2c port
    -All of "4" gpios - not nearly enough

    this is a great XBMC box, but good for little else.

    • by Anonymous Coward

      No commercially available case

      I thought that is what 3D printers were for

  • by Okian Warrior ( 537106 ) on Sunday January 24, 2016 @12:51PM (#51361629) Homepage Journal

    I just got a couple of NanoPi 2's [nanopi.io], they're 1.4 GHz, and have embedded wireless on the board.

    For $32, you don't need an octopus of wires to power your wifi USB dongle through a USB hub, both of which you need for the Raspberry PI. A NanoPi2, a $6 USB power supply, a 16GB memory card, and you're ready to go.

    Of course, feel free to develop for the X86, because it's *such* an elegant architecture...

    The client wanted a system to log (plastic injection molding) machine cycles, so I wrote a script to read the GPIO and make entries to a remote MySQL database. Everything except the glue script was off the shelf and open source. He can use any open source DB viewer and make whatever data views he needs.

    You can make an IoT device in an afternoon with one of these.

  • by stabiesoft ( 733417 ) on Sunday January 24, 2016 @01:52PM (#51361857) Homepage

    No mention of power consumption. And as a guy who just dd a pool controller than used 7 GPIO + 4 analog ins, it would not fit the bill. And as a guy about to do an irrigation controller that needs 8 GPIO, again, no dice. I've been settling on beagleboard greens for my projects lately. Low power (2.5W) lots of GPIO, and analog in that is good enough. Raspberry would have worked for irrigation, but price is close, and had an extra beaglebone from initial order in case I blew one up when building the pool controller.

    • CPU is 2.2 watts. (See the Intel Ark page I cited earlier)
    • For a pool irrigation controller, you could use a $3 nano. Plus another $2 for a ESP to add WiFi if you like, only because it has few GPIO and only one ADC so it wouldn't suit your projects alone. If you only need ~6 GPIO and 1 ADC, though, it's adequate by itself (ESP-07 has a ceramic antenna plus an IPX jack...)

  • $65 now, how's TDP? (Score:3, Informative)

    by 4wdloop ( 1031398 ) on Sunday January 24, 2016 @01:56PM (#51361879)

    The $45 and later $50 was an early kickstarter deal. It's $65 now (or $500 for 10).
    1GB ram and 16GB flash makes it a non-windows worthy at the moment (don't even bring up the Win10 IoT gimmick).

    The 4 core Atom is a good CPU with a decent GPU (for a small SoC).
    But how does this board's TDP compare to Pi or BBB?

    • A killer-important question for my apps. I use a decent (currently around 5) number of pi's on my off-grid solar powered homestead, and they need to be on 24/7/365 to do things like control my power and water systems, collect weather data (internal and external) from buildings on my campus, do security, handle anticipatory HVAC controls, and in general make my life easier more quickly than I get weaker from old age. TDP is huge when there are times like right now - solar panels covered with snow and main
      • If I had solar like that, I'd partner up with a bitcoin miner: They'd supply cast-off hardware that's no longer economical due to power cost, I'd supply the power on the condition their miner can only run when I have excess watts to burn and may be shut down at any time, and we'd split the profits between us.

        • Interesting thought, but no need to partner if I wanted to get into that. I've been an EE/comp-sci for all my rather long life (starting before PCs). I'm not a big fan of bitcoin, personally..I prefer shiny stuff you can drop on your toe and say "ouch", tools, skills, infrastructure. More lasting value and can't be removed via internet kill switch.
          • There's a good reason to partner: Hardware, zero cost. You can buy it second-hand on eBay, but even there the price would be high enough that the payback period wouldn't be reasonable. But if you know someone who runs mining at some scale, even as a hobby, they will have a box somewhere full of worthless cast-offs - old hardware which now costs more in power than it makes in coins.

            I used to hobby-mine. Not at any scale, I peaked at about 30GH/s, I was just interested in the technology and that was a way to

    • by ET3D ( 1169851 )

      I hate it when publications use Kickstarter price as a device price, especially early bird price as in this case. Who knows what the final price will be.

      As for Windows 10, you can run full Windows 10 on 16GB flash with 1GB RAM. Even Windows 8.1 could be installed on 16GB and 10 uses less space. It's sub-optimal, but given that Windows 10 can have both software and apps installed to an SD card, it could work.

  • I've been tempted to design the Atom Z3735G into some products but I can't figure out how to acquire it at a low enough price. I've seen it around for $15 but that is not very competitive with $5 ARM chips. I suspect these guys are paying less than $15 but I don't know how to achieve that.

  • The RPi and Arduino are popular because they are easy to get started with and well supported. 95% of users want to just make a project without the hassle of compiling and flashing, trying to read badly translated Chinese, or getting stuck with no official help or community to draw on. The RPi community (online tutorials, instructables, youtube videos, forums, books) are vastly more important than the specifications. Arduino is the same. You can easily find cheaper boards with more power, but they always co
  • by Lumpy ( 12016 ) on Sunday January 24, 2016 @02:58PM (#51362101) Homepage

    Honestly this is not even competition for a RasPi. 4 io ports... that's a fail.
    what they should have done is put 2 separate Ethernet ports on this and they would have utterly OWNED the home brew networking device market.

    • what they should have done is put 2 separate Ethernet ports on this and they would have utterly OWNED the home brew networking device market.

      It would also need 1xGigE to do that. The other port can still be 100.

    • by e r ( 2847683 )
      Agreed

      No WiFi and only 10/100 ethernet... It's like they TRIED to make the device suck. If they're not going to provide either WiFi or 1Gb ethernet then this is just speaks volumes of the competence of the team behind Jaguar

      USB 2.0... It's 2016 and this is an x86 device. USB 3.0 really should be standard especially if you're not going to provide SATA or 1Gb ethernet or WiFi. Come on, put something nice on the board.

      4 IO ports... Holy moley! They completely missed the point of the IoT movement and SBC
  • by Anonymous Coward

    RPi has the problem of using the USB as the BUS, this means we cannot use PCI-E or M.2 modules on the bus. Same for the UP Soc board.

    WE NEED A FASTER BUS PLEASE!

    Then we can build our own routers with PCI-E modules. AT FULL SPEED.

  • by drinkypoo ( 153816 ) <drink@hyperlogos.org> on Sunday January 24, 2016 @03:29PM (#51362205) Homepage Journal

    In addition to an Atom processor, JaguarBoard also boasts 1GB of DDR3L memory, 16GB of eMMC storage, three USB 2.0 ports, 10/100M LAN port, HDMI 1.4 output, SDIO 3.0 socket, two COM ports, four GPIO pins, and audio ports. [...]those specs are pretty good for $45.

    Well, they aren't horrible. The onboard eMMC is a boon if it's fast, but it probably isn't. If the CPU is faster and you need that, OK. But two com ports don't make up for only having four GPIO pins, and PineA64+ is not only cheaper (starts at $15 + shipping with 512MB, it's $26 shipped with 1GB the 2GB model is $36 with shipping) but it's got a R-Pi 2 connector and another expansion connector, and GigE, plus some other nice connectors besides. If what you want is the computer, then yeah, that's a cool price. If what you want is something like a R-Pi, then you don't want this.

  • Cybermorph?
  • Unless by chance you're looking to build something that's not Unix-based, there's no strong reason to prefer an x86 board for things the Pi is good at. Once the system is booted and your software is compiled, there's little functional difference between one architecture and another.

  • by dltaylor ( 7510 ) on Sunday January 24, 2016 @06:55PM (#51363005)

    Although my switches can handle the low-speed devices, I just don't see the point. GbE is has been in SoCs for at least a decade, and the only device in my house not GbE is a rarely-used Wii with a 10/100 USB dongle (if I used it often, it would have the same 10/100/1000 dongle as the Wii U that gets most current use).

    I live in a higher-density building and don't run any wireless, except odd, and temporary, occasions for the 'phone, and wish that IT could run USB networking as a simple device, rather than only as a bridge for tethered devices, because my Linux box(es) could easily "tether" it to the home network over USB.

  • quote: "However, what if you prefer to work with the x86 architecture?"

    However, what if you prefer to whip yourself with a wet rope?

  • I use a Pi in many projects where I need disposable. In projects where I need more power than a Pi I do one of two things. First is to just wire up (or wireless) an umbilical to the project so that a "real" computer can do its job. Or I don't do the project.

    Yes, I can think of many projects where I would love far more power than a Pi can put out but let's say for a moment that I am working on a commercial project. What project is it that can have at is core such a costly unit? A roomba competitor, a secu
  • In one corner, there are 3 microswitches. I presume to support Windows, those are CTRL-ALT-DEL.

    Bob.

  • Can you play tempest 2000 on it?

  • Look at the image of that board viewed from the top. None of the ports are aligned the same distance from the edge of the board.

  • Until which time it is just like Microsoft Pen Computing for Windows.

Children begin by loving their parents. After a time they judge them. Rarely, if ever, do they forgive them. - Oscar Wilde

Working...