Available single board computers and where to get them

1. DESERT CODE CAMP
Now this is
2011.1 serious
fun…
Presented by Don Doerres
Embedded Pro Guy
don@azlaborlaw.com

2. Featuring
Me…
What They Are
Where They Are
What They Cost
OVERVIEW OF
AVAILABLE SINGLE BOARDS

3. GET THESE SLIDES!
Banner to copy slides as a PDF at
www.azlaborlaw.com

4. WHAT IS A SINGLE BOARD?
Not a loose collection of chips
Not a box like a desktop or laptop
Wait for It…

5. A SINGLE BOARD IS WHAT IT SAYS!
A single circuit board
Useful in its own right
May have a bus for expansion
May include any number of peripheral devices
May be included in a box to make a system
They get
everywhere!

6. SO MANY TO CHOOSE FROM…SO LITTLE TIME TO
TALK ABOUT IT…
There are many single boards
Here, plan to cover a few fun ones
Range
From Ubiquitous
To unique

7. ARDUINO
This one is ubiquitous!
Possibly the most
Popular
Numerous
~200,000 units sold!

8. WHAT IT IS…
The Arduino is an Atmel AVR microcontroller
singleboard originally from Italy
Developed to be an extremely low cost board
for students
The name is an Italian masculine first name
meaning “strong friend”
Intended to make the process of using
electronics accessible to the interested

9. WHERE TO GET IT…
In the USA:
www.Sparkfun.com
www.Adafruit.com,
www.Makershed.com

10. WHAT IT COSTS…
$30.00 to $40.00 for a base board
Adafruit experimentation kit is $85.00,
including an Arduino
Sparkfun has experimenter kits from $60.0 to
$100.00
My favorite
at the low
end…

11. TYPICAL ARDUINO EXPERIMENTER KIT

12. A WORD OR TWO ABOUT EXPANSION
Arduinos expand by means of plug-ins called
“shields”
There are lots of shields..

13. DEVELOPMENT ENVIRONMENT
The Arduino development environment is free
from the Arduino home page
The environment is a Gnu compiler with a
beautiful gui.
Windows
Mac OS X
Linux 32 & 64
http://arduino.cc/en/
http://arduino.cc/en/Main/Software

14. GETTING GOING
I recommend the Adafruit tutorials
Start right here:
http://www.ladyada.net/learn/arduino/lesson0.html

15. THE VIRTUAL ARDUINO
If you have the desire but no money, consider a
virtual Arduino
Use the Arduino tool set, run the code in virtual
space
http://www.virtualbreadboard.net/

16. NETBURNER
MOD DEV 70 + MOD5270B
A Coldfire processor on a slick board…
This is a 32
bit core!…

17. WHAT IT IS…
Netburners are an attempt to make a module that easily hooks
anything to the Internet
Partial Specifications on this one:
32-bit ColdFire 5270 processor
Integrated 10/100 Ethernet Port RJ-45
141 Dhrystone 2.1 MIPS at 147.5MHz
Two 50 pin interface connectors
16-Bit External Data bus
3 UARTs
Interrupts
47 Digital I/O
Four 32-bit Timers
Four Programmable Interrupt Timers
Four Channel DMA
Watchdog
I2C
512k of Flash Memory
8MBytes SDRAM
64k Internal SRAM
8k Instruction/Data cache

18. WHERE TO GET IT…
www.netburner.com

19. WHAT IT COSTS…
The unit is $99.00, everything in the box
Includes serial cable and Ethernet cable
Includes Wall Wart Power supply
It ships with a CD treasure trove
Eclipse Build environment (Gnu C/C++, GUI
debugger)
uC/OS RTOS
Libraries for serial port , file system for SD card,
TCP/IP stack, web server

20. MORE FUN…
Web site has lots of video demos…
Done up as Camtasia videos
http://www.netburner.com/demonstration/product
_demonstration.html

21. DDJ ARTICLE ON USING THIS BOARD
http://drdobbs.com/embedded-
systems/211300170?queryText=Building+Your+own+web+server
http://drdobbs.com/embedded-systems/articleID/211300170/sourcecodeID/29900139

22. PICOFLASH
Remember DOS?

23. WHAT IT IS…
A clever 80186 board
Runs a DOS 3.1 clone (DOSX)
Partial specs:
DOS & Web Server
TCP/IP & Flash File System
40MHz 186 compatible processor
512K Flash, 512K RAM
10Base-T Ethernet
16 Digital I/O Lines
5V DC Power
2 Serial Ports,
1 - RS232 (3-wire),
1 - RS232/RS232 TTL/RS485
Console/Debug Port (RS232)
Watchdog & (2) 16-bit Timers
Hardware Clock/Calendar
Dimensions 3.75" x 2.50" more powerful than my 1990 desktop, and it is way tiny
Socket to accept M-Systems DiskOnChip

24. WHERE TO GET IT…
Part of the JKMicro product line
http://www.jkmicro.com/products/picoflash.html

25. WHAT IT COSTS…
$147.00
This buys you all this, turnkey and ready to go,
at less than the original price of the Borland
C/C++ compiler it comes with!
PicoFlash Single Board
AC Adapter, 5VDC @ 800mA, 110Vin
CD Borland C/C++ 4.52 w/ TCP/IP toolkit, Utilities & Documentation
Power, serial, and ethernet cables
Shells & Pins Kit
Setup Guide

26. MORE…
Pico Flash has an available plug in expander card for $72.00
Digital Inputs
32 total, 4 w/ pull ups
TTL compatible
Digital Outputs
20 total
TTL compatible
25mA source & sink
Analog Inputs
11 channels, 12 bits
Input range 0 to 5V
Resolution 1.22mV
Op-amp buffered
Low-pass filtered
Software Drivers
Unified A/D & digital I/O driver
for C/C++ & Quick Basic
Keypad & LCD drivers

27. MORE YET
Web site has lots of application notes
http://www.jkmicro.com/downloads/downloads.html
Web site has extensive support forums
http://forums.jkmicro.com/cgi-bin/ikonboard.cgi

28. OMNIFLASH
Bigger brother to the PicoFlash
This one is an Arm9…running Linux!

29. WHAT IT IS…
Processor: 200MHz ARM
Operating System: Linux 2.4 Kernel
Memory: 32Megabytes RAM, 16Megabytes Flash
Ethernet: 10/100 Megabit
Serial Ports: Two
USB Ports: 2 (Plug a USB drive right in)
Digital I/O: 16 Digital I/O (3.3V TTL)
Dimensions 4.0" x 4.0" x 1.3"
Other Hardware: Clock/Calendar, Watchdog, AC97 Audio Line
In/Out

30. WHERE TO GET IT…
Part of the JKMicro product line
http://www.jkmicro.com/products/omniflash.html

31. WHAT IT COSTS…
$199.00
Comes with CD with GNU tools for X86 Linux
(pretty generic)
Turn key out of the box with wall wart power
supply and cables
Numerous Linux tools implemented in BusyBox
A bit more advanced than the previous boards

32. MULTIUSER…
Multiuser login with telenet
Can set up multiple accounts
Impressive for
such a small
unit!…

33. NOW THE UNIQUE

34. RAD750 BOARD
Ready for space…
Sorry, large,
sharp images
are ITAR
restricted!…

35. WHAT IT IS…
Compact PCI Single PowerPC 750
3U form factor
132Mbytes of RAM
128MHz clock, can be dynamically changed
down to 5MHz
256KBytes EEPROM for boot
1 Serial port (3V CMOS)

36. WHAT IT IS…
Standard 33MHz cPCI bus
Includes Double Precision FPU and Altivec
And…
Radiation hard to 1Mrad

37. MORE
Most folks use WRS VxWorks or Green Hills
Integrity
Yes, it has run Linux, and even real time
LabVIEW
Yes, you can run use regular GNU tools
Yup, I ran
gnu on it…

38. THERE’S A SIMULATOR…
High Resolution, real time simulation
Single piece price $250,000 from WRS SIMICS

39. WHERE TO GET IT…
BAE Systems
Check with
Don, he’ll
hook you
up…

40. FINALLY…
Don is a Master Engineer at Orbital Sciences
Orbital is not a sponsor of this show…
www.azlaborlaw.com is a sponsor
Contact for don: don@azlaborlaw.com
Grab these slides at: www.azlaborlaw.com
Questions? Questions
for me or
Don,
anyone?