Low Cost SBC Dev Kits for Embedded App Training?

SmilingMonk writes "The company I work for is looking to train engineers fresh out of school on embedded software development. It seems to be specialized enough field of interest that it might be helpful for some people to 'get their feet wet' developing embedded solutions on in-expensive SBC ^? s before they are handed off to the product lines. A low cost ($400) full featured solution we recently stumbled across is the eCOG1 Development Environment. Yes, we've been to LinuxDevices, but feel compelled to ask which similarly featured low priced SBCs others have used that we could have our trainees develop embedded Linux applications on?"

Comments

fisting the phist poast

[Anonymous Coward]

In response to Phirst Poast above, http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=38874&cid= 4159841

Its not front page because the Slashdot editors are fucking jerkoff sucks. They are fucking biased asshole anime loving fascist totalitarian fucking prick motherfuckers. Communist+fascist. I hate them. I'm no great fan of MSFT, but I wouldn't SACRIFICE MY OWN FUCKING INTEGRITY TO HATE THEM. Look at you fucking SlashFag puke fuck editors, look at your fat selves. Sklashdot dipshits. Horrbile CONJECTURE in "stories." Horrible moderations of comments. HORRIBLE. I used to be a contributing memeber. But after several accounts at 50 Karma, (NOW GAY EXCELLENT) I realized after a few months that Slashdot is a fucking cult shithole. FUCK YOU TACO,DEATH to SLASHDOT

Phirst Poast
MODERATORS Crack smoke wafts though air - Dumb shit moderator - Try to suck less, please
KAZAA Fuck R I A A - Network sold behind their backs - Stupid fucking cunts
Slashdot, Where Editors come to SUCK * * *
HAIKUS
Haiku: to the Slashfags. Fuck slash editors - The cumlicking fags they are - I shit upon them
TACO pondering GOATSE: I stare at the goat - His huge gaping ass so wide - And I want to eat
Haiku: The ancient haiku: - Flame Taco and CowboyNeal - With lame poetry.
CowboyNeal A mountain of fat, - butt cheeks jiggling like Jello. - What an odd poll choice!
CmdrTaco Watching Pokemon - With cum stuck on his goatee. - Newbie loser scum.
Stinky Kathleen Fent Cockeater Taco, - Proposing to Fent online, - I fingered her too.
Rob Malda and Kathleen Fent Chubby breasts, fat ass - Distract us from Rob's boylust. - But they both suck cock!
Taco Tuesday: Too much mexican. - Angry poo, firey hot. - Where's my antacid?
CHOAD licking Taco: Malda in the dark - Swallowing chode for profit - He rips his anus
Fuck KATZ Katz is a Jew - michael is a Mormon - Or is it Timothy?
Martini Fuck off That is fucking good. - I nearly spilt martini - On my nice trousers.
Slap my Ham, rub it off, fuck Spank fast wank it hard - Jerk that dick to Pokemon - Party at Taco's
GOAT I just came again - looking at the goat-see man - more kleenex required
Cock BIRD The Dead Penis Bird - Nailed to the member always - Never falling off
BSD Stare into the night - Sun is setting on your sys - BSD is dead
Michael Michael User Simms - Sifting through all our comments - Censoring bastard
Klerk Trolltalk hard to read - Information desires - Wideness for us all
Cobalt Really tired now - Off to masturbate to sleep - See you at the day
Humorless Moderator Crack smoke wafts through air - Humorless moderator - Why do you hate me?

Taco, I want you to fuck me in the ass please. I am dying to be anally accosted. I want to be ravaged like hog. I want you to dress like a farmer and make me oink like a pig. I want an ass reaming like no other. Taco, I haven't had this kind of lust for you since the crazy college days. We used to butt fuck each other in the stalls. You always told me not to flush and preferred using my feces as apposed to real lubricant. I remember your chocolaty member, your manhood, draped in my feces. Man, Robbie, I remember. I was day dreaming, escaping into a nether world where we used to fornicate, and live in fornicatory bliss. You used to like to keep your tubes socks on to enhance they gay look. We were so flitty and light on out feet. I am so very confused these days. I have difficulty conceptualizing the time that was then in contrast to now. I mean, first you were a raging homosexual, now you deprecate me in favor of this "woman." I know that bitch is a transvestite. You are closeting your homosexuality and denying your roots in my ass!

Don't be fooled! This man knows how to suck a dick. He may nibble, and bite, and pretend to be sheepish at first, but deep down this cock loving acolyte of shaft licks cock like a bar maid.

I am destabilizing. The world is going dark to me. I have scintillating threads of motley thoughts, my ability to control my self evanesces away! I have only an adamantine desire to see your balloon knot once again, and to have you ravage mine! I see a world of GOATS. A goat fucking extravaganza. I invoke the ANUS of DOOM! I hate Taco.

SON of the GOAT, HUGE ASS WIDENER, This is a massive, massive ass attack from the Minister of Goat, Ayatollah man-meat.
Dilated Meat Pie. Most suppressed people really like seeing this. It gives them new masturbatory fodder.
Two cucumbers, better than one. This is to show that the giver is really smaller than what is needed to fill GOATSE man. He east Cheerioatse brand O's
A Disney product right where it belongs. Up a goat's ass. Death to Mike Eisner, the butt buddy of Commander Tak0.
Raw and dilated man-pussy. Put back the trouser snake, Tako. You dick is way too small for this man's ass.
A Prolapsed rectum is sure to whet even the most jaded flaming fuck's appetite. Tak0, your penis is regrettably way too small, even for your "Fianc*e's" unfettered anus. She doesn't want to dirty her ass with the likes of your pathetic member.
GOAT KORAN
Classic HIT ME IN THE SHITTER BABY, UNGH HUH
Classic Oh yeah, in the shitter some more, in the shitter.
Classic More ass stretching goodness.
Female Goater My pussy is too small for this APPLE.
Goatse Grandpas - GRANPA GOAT S3X0R5
Son of a Goat - Holy fucking son of a goat. Kind of looks like Tako from behind, but to be sure I'd have to ask CowGryl Kneel
1 Oh, pardon me sir, would you happen to have any ANAL LUBE?
2 UNGH FART, pssssbt, ungh, tweeep, squeaaaaaak ungh
3 PFFFFFFFFFFT AHH pffft
4 FOOOOOOOOOOOOF blud dribble dribble
Prime Number Shitting Goatse Man See The Prime numbers flow like the river SHIT
Goatse Returns! Fuck yeah, the goat man is a coming back to Trollaxor
I summon the powers of HUGE GAPING ASS!

You Will Love to Goatse on all the things of Internet. Will Search and initiate to new members, and you will show the way to the light When they return of to see our God Goatse, you mock of them. To fuck, to fuck that are shocked the planets!

* g o a t s e x * g o a t s e x * g o a t s e x *
gcccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccg
oc/ccccc\ccccccccccccc\cccccccccccc/cccc\ccccccco
a|ccccccc|ccccccccccccc\cccccccccc|cccccc|cccccca
t|ccccccc`.ccccccccccccc|ccccccccc|ccccccc:ccccct
s`cccccccc|ccccccccccccc|cccccccc\|ccccccc|cccccs
ec\ccccccc|c/ccccccc/cc\\\ccc--__c\\ccccccc:cccce
xcc\cccccc\/ccc_--~~cccccccccc~--__|c\ccccc|ccccx
*ccc\cccccc\_-~cccccccccccccccccccc~-_\cccc|cccc*
gcccc\_ccccc\cccccccc_.--------.______\|ccc|ccccg
occcccc\ccccc\______//c_c___c_c(_(__>cc\ccc|ccc c
accccccc\ccc.ccCc___)cc______c(_(____>cc|cc/ccc c
tccccccc/\c|cccCc____)/cccccc\c(_____>cc|_/cccc c
scccccc/c/\|cccC_____)c_Taco_|cc(___>ccc/cc\ccc c
eccccc|ccc(ccc_C_____)\_ccccc/cc//c_/c/ccccc\ccce
xccccc|cccc\cc|__ccc\\_________//c(__/ccccccc|ccx
*cccc|c\cccc\____)ccc`----ccc--'ccccccccccccc|cc*
gcccc|cc\_cccccccccc___\ccccccc/_cccccccccc_/c|cg
occc|cccccccccccccc/cccc|ccccc|cc\cccccccccccc|co
accc|ccccccccccccc|cccc/ccccccc\cc\ccccccccccc|ca
tccc|cccccccccc/c/cccc|ccccccccc|cc\ccccccccccc|t
sccc|ccccccccc/c/cccccc\__/\___/cccc|cccccccccc|s
ecc|ccccccccccc/cccccccc|cccc|ccccccc|ccccccccc|e
xcc|cccccccccc|ccccccccc|cccc|ccccccc|ccccccccc|x
* g o a t s e x * g o a t s e x * g o a t s e x *

Re:fisting the phist poast

[GreyWolf3000]

This post doesn't deserve a response, but I'm going to give it one anyway.

I realized after a few months that Slashdot is a fucking cult shithole.

If you read your outrageous post, you'll realize that if one were to look down at this entire situation from a 3rd party unbiased eye, your post would seem like one made by a "fucking cult shithead." If you don't like slashdot, leave. I'm really posting this because I was scrolling down the posts and saw ascii art and it ended up being that goatse.cx thing upon closer examination. If you don't like it here, leave OR if you must smear your crap all over, please don't put ascii art in your posts (rest assure your post will get modded down below any normal threshold).

Now, with regards to your complaint about not getting some story up, tough. Get a life--if you complain on one hand that Slashdot is a "fucking cult shithole" and then complain that some story didn't get posted then you have no leverage to make an argument with. So, not only do you have no decent argument, but you have gay p0rn ramblings and ascii art.

On second thought, why am I bothering replying to this nonsense? Oh yeah the ascii art caught my eye, and it turned out to be a picture of a dude prying his asshole open.

Re:fisting the phist poast

[Anonymous Coward]

YHBT YHL HAND.

Keep trying to rack up br0wni3 p01ntz with the Gays that run this hole in the way, butthole surfer. Welcome to a slasshit world where "meritocracy" isn't a word, concept or a dream - its simply unheard of.

Re:fisting the phist poast

[GreyWolf3000]

Dude....its a freaking news site. It doesn't even usually come up with its own articles. It gathers them from the net, and people discuss it. The "Gays" that run it put moderation in the hands of the people that use the site. Their power here is little. You however seem to only want to discuss gay sex and anuses being pryed open and how the management of this site enjoys that in thier spare time. I frankly don't give a shit...I say some ascii art, decided to look, and say an exposed anus. You talk abou how "meritocracy" isn't a word, concept or a dream and yet you post unfounded slander and links to exposed assholes. I think "common decency" is simply unheard of to you.

Re:fisting the phist poast

[Anonymous Coward]

You see, the best thing to do, in the face of totalitarian fascist leadership is to whittle at them, whenever you can, however you can. I fight for freedom from oppression here! I was once a faithful type, going for insightful, informative or otherwise. But a funny thing happens here. If things are well formatted and seem informative, insightful or interesting, but they really aren't, the slashfool crowd mods it up. I have seen so much crap here disguised as real posts for karma whoreing or to show the total weakness in this system. Legitimately criticize the editors or how SlashGarbage is setup, and you get modded down, told to go somewhere else, what have you. I have to see lameness, junk characters , compression filters, and WPL restrictions on legitimate posts. So, as a former legitimate poster, I said, fuck this crap. I'm a good guy being treated like crap. So I turned to the side of the freedom fighters. I will try and widen, abuse, crapflood, and being really foul and obnoxious. This tends to draw mod fire from okay posts that get modded down because of an alternate viewpoint, typical here. This also shows what every fascist fails to learn, the more you try and suppress, the harder people try. These people are arrogant, pompous, and frankly undeserving of the position at the head of the Slashdot user base. We are powerless to the effects and whims of Rob Malda and his fat, disgusting undereducated overzealous bastard friends. His horrible persistence to subjecting the readers to that piece of crap Katz. There are many reasons why this place has gone to shit. One of the main ones is that Malda is probably not hungry (as in, doesn't have to anonymously blow men in stalls in Subways like he used to make rent and afford dinner). He is complacent. The more complacent fascists get, they worse the treat their subjects. So I commit acts of distaste. I point out bullshit comments when I see them. I point out that often the editors bias and attitudes are only those held by pompous assholes in a sheltered work environment in a sheltered life. These disgusting fucks don't have to put up with the crap you do. No, they sold off their dignity with god damn pop up advertising and mass marketing techniques. They sold out, to a not so impressive bidder. And now they are legitimized, the continue to terrorize and vastly innocent and impressionable mean 13 year old "community" with complete lies, crap, wrong opinions and fill them with aspirations to be as they are, and in reality, who these people are fat, undisciplined, unintelligent, incapable of writing HTML code generation that doesn't drastically violate W3C or put random spaces in URLS. These people would never be able to work for a company, they are essentially worthless and incapable of effectively being responsible for the readership. Editors would do real work. Crediting sources. Correcting mistakes. And leaving would be fools, troll, and crap flooders to face -1, not try and limit the crap that they post. Everything about this fuck hole needs revision, revision in code, in leadership, in concept. I can only hope that one of these sexless fuck moderators gets prostate cancer so that one might get a chance to fill the small intellectual void the fat headed moderator just left. These are vile, foul, disgusting, asshole-minded pieces of detritus need to be relegated to the garbage dump from which they were spawned. I really hate these fucking donkey puke assfuckers.

Re:fisting the phist poast

[GreyWolf3000]

Who cares if you get modded down? It's not like you're freedom goes away--quit whining. It's not the end of the world--until your Karma gets below neutral of course (your posts then get ignored because they start at "0"). I always see posts that criticize (without slandering) articles/staff that get 5's. And well-formatted posts make them easier to read. IF you see someone with a "5" and well-formatted garbage, reply and show them how thier argument is bad. If you're ideas are good, well presented, and reflect thought, you're guaranteed at least a "3". Believe it or not, there is a correlation between the time taken to write a post and the thought put into it and therefore the merit of the post. The moderation system is not for people to exert power, supress critizism, or control people (you seem to liken /. to an opressive government). It's to make it easy for users to weed out the unformatted garbage/trolls from the more intelligible and thoughtful posts.

Re:fisting the phist poast

[Anonymous Coward]

The moderation system is not for people to exert power, suppress[SIC] critizism[SIC], or control people (you seem to liken /. to an oppressive[SIC] government).

I strongly disagree. The "mob" here, with an average age of 14, exerts their power on anything that may criticize something childish as such. So there is mobocratic exertion. Criticism? There are moderators here, namely the "editors" [to grossly allow those editors to abuse that term and reflexively refer to themselves a such], who abuse anyone in to negative karma-dom that criticized the system here. I've seen it done. I've even seen Malda setup a script to automod DOWN a post that was getting modded up because the crybaby didn't like the post. As far as controlling people, that is all this place is about. Its allow a gathering of people, who cannot criticize or question the editors, so see the world through the eyes of the editors, and any deviation from that results in down moderation and subjection to a 14 year old mob. By the way, I used to submit meritorious stories, and they were all rejected, and sometimes, they were later used by a more popular submitter. The average fare of stories is crap. I am thoroughly displeased with Slashdot. I hope the editors all get to face real life sooner than later. This is a totalitarian fallacy...

Re:fisting the phist poast

[Anonymous Coward]

"rest assure"

The phrase is rest assured, dumb fuck. It's an imperative, as in "You should sleep well, knowing that..."

How about one that combines GNU training?

[bgat]

[shameless plug]

I'm an embedded development and training consultant. I have a tutorial on my website that features the ARM Evaluator 7T board (about $250) and a complete procedure for building the arm-elf GNU toolchain and debugging a simple "hello, world!" program.

I have both onsite and public training courses available, and I'm working on an elearning site as we speak. I'm also available for just plain old embedded development tasks. See my resume.

The ARM7TDMI chip that the Evaluator 7T uses doesn't have as many peripherals as the eCog chip you mention, but it is a true 32-bit chip with a GNU-supported instruction set and debugging environment. Hard to beat that!
[/shameless plug]

HTH,

LinuxDevices

[GreyWolf3000]

I don't think LinuxDevices can be beat for anything relating to embedded Linux development. Great to learn on too!

Desktop PC?

[d2ksla]

Have you thought about using a regular desktop PC?

You could teach people how to set up a minimal Linux system using their own kernel, busybox etc. As far as embedded hardware goes, I'm sure the parallel port can be one good way of introducing device drivers on several levels. It is fairly simple to understand and program.

Re:Desktop PC?

[bgat]

A desktop PC is a decent place to start, but it simply can't duplicate all the concerns present in an embedded development environment.

For example, it's relatively straightforward to build a native GNU compiler, but much more difficult to build a cross-compiler (one that produces applications for a different architecture than the one the compiler ran on). Unless your embedded system is based on a PC, you will *have* to master the concept of cross compiling before you can get very far.

Also, PCs are pretty limited in the different types of peripheral hardware available, and the ways by which you control them. Writing a Linux interrupt handler is not all that much different from writing a Linux application--- at least by comparison to writing an interrupt handler for a bare-metal embedded setup.

So yes, a PC isn't a bad place to start. But don't stay there long.

Re:Desktop PC?

[d2ksla]

Hey Bill, I enjoyed your lectures at ESC/SF02 :-)

I'm not sure I agree that setting up a GCC for cross-compilation belongs in an introductory embedded course (which is what the poster was looking for). I can do it, but most embedded developers use cross-compilers the company bought or the in-house guru set up. Some link map editing should be enough.

Also, an x86 PC can still be used for bare-bones development using uC/OS-II or RTEMS if that is desireable after the Linux part of the course is over. The uC-OS-II kernel is particularly suited for a course since it comes with a pretty good textbook explaining every little detail about its' real-time kernel.

But if you absolutely have to have non-x86 experience many CPU/DSP companies have low-cost ($100-$200) evaluation boards for their chips that often include a C compiler. uC-OS supports a number of different CPU's.

Re:Desktop PC?

[funky womble]

The Soekris boxes might be good. They're Elan-based (486) single-board computers (not PC/104). They come with 8-bit general purpose I/O, compactflash, RS232, PCI, miniPCI, ethernet, hardware watchdog, and some have PC card support. Console is directed over the RS232 port. Take a look at the mailing list archives for examples of what people are doing with them.

Not directly relevant to learning a Linux based system, but maybe an interesting training tool: old home computers! Some of the Commodore computers (for example C64, VIC20, Plus4) have general-purpose I/O 'user ports'.

BY GNU TRAINING, DO YOU MEAN GAY SEX & NO BATH

[Anonymous Coward]

Coldfire Based Embedded SBC's

[NoAGuru]

Cybertec http://www.cybertec.com.au have a product that is based on open-source software that looks like it would fit your requirements.

Processor = Coldfire 5272
Compiler Tools = gnu (linux or windoze hosted)
RTOS = RTEMS (The best RTOS in the world! http://www.rtems.com)

The cost listed on the web site is $ 525 AUD
(i.e. about $260 US).

I have not used the product but I the company is very active is supporting Coldfire and RTEMS.

Best regards
Paul

ITS A NEWS SITE

[GreyWolf3000]

Ok, since you're first post you're comments have evolved from distasteful ranting and goatse.cx links to strongly disagreeing and giving reasons for it--such disagreements contribute to the community as a whole and if you post such comments in a well-thought out intelligent manner, as I said before you will get modded up. I simply disagree with you because I can't fathom anyone actually enjoying the power trip of slashdot moderation and controlling people on a news for nerds site. It doesn't fundamentally make sense--you're premises therefore don't convince me enough to even conceptualize your conclusion.

BTW "oppressive" was not spelt incorrectly :)

Re:ITS A NEWS SITE

[Anonymous Coward]

You did spell oppressive as "opressive" in CID;
http://ask.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=38792&cid= 4161583; but that will not derail your argument or distract me from reasonable discussion. That*s two "p's," not one.

I personally use my real account and meta-moderate with it. I make every effort to make anything modded down and mark these as "unfair" without looking at the moderated post. It's almost similar to how I vote in "real life." Since categorically all politicians are corrupted to some degree, I screw the incumbent out of office if I know no great love for him. I may be doing the public a disservice in both cases, but 9 times out of 10 I'm not. Moderators here classically are very aggressive to dole out points in a negative fashion. Humans by nature are like this. They would rather trample on others to "get up." I meta-moderate all positive moderations as "fair." This is because there is not enough love here. If "-1" was truly reserved for just crap (disgusting ascii art, offtopic, crap flooding), I would not feel this way. But I feel compelled to read comments, if at all, at -1, because most of the wittiest and acerbic humor and insights come from the bowels of the comments." +5", which I can obtain with almost certainty on my real account [but have now chosen not to be a boot-licking serf anymore and start expressing disgust], is awarded to extremely crafty humorous fast responses, which are rare. The rest of the "+5" high mods are generally doled out to linkers, story re-posters, or Katz like ranters who are pseudo intelligent, horribly deficient in geopolitical knowledge or world politics, ultra left wing idiots, SUV hating dip-shits (eg; those who don*t blame fossil fuels in general but just one vehicle that burns fossil fuels, but they would charge an electric car from a coal factory which is less efficient that an SUV) and other sorts of geek-socialist types. Lots of decent commentary in 3-4 range. Because most people can post at +2, there is a lot of crap in the 1-2 range. But "+5" to me always seems to have a major format-lick-ball-editor-sheeple-emulator feel to it. I'm rarely impressed.

All in all, I do visit Slashdot daily, with very low expectations, a grave hatred for that fucking Mega Tokyo anime shit, and annoyed at ads that my inline html proxy/editor doesn*t catch.

I might suggest Ars Technica: The PC enthusiast's resource,The Register * sure it can be crap, but I like it, * the Inquirer and Wired News. Also, for humor, I would strongly recommend Cliff [& Enoch] Yablonski and of course plain Something Awful.

Seriously, I believe a lot of the Slashdot visitation is by trolls, genuinely decent nerdy types (vast minority, even more minute are the ones who are both nerdy and informed/educated/intelligent), and horribly afflicted pre pubescent teens with raging online hormones due to frustrations in real life.

Its gone from bad to worse. The latest was 50 Karma being "Excellent." Is that like, totally, Bill and Ted's Bodacious EXCELLENT adventure or what dude. Lets go watch Anime before we graduate high school. Oh shit, My DBZ fetish got my grades suck, dude. Ill have to go for my GED over my Wind0Z3 XP machine now and pretend im using Linux, man.

Re:ITS A NEWS SITE

[Anonymous Coward]

Please excuse motherfucking LINKS. It replaced all my proper characters with "*." I wish death on the prick prorgammer who can't even handle high ascii.

TI DSPs

[den_erpel]

We are giving a seminar to a number of engineering students with the same goal and have put a lot of material online.

More information should become online on DSPInfoExchange, but as with most companies, promises, promises, promises... If you are interested, you can always contact me for the rest.

If you have a look at the Texas Instruments website and look for DSP Fest or Developer's Conference, you'll find a lot of relevant material. They promised to release linux tools a couple of weeks ago on the tidevcon 2002 (not the full blown gfx interface, but rather gdb like) for the 'C6000 line. Let's hope they deliver :)

This is rather funny

[GreyWolf3000]

I began thinking you were some troll, and you turned out having a well thought out argument. I'm still not swayed by the whole geek-control thing, but I do agree there are a lot of trolls. I've been doing alot of experimentation of posting and what sort of messages get modded up and in "funny" posts I make fun of blind anti-M$ sentiment and I get modded down and flamed for exactly what I'm mocking...oh well

cross is a must, soft first target second

[push_bp]

Chose the software first (dev and debug tools), then the target. I'm not sure that setting up a cross-dev chain is a must, but learning to *use* some is mandatory. In the gcc chain, at least the binbutils part, there are tools like objcopy or objdump that you may not heard of if you stay with PC/PC. Embedding is cross-compiling. It's not just the same: different object format, static vs dynamic link, endianeness, different library... and then there's the upload to target and debug step. cross/remote-debugging is special: is slows down your code-compile-debug cycle, you may not have the full debuger capability your used to, you may have to write some debuger script to put your target in a known step first. Will you debug via serial with a ROM-monitor of a kind, via ethernet, with BDM, will you use an ICE... So do use a cross-compiler, and do use a remote debuger. You don't have a real contact with embedding as long as you stay PCPC104. PC104 is an industrial reality, but you asked about "learning", not doing actual projects. be assure that someone trained on a cross environment will be at ease in a PCPC setup. Considering the target, wich was your question ine the first place: two criteria comes to mind. - supported by gcc - not Intel x86 architecture (see above: cross!) One of gcc main point is the broad range of CPU family it supports. Just say "32 bit" and gcc is there. So time spent on gcc can be recycled on other CPU. BTW I build my first cross-gcc chain using the excellent (even if at the time these were only draft) documentation from Bill. I now I use the RPM from OAR/RTEMS http://www.oarcorp.com They are available for PC host towards most target CPU, binutils+gcc+newlib. At least Motorola 68000, PowerPC, Hitachi SH, of course Intel x86, ARM I think, MIPS maybe + others?

Hello?

[Anonymous Coward]

Engineers fresh out of school can't handle this simple task on their own?

Quick! Back to the CULT OF EDUCATION!! Four more years and a couple of 10's of thousand$ more in debt, and maybe a decorative diploma to wallpaper their 1 room apt, and you still have to send them on training?

How about hiring a self-taught guy who bought the kit *on his own* to learn because *he likes electronics*, not because he flipped a coin after high school?

I'm really glad I'm out of electronics! It's just a hobby for me now, but I can still slay 99% of the 'engineers' out there.

Flark!

Re:Hello?

[bgat]

Engineers fresh out of school can't handle this simple task on their own?

Nope. And I for one don't have a problem with that.

It's just a hobby for me now, but I can still slay 99% of the 'engineers' out there.

That's exactly the trouble I'm frequently called in to clean up after.

An engineering degree is mostly about training you how to think. You aren't going to learn how to write fault-tolerant code, how to harden a system to survive in an industrial environment, or anything else that's so application and domain specific. Five years just isn't long enough. And with no real practical experience to go along with them, even if you *could* train an undergraduate in those skills, you'd still be wasting your time.

The field of embedded systems is *huge*. It requires continuous effort to stay trained in the latest state of the art as it applies to solving real problems. I'll take a trainable, fresh graduate who realizes he's an idiot, over a garage hacker who thinks that since he can make a few LEDs light up on his Basic STAMP, he's ready to design a diesel engine controller.

I realize that these are sweeping generalizations on my part, ymmv.

Intrinsyc Cerf Cube

[trailerparkcassanova]

Check this out:
http://www.intrinsyc.com/products/cerfcube

Although developing applications for a embedded system does not an embedded developer make. An embedded developer should be able to bring up a brain-dead board/system from scratch. They need to know about init'ing the board; CPU (cache, interrupts, etc), memctlr/memory, peripherals, using FLASH (reading, updating, running code from or copying into RAM), updating NVRAM on the fly, handling interrupts, debugging without an ICE or debugger, etc. Do they need a FLASH file system? They need to know how to get information from a schematic and/or a datasheet. These are just off the top of my head. There's a lot of gotchas that embedded application developers never deal with. So training on a SBC/box/whatever that already has an O/S ported and running doesn't teach much embedded development. The dirty work is already done for you.

Someone mentioned pick the tools first. Well that never happens when you develop systems that are to be produced in volume where cost is the main consideration.

Re:Intrinsyc Cerf Cube

[bgat]

I've got a cerfcube here, it's pretty nice. Their GNU toolchain setup process is kinda brain-dead, but their Linux port isn't too bad. I've heard they're moving to Familiar for their Linux setup, but I haven't taken a look lately to see what progress they've made.

Still, it *is* a StrongARM-powered device. Man, that's one buggy chip! If it didn't have Chipzilla and Micro$oft pushing it so hard, that silicon would have been made into bathroom mirrors a long time ago. Gaaak!

But yea, if you're wanting to get a quick start with embedded Linux, a 'Cube isn't a bad way to go.