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Build Your Own Crusoe-Powered Computer

Posted by timothy on from the lower-your-electric-bills dept.

jonmason00 writes "Just checked the Transmeta webpage, and discovered that they are now offering a Crusoe TM5800 System Development Kit. It's a bit expensive ($995) and you gotta register before you can buy one, but they need your support." How about an Astro development kit instead? :)

7 of 226 comments (clear)

  1. Why bother? VIA has em beat by nweaver · · Score: 5, Informative

    If you want a small, low power platform, look at the latest from Via, which contains 933 MHz processor (C3), USB2, audio, video, TV, ethernet, 1x PCI, in a 17cmx17cm form-factor for $160 from Fry's.

    It definatly blows away that transmeta one: giving more functionality for a fraction of the cost. You can even get slower (~600 MHz) versions which are totally fanless.

    --
    Test your net with Netalyzr
  2. Re:Why? by ksw2 · · Score: 0, Informative
    This is not insightful . There are no mobile Athlon XP or Pentium 4 chips.

    I'm becoming less impressed with Slashdot moderators every day.

    (Lemme guess, this will get -1 Troll *sigh*)

  3. This is just a developer kit by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

    I think most of you guys missed the point. This is not so much for you to build your home entertainment PC, or the next killer desktop machine. Quite rightly, an Intel/AMD/Via solution would be much more cost effective.

    This is here really for smaller manufacturers to have accesses to the technology needed to build their prototypes etc. You prototype your next device using these parts, and when ready to go mass market, you can strike a deal for the CPU's etc. at bulk or whatever.

    This is just a developer kit, it isnt supposed to be really cheap/competitive etc. The value stuff comes when you are buying in bulk later.

  4. Re:They don't need my support by Jennifer+E.+Elaan · · Score: 2, Informative
    Lately I've started a little short-run project, a rather small system where fans are impossible, and even heatsinks are not preferred.

    So I went looking for competitive parts to use as CPU's. Transmeta looks really nice, unless you look closely. I can't find any way to get even proper tech specs (pinouts, etc) without buying a development board. Honestly, they should be up front with all the docs, and the chips should be buyable in small quantities from their page.

    Now, this doesn't help average PC builders, since they are NOT standard pinout compatible. But for embedded hobbiests, it would be a boon. Then again, somebody might adapt some for PC motherboards...

    I eventually just settled on a 133MHz AMD Elan. Nice chip, very highly integrated, slower than the Crusoe but does everything i need. Best part? Docs are right on AMD's page, rather easy to find.

    --

    Hardware, software, and blinking lights!

  5. Re:Why? by Jennifer+E.+Elaan · · Score: 3, Informative
    Reference boards are generally either oversimplified or overfeatured, to give the system designer a quick and dirty overview of how the chip works.

    Funny you mention building a laptop from scratch, I'm currently looking at doing just that. To actually do the build, yes, you need the parts and some PCB facilities and a good solder station or a vapor-phase soldering system.

    But to design them, you can just take the reference board into schematic capture, netlist to a pcb and move the parts around into your new form factor. Often you will hardly need a redesign.

    The chip itself is almost certainly (I haven't worked with the Crusoe, but FPGA's do this) have an external EEPROM or flash ROM to store the configuration information (the code-morph ROM) in. They provide this in binary form, you stick it on the ROM. The system reads it on boot.

    They have NOT released specs on code-morph, so you'd be on your own for reverse-engineering it, though.

    --

    Hardware, software, and blinking lights!

  6. Re:Not meant to replace your workstation by barawn · · Score: 3, Informative

    Development kits separate the programming aspect of bringing something to market from the hardware aspect. If they want to maximize the power usage, they need to figure out how to use LongRun, and also how to use the northbridge aspect of the Crusoe processors.

    They will come up with a custom motherboard fab - they'll be developing it at the same time as the software.

    In addition, development kits usually include schematics and/or gerbers for the actual board itself, which means you get FAR more than a board - you get the DESIGN, which can save a LOT of time.

    In general people will just take the design, and strip off chips they don't need - hence the reason that so many PC boards you buy lack large portions of chips (that, and modularity).

    This is actually cheap for a reference design - look at the uCdimm from Arcturus Networks - the dev kit is $1500.

  7. Re:Or I could try to find a job by barawn · · Score: 3, Informative

    Are you developing a Crusoe based project? No? Then why would you need a DEVELOPMENT KIT? While I appreciate your problems, no one asked you specifically to support them.

    Now, if anyone is reading and is developing a low power x86-based solution, they might be encouraged to get this, because Crusoe is an elegant and expandable solution.

    Transmeta didn't appeal to the geek masses. They appealed to the embedded/laptop masses. And a $995 dev kit isn't expensive. It's cheap.