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New $149 NetBSD Single Board Computer Port

Posted by CowboyNeal on from the of-course-it-runs-netbsd dept.

An Anonymous NetBSD User writes "NetBSD now supports a new ARM board, the Technologic Systems TS-7200. The TS-7200 is a low cost ($149!) mass produced embedded single board computer that runs on less than 2 watts of power."

15 of 113 comments (clear)

  1. Direct Link to the Board by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    Is Here

    Keep It Real, Lameness Filter(TM)

    1. Re:Direct Link to the Board by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

      Its 8MB of on-board *FLASH*, not RAM. There is 32MB of RAM. This flash is always on the board regardless of whether the compact flash is populated. There is an RTOS (eCos/RedBoot) on the onboard flash and you can still boot the board via NFS root even without anything in the CF.

      How many microcontrollers do you know of that will run Apache?

      5V power supplies are ubiquitous and can be purchased for like $4 at allelectronics.com. CF cards also and can be purchased for $26 elsewhere, even Target has them. There is nothing about the board that would imply you have to buy the accessories too from Technologic Systems.

  2. Re:Direct Link to the Board and specs by Isosonys · · Score: 2, Informative

    TS-7200 Single Board Computer 200 MHz ARM processor for Linux ARM9 processor with MMU 32 MB SDRAM 8 MB flash drive (16 MB optional) 10/100 Ethernet Compact Flash 2 USB host ports 2 COM ports 20 DIO PC/104 expansion bus Optional A/D and RS-485 Optional 802.11b WiFi

  3. Crack-influenced flash prices... by rossifer · · Score: 5, Informative

    The computer itself seems like a steal for the specs they're claiming but their prices on CF flash are more than a little silly. You can get Sandisk Ultra II 512MB for $60 from any online meta-retailer and these guys are offering an unknown 512MB CF card for $145.

    I've seen this kind of thing from several of these kinds of suppliers and I don't quite get it. They don't seem to realize that things like flash are fully commoditized and are still thinking they can get away with a 100% markup...

    Oh well, if they can actually sell CF at those prices, then they deserve the money. Kudos for such a sweet, low power, inexpensive computer either way.

    Regards,
    Ross

    1. Re:Crack-influenced flash prices... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

      I work at embeddedARM.com, we know we're aren't competetive on CF prices and even suggest to cost sensitive customers to go get their CF's from Costco or what-not. We sell them at all just so we can be the one-stop shop to customers if they need them with the board, and pre-installed with Linux, etc..

      Also, some (not all) of our CF are inflated because they are the the "industrial" class CF's. These have extended rewrite cycles, higher G ratings, and work in extended temperature.

    2. Re:Crack-influenced flash prices... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

      The industrial grade CF's are from San Disk

      http://www.sandisk.com/industrial/flash-drive.as p

  4. SBCs by dmiller · · Score: 4, Informative

    This looks like a nice SBC, but I am really happy with my little Soekris'. With case, the 4501 is cheaper than this ARM board (the board alone is more expensive) and has three ethernet interfaces.

    1. Re:SBCs by batobin · · Score: 3, Informative

      I have to agree. All the networking guys I know love these things.

      I've even talked to one guy who was using one at a remote radio tower which serviced an entire town of wireless users. He had a cheap solar panel hooked up to a little battery, both of which powered the soekris for years without problems.

    2. Re:SBCs by aivarsk · · Score: 3, Informative

      Except that Soekris 4501 uses 5 times as much power as TS-7200. o.O

    3. Re:SBCs by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

      (I work at Technologic Systems)

      We are a company purely of computer engineers and cheap case design is not really our specialty. We are indeed investigating cheaper case designs and 2/3 ethernet variants and in the future will have no trouble undercutting Soekris. :-) This is somewhat of a new market for us as we have traditionally targetted industrial embedded uses (hence PC/104 and RS485 com ports), where 3 ethernets is a bit of an odd request.

  5. Actually, 1.875 Watts. by Perdo · · Score: 2, Informative

    Comparable to VIA's Eden-N at 2.5w at half the size.

    I'm pretty sure NetBSD has already got an x86 port too...

    An extra $50 can buy a lot more technology elsewhere.

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  6. Re:We can run Debian on it already by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    (I work for Technologic Systems)

    I did both the Linux port and the NetBSD port to the TS-7200 so I am uniquely qualified on their differences. IMHO, to an engineer actually doing the work, NetBSD is a far superior OS to port to, at least to this platform.

    The port is not a "we can get it to boot" port of NetBSD. There is installatium medium on a FTP site, a system installation program (sysinst), cross-toolchain support and even support for the ISA (PC/104) bus, which is something that is really impossible right now on Linux due to its x86 assumptions littered throughout ISA drivers. (Ever tried to use inb and outb on an ARM?, there is no such thing! ISA bus space is memory mapped and appears at a different spot depending on 8 or 16bit accesses)

    Although you can run it on Debian, Debian does not support it. I had to do all that work myself, and Technologic Systems is supporting it on this platform. There aren't any TS-7200 kernels on debian.org.

  7. Lower priced board also available. by Sonic+McTails · · Score: 2, Informative

    If you want to go cheaper, got fo an NSLU from Linksys (http://nslu2-linuxorg). It's a 100 dollar ARM board w/ Ethernet, and two USB ports. It comes running Linux, but there has been some work with getting NetBSD running on it according to the mailing lists. It's a 233MHz ARM, 32MB RAM, 8MB Flash. It also has 1 1/2 serial port which you can solder on with little effort. The 1/2 serial port is only pinned out for an RX, no way to transmit with it, so it's kinda useless in that regard.

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  8. Re:Fun! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

    Won't be so fun to have a firewall with a single NIC.

    Might as well get a Soekris net4801 (www.soekris.com). You get two more ethernet ports (three total), a faster processor (266Mhz x86 compat vs. 200Mhz MIPS), more RAM (128MB vs. 32MB), and a compact PCI and a real PCI slot (3.3v cards only).

    It costs $50 more, and you get tons more features, most of which are mandatory for a firewall.

  9. Re:Time to revise these stories by setagllib · · Score: 2, Informative

    This is a single board, not really an arch...

    NetBSD not supporting an architecture means one of two things: (1) the architecture has no processors with an MMU, or (2) no developer has the hardware

    This explains no NetBSD on iPaq/etc for (1) and no NetBSD on ppc64/ia64 for (2).

    As we can see by these examples (especially that nice post by the developer who supported this board under NetBSD), when it does support the hardware, it supports it properly, not just as x86 compatibility. That's the key difference between Linux and NetBSD; NetBSD is an operating system for every architecture, Linux is a kernel that can pretend to understand any architecture. I'll stick to NetBSD, thanks (even on i386 where possible).

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