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Mac mini as Embedded Development Platform

Posted by timothy on from the one-for-each-passenger-in-my-car dept.

Ohreally_factor writes "Peter Seebach has written a paper over at IBM developerWorks on the potential use of the Mac mini as a high-end embedded development board. Quote from the article: 'Comparing it to other embedded systems, you'll find that it's not much bigger, and it's smaller than some. It has a broader array of connectors, a faster processor, support for a very large amount of memory, and comes with self-hosted development tools. In short, if you look at it as an embedded development platform, it's a competitive one.'"

17 of 80 comments (clear)

  1. When I first saw the Mac Mini by ciroknight · · Score: 4, Interesting

    ...I thought of the DARPA project. Or how cool it would be to have a Mac in a car anyways. One button mouse makes it easy to while in a figity car.

    I for one welcome our new Mac Mini overlords.

    --
    "Victory means exit strategy, and it's important for the President to explain to us what the exit strategy is." G.W.Bush
    1. Re:When I first saw the Mac Mini by 99BottlesOfBeerInMyF · · Score: 4, Interesting

      One button mouse makes it easy to while in a figity car.

      More importantly, an interface designed to work with a single button makes specialized interface devices much easier to implement.

    2. Re:When I first saw the Mac Mini by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

      Your 3 first items are all shortcuts.

      Contextual menus are just shortcuts to actual menu bar menu items, or items accessible otherwise.

      Multiple items can be handled in one by one.

      Menu and toolbar items can be removed by other means. Menu apps can be removed from their folder in the file system to keep them from loading. The 'Customize toolbar' mode in applications does not require command-dragging.

      But yeah

      The design of Adobe Photoshop® isn't that great. Many third party apps take privileges that defy accessibility and break standards.

      Critisizing them for that would be a good thing to do.

      J

    3. Re:When I first saw the Mac Mini by argent · · Score: 2, Interesting

      In the Finder the contextual menu is available [...]

      The Finder is not the only application on the Mac.

      In short, the list of things you can't do without a modifier key or a second button has dropped to either zero or near zero in the recent past, at least at the OS level.

      In short, there have always been things you can't do, and more things you can't easily or conveniently do, without a modifier key, and while there are workarounds that make many of them easier if not more convenient... the Mac user interface supports and encourages them.

      The Windows user interface style guidelines actually do more to discourage dependence on the right mouse button (for example, contextual menus are supposed to be mirrored in the main menu) than the Mac HIG discourages use of modifier keys.

      In short, describing the Mac mouse as a "five button mouse with four buttons on the keyboard" (not my phrase, though I may have come up with it independantly... it was originally used by someone in support of the Mac one-button design) is not unreasonable.

  2. Makes sense.... by GregAllen · · Score: 5, Interesting

    For quite some time, we've used PowerBooks as embedded platforms. They are typically cheaper, faster, lower power, and easier to get than similar VME solutions with a PowerPC. Packaging is a bit of an issue, but the benefits have outweighed the problems. There's a large market for embedded x86 PCs, why not PPC with AltiVec?

    --
    Please help find my missing daughter: FindSabrina.org
  3. it's part of the reason i bought one (kind of') by FidelCatsro · · Score: 4, Interesting

    The machine is great , small, compact , silent , powerfull , has a unix with full driver support for all included components ,Excelent development tools and a price that is unmatched in the area .
    I use my mini as a general purpose slim line as well as a digital hub.
    Whilst i read through this , i cant help myself saying "Exactly" out loud , Apple has one hell of a commodity/general purpose computer on its hand in the mini .
    seriously how many other mainstream computers can equaly compete in the Digital hub and embeded development market, OS X allows me the power of a unix system which I use daily and allows the system to be so easy that an adult with no experiance ( children pick GUI navigation up too easily to be worth mentioning) could use it quickly .
    Bravo apple , this machine made me break out the wallet the minute it was announced ,Ive used apple computers for a long time but never have i found an apple that was this versatile .

    --
    The only things certain in war are Propaganda and Death. You can never be sure which is which though
    1. Re:it's part of the reason i bought one (kind of') by FidelCatsro · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Yes for about double the price , ;) i do own an IBM thinkpad from 2003 and i love it to bits , however it realy is not in the same market .The mac mini is no games device granted , but for my needs its a god send

      --
      The only things certain in war are Propaganda and Death. You can never be sure which is which though
    2. Re:it's part of the reason i bought one (kind of') by peragrin · · Score: 2, Interesting

      your right you can.

      of course in order to do so with similar performace you need a machine weighing at 7lbs veruses the 15" power book at 5.6

      You need to carry a spare battery to last roughly the same amout of time on the battery.

      And unless you are running Windows your Driver support is flaky at best.

      Linux is ready for the desktop & server, just not for the laptop.

      --
      i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
  4. OS X "Lite" by bhima · · Score: 3, Interesting
    One of the things I've been coveting since the MiniMac came out is a OS X Lite sort of thing. I thought Win98Lite was probably the most interesting windows thing going when it was current. I really do think a MiniMac could be a great, really cheap reference platform.

    Having said all of that I'm looking forward to PART II!

    --
    Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.
    1. Re:OS X "Lite" by BeerCat · · Score: 4, Interesting

      The problem with a "lite" version is what do you take out? Two different people might both want a cut down version (especially if it cost less), but person A might want to retain a certain feature that person B thought was not required.

      An alternative would be a "what do you not want / need" installer which would run when the machine was first powered up. It would have to include a short sentence or two to explain why you might want to throw out feature X.

      At present, an OS X custom install has a few options (like foreign languages, printer drivers, X windows, BSD subsystem and so on), but nothing as radical as "don't need this - remove"

      --
      "She's furniture with a pulse"
  5. And with the price... by jnetsurfer · · Score: 4, Interesting

    And with the price of the Mac Mini, it's a great way for Unix/Linux developers to test ports of their software to Darwin/OS X, or a great way to learn Cocoa or Mac programming in general.

  6. BRIQ by vasqzr · · Score: 5, Interesting


    What happened to the briQ or whatever from YellowDog?

  7. not written by a Macintosh expert, and that's cool by javaxman · · Score: 4, Interesting
    You know what's most interesting to me about this article? The fact that it's written by a guy who is clearly not actually very expert on things Apple. I find the fact that he's not seriously an Apple guy very cool, and very indicative that Apple's really done something different with the introduction of the Mac mini.

    Don't get me wrong, he knows what's up, but... it's not clear he's an expert in some of the more subtle areas, like Open Firmware- the 'zap the PRAM three times' function is supposed to clear the Open Firmware password, as an example. He seems to be more of an embedded systems guy rather than an Apple hardware geek, that's all.

  8. TAMS 3011 MOAB by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I would have loved to use a Mac Mini for this home-brewed embedded project I have. Unfortunately, the Mac Mini has no PCI support. Instead I'm now using a TAMS 3011 MOAB. It's not as good of a value as a Mac Mini and has some limitations, but it does have PCI.

  9. How fast does it boot? by bergeron76 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    One of the major draws to embedded boards is the boot time.

    Unless it beats my current 3 second embedded solution, I won't be investing in it as an option.

    --
    Don't think that a small group of dedicated individuals can't change the world. It's the only thing that ever has.
  10. How about as a embedded development host? by Onnimikki · · Score: 2, Interesting

    One of the nice things about doing embedded development on Windows boxes is the availability of cheap parallel-port BDM/JTAG interfaces, like Macraigor's Wiggler. Unfortunately there doesn't seem to be an easy way to connect these to the USB ports of any Mac (the parallel port to USB converters that are used for printers reportedly don't work). I'm looking forward to the day that I can buy a cheap USB-compatible Wiggler that GDB can talk to.

  11. Re:Not to rain on the parade, but... by feloneous+cat · · Score: 2, Interesting

    it's a bloody expensive embedded system - most of these are $1-200, not $500. The popular ones are $100 (Rabbit, Arm, AVR, PIC)

    Yup. I've done all of them but AVR. Different type of embedded.

    For example, for $250 we have a Geode running at 233 Mhz. For similar footprint (and faster clock) we are talking in the $500 range or more.

    Rabbit runs like a pig compared Mac.

    --
    IANAL, but I've seen actors play them on TV