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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.'"

31 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 argent · · Score: 4, Informative

      Name one; I'm using my iBook as of current, and I can see almost anything I would need to use a second click for in a menu somewhere.

      You need control-click to bring up contextual manus in many situations. Click-and-hold doesn't work.

      You need command-click or shift-click for multiple selections.

      You need command-click to move or remove menu-bar objects.

      You need control, shift, and option-click all over the place in Photoshop... long one of the "killer apps" for the Mac. In other apps I've run into as much as 2-keys-chorded-plus-double-click.

      In OS 9, which was more consistent about this than OS X, you needed option-click to move the control strip.

      That's just off the top of my head.

    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?

    --
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    1. Re:Makes sense.... by SA+Stevens · · Score: 2, Insightful

      In most instances VME form-factor hardware is rated to a very high reliability. Likely more than a consumer-grade Powerbook.

      Probably a useful cheap-and-dirty solution, though.

  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"
    2. Re:OS X "Lite" by Frodo+Crockett · · Score: 4, Funny

      What the frack is a MiniMac ? This reminds of people who say "American Online" instead of America Online ...

      That's not so bad. I work in retail, and I have to put up with people who say "98 Windows" on a regular basis. Also note that "Lexmark" is frequently mis-pronounced as "Lensmark", "Lamar", and, inexplicably, "Linux". Were it not for my Jedi training, I fear I might do something rather violent to these people.

      --
      "The newly born animals are then whisked off for a quick run through a giant baking oven." --heard on Food Network
  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. How does it go again... by iluvcapra · · Score: 5, Funny

    No 9 pin, less space than a Cappucino. Lame. :)

    --
    Don't blame me, I voted for Baltar.
  7. BRIQ by vasqzr · · Score: 5, Interesting


    What happened to the briQ or whatever from YellowDog?

    1. Re:BRIQ by Frequency+Domain · · Score: 5, Informative
      What happened to the briQ or whatever from YellowDog?
      They priced themselves right out of the market. They were asking about $1300, if memory serves, for a 400Mhz G3, and about $500 more to upgrade it to a G4. And that was after their "big price drop." It reminded me of the old joke about trying to make a profit from each of your customers, as opposed to from all of them.
  8. that would make it by b17bmbr · · Score: 3, Funny

    the world's biggest wristwatch

    --
    My problem? I was perfectly gruntled, until some numbnuts came by and dissed me.
  9. 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.

  10. 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.

  11. Oh well... by curious.corn · · Score: 3, Insightful

    very true, a mini is a hell of a cool device but I only wish for someone to discover an unfinished header port on the mini's logic board and find out it's a JTAG. Now, that'd make the mini the most 'leet toy ever (it makes debugging a live OS the same as with your user level app... but you can mess with the ram, chipset, CPU, rollback contexts, like the CPU light panels on '70 room sized mainframes... wet dreams... wet dreams ;-) )

    --
    Mi domando chi à il mandante di tutte le cazzate che faccio - Altan
  12. 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.
  13. OSX == OSX Lite by bill_mcgonigle · · Score: 5, Informative

    OSX is built on Darwin, the BSD/Mach core.

    But drop to a shell and look around - everything is Unix, you can tweak the text-based config files, specify which extensions load, which daemons start, whatever you want.

    There's no voodoo here - so no need for Win98Lite style utilities.

    If you want a simple GUI use X11. If you want Aqua, set autologin and remove all the apps that shouldn't be there.

    For embedded, the cost of Aqua over X11 (OSX over Darwin) may be too high, especially if you can source Mini motherboards directly.

    --
    My God, it's Full of Source!
    OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
  14. Re:Not to rain on the parade, but... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    Ummm... PIC, AVR, dude, those are pee shooters, of course they are going to be cheaper, they aren't even in the same league. You cannot find a single board computer that runs at 1.25 Ghz, has 256 MB DDR, 32MB Graphics, firewire, USB, 100BaseT, etc. for the same price as the mini. Freescale has their MPC5200 Lite board with a 400 Mhz PowerPC processor for $1000.

  15. Re:Nope by bussdriver · · Score: 2, Insightful

    HIGH-END embedded systems.
    they are NOT cheap.

    --
    Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
  16. 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.

  17. The mac isn't limited to one button by arete · · Score: 2, Insightful

    MacOS has supported _12_ mouse buttons for years - it might be more now. Of course, this is assuming the application has something to do with 12 mouse buttons.

    Here's what you do: Buy a mac mini. Buy a USB mouse with more buttons. Plug it in. Done.

    Apple specifies that basic application functions should be available with a single button - so that novice users can always use the apps, and to discourage arbitrarily hiding functions in context-menus.

    Generally the context-menu (right-click) is ALSO mapped to ctrl-click. The middle click is mapped also, but I can't remember if it's mapped to option/alt or to cmd/appl.

    As to Photoshop - compared to PCs, I think they're essentially even, because Macs have an additional modifier button - shift cmd/appl, option/alt and ctrl

    --
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  18. Re:Not to rain on the parade, but... by Space+cowboy · · Score: 2, Informative

    And a huge percentage of the embedded market is done with those 'pea shooters' . My point is that in the embedded market, speed/RAM size, whatever isn't anywhere near as important. Cost is.

    If you wanted a consumer-grade device, there may be an argument, but embedded is (very!) rarely such a resource hog. There is also always a mini-itx type for $100->$200 depending on what you want. Ok, add $40 for 256 MB RAM, and it runs a little slower at (up to) 1GHz but you do get firewire, USB, 100-BASET (up to 4 of them IIRC), TV out, MPEG hardware decoding, LVDS i/o, general purpose i/o (important in embedded), FIR, CIR, audio jacks, and access to more disks...

    Or you could pay 2-5 times the price and get a mini (with a DVD-ROM bundled).

    Simon

    --
    Physicists get Hadrons!
  19. Dual Ethernet Ports by eluusive · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I'd buy one if it had two ethernet ports. Think of what a leat--yet small--router you could have. My current webserver/router/firewall/dhcp/dns/etc server is a 466mhz celeron I found in a dumpster and replaced the hard drive on. heh. At least it has two NIC cards though.

  20. 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
  21. Better than a self-hosted web-cam by JawzX · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Mac Mini (w/ airport) + iSight + Darwin Streaming Server = Kicks any self-hosted web-cam's ass. As matter of fact we just did one of these for a local bar. It was a little more expensive than a self hosted cam, but it does synched audio, supports simultanious streams at different bandwidths, and can handle more than twice the user load. It sits headless on a shelf high on a wall, the iSight right next to it, it connects to the network wirelessly and we VNC into it... it's a perfect comodity device!

    --
    A Call For A New Slashdot Moderation Level!
  22. I have to authorize purchases, and... by rice_burners_suck · · Score: 3, Informative
    The only problem with using an Apple box as an embedded platform is this: By the time you release your product, based on the Mini, Apple will discontinue it and start developing something else.

    The iMac got replaced. The Mac Cube is long gone. The lampshade is on its way out. Apple constantly innovates and comes out with something new. In embedded systems, you need something that probably isn't as exciting as an Apple system, but that will remain stable and available for years to come, with no or minimal changes. Otherwise, you are asking for trouble.

    As NASA said, test what you fly and fly what you test. You can't design something, change the computer at the last minute, and expect it to be fine, even if all the software still works. There are electrical noises, temperature considerations, EMI, RFI, and all kinds of other fun things that will keep you chasing shadows for months. Embedded projects fail over this kind of thing.

    I would LOVE to use some Apple box in an embedded system... but Apple would have to release such a box as one that is INTENDED for embedded applications, and they would need to promise continued production for a number of years.