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The MinnowBoard is a Low-Cost, Open Hardware Single-Board Computer (Video)

Posted by Roblimo on from the open-source-software-is-followed-by-open-source-hardware-like-summer-follows-spring dept.

Out in the Northeast Texas town of Ft. Worth, a company called CircuitCo started making something they called the BeagleBoard -- an open source hardware single-board computer for educators and experimenters. Now, with help and support from Intel, they're making and supporting the Atom-based MinnowBoard, which is also open source, and comes with Angstrom Linux to help experimenters get started with it. David Anders is the Senior Embedded Systems Engineer at CircuitCo. Slashdot's Timothy Lord met David at LinuxCon North America 2013 in New Orleans and made this video of him talking about the recently-released MinnowBoard and the more mature BeagleBoard.

6 of 84 comments (clear)

  1. Deja Vu by khellendros1984 · · Score: 4, Informative

    A little deja vu.

    --
    It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
  2. Pricing! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    Here is what you want to know: the board costs $200 or £135.

    http://parts.arrow.com/item/detail/circuitco/minnowboard

    http://www.uk.farnell.com/circuitco/minnowboard/atom-e640t-platform-sbc/dp/2319581

  3. Low cost? You keep using that word... by FullCircle · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I do not think it means what you think it means.

    --
    If tyranny and oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy. - James Madison
  4. MinnowBoard is weak sauce. by NoImNotNineVolt · · Score: 5, Informative
    The GizmoBoard is also an open source single board computer that you can purchase for $200.

    But it's a 64-bit dual-core AMD APU with an integrated Radeon HD 6250. Considerably more powerful than the Minnowboard, but still runs on 10W.

    Even an article about the MinnowBoard can't help shouting out the GizmoBoard:

    At the heart of the MinnowBoard is one of Intel’s less powerful processors: the Atom E640T. Running at 1GHz, the single-core chip offers a 32-bit x86 implementation – already putting it on the back foot compared to the dual-core 64-bit APU found on rival AMD’s Gizmo, the closest device for comparison – while generating a surprisingly small amount of heat, allowing for passive cooling through a compact heat sink.

    Source

    Basically, MinnowBoard has been outdated for some time now. Not sure why this spam is on the front page.

    Full disclosure: I almost got the GizmoBoard as an HTPC, but the 2GB RAM and lack of HDMI really turned me off. HDMI can be cobbled together (there's a high-speed connector that actually exposes HDMI lines, but you'd have to wire it to a female connector yourself), but swapping out four 96-FBGA surface-mount packages to upgrade the RAM to 4GB just seemed like more rework than I wanted to sign up for.

    --
    Chuuch. Preach. Tabernacle.
  5. Why? $200 = Better Atom Board+RAM on Newegg by ilikenwf · · Score: 5, Interesting

    If I wanted a freaking atom board, I'd buy one for $100 and load it up with another $100 worth of RAM.

    I'm going to keep complaining about the fact that there's not a low power, low cost ARM platform out there ($200 or less) with hardware SATA RAID support. While the cubieboard is the best ATM and supports port multipliers, it's really too bad that the thing can't use both devices attached to the multiplier at the same time. All I want is a hybrid NAS and home server that has 2-4 cores and 2-4gb RAM. Size isn't really a factor but power usage is...

    Anyone know of a platform I've not looked at?

  6. Too Pricey by GeorgeHahn · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Too expensive to matter. It isn't just uncompetitive, it's priced completely out of it's market.