Intel Releases $99 'MinnowBoard Max,' an Open-Source Single-Board Computer

A few months back, we posted a video interview with some of the folks behind the Linux-friendly, x86-based MinnowBoard. TechCrunch reports the release of a more powerful version of the same all-in-one computer, now with a 1.91GHz Atom E3845 processor. According to the linked article, "The board's schematics are also available for download and the Intel graphics chipset has open-source drivers so hackers can have their way with the board. While it doesn’t compete directly with the Raspberry Pi – the Pi is more an educational tool and already has a robust ecosystem – it is a way for DIYers to mess around in x86 architected systems as well as save a bit of cash. The system uses break-out boards called Lures to expand functionality."

Comments

Interesting timing...

[MindPrison]

...considering the release of Novena. the Open Source Computer: http://dangerousprototypes.com...

One of many

[petes_PoV]

There are plenty of other single or dual processor boards that will run Linux or Android, that are out already. Some are considerably cheaper. Unless the 64-bit Intel architecture is spectacularly more efficient than the A10, A13 and A20s we have access to already it's difficult to see what this board has that the Cubies and Olimex's don't already provide.

Re:"Open source computer"????

[TeknoHog]

There's basically NO open source hardware out there. And if there were nobody would be in a position to do much with it, because it would take a fab to make any change.

• 1. There is the good old solder-it-yourself scene, ham radio style, hardware with a hard H.
• 2. There is a lively FPGA scene, with the complication of mostly closed-source synthesis tools (like compilers). I don't regard this as a huge problem, as long as I can make hardware do what I want. If you're new to the scene, I recommend fpga4fun.

Re:dupes

[the_B0fh]

You are having deja-vu

Re:dupes

[the_B0fh]

You are having deja-vu.

Re:And how, exactly is this better..

[Lisias]

1GB RAM, SATA interface and a 1.5GHz x64 core.

You can easily setup a cheap server or media center with tools you already knows, using a 2 or perhaps 4TB Hard disk and put the thing *INSIDE* the HD case.

One size doesn't fits all!

(and that 2GB RAM with dual core sounds yet more interesting)

Re:"Open source computer"????

[TheRaven64]

We're just about to open source our MIPS IV implementation (I'll post something to Slashdot when it's done - lots of legal paperwork for creating a community interest company to coordinate it and so on). It's written in Bluespec, which is a high-level HDL and very easy to modify (we've been setting an exercise to replace the branch predictor[1] in it to students for a couple of years now and they're able to in a couple of hours and get the required prediction rates).

MIPS IV is nice, because it's a 64-bit ISA that's over 20 years old (the magic number for patents). FreeBSD 10 runs on it out of the box with the BERI kernel config on the Altera DE4 boards and in simulation and 10.1 should include a kernel config for the NetFPGA 10G board. These boards are pretty expensive, but we have a couple of configurations that will let it run on smaller FPGAs. Removing the FPU makes it a lot smaller and you can also build a microcontroller variant (simple static branch predictor, no MMU) that's even smaller. The simulator is slow, but just about useable (it takes about an hour to boot to single user mode, but it's enough for testing).

It's only in the last couple of years that FPGAs have become interesting for this kind of thing. There are a few high-level HDLs appearing, because hardware is sufficiently complex that the traditional approach of throwing it all away and starting again every CPU revision is increasingly impractical. The devices themselves are now fast enough that they're useable for prototyping and getting a reasonable feel for behaviour. We can get 100-200MHz with 4 cores in a single FPGA with the latest generation - not competitive with an ASIC, but fast enough that you can actually use them. I gave a demo that ended up being more compelling than I expected because I was showing people some things running on the UART console and I'd left the network cable connected so the screen kept being spammed with messages about invalid ssh connection attempts. Nothing I was doing said 'this is a real computer' quite as much as people on the Internet trying to attack it...