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SolidRun x86 Braswell MicroSoM Runs Linux and Full Windows 10, Destroys Raspberry Pi (betanews.com)
BetaNews has a report today about a company called SolidRun, which has announced an Intel Braswell-based MicroSoM. Unlike the ARM-powered Raspberry Pi, this is x86 compatible, meaning it can run full Windows 10. Plus, if you install a Linux distro, there will be far more packages available, such as Google Chrome, which is not available for Pi. Heck, it can probably serve as a secondary desktop, Brian with the site writes. From the report: At 53mm by 40mm, these new MicroSoMs provide unheard of design flexibility while also eliminating the headache of having to design complicated power-delivery subsystems thanks to its single power input rail design. SolidRun's Braswell MicroSoM also offers flexibility in RAM options, ranging from 1GB to 8GB configurations, and offers on-board support of eMMC storage up to 128GB. Its robust design and unsurpassed HD Edge surveillance, event detection, and statistical data-extraction capabilities makes it the platform of choice for mission-critical applications requiring guaranteed reliability," says Solidrun.It starts at $117, the website has more details on specifications.
It starts at $157 because you need a connecting board which is $40.
Would you not want to run a real RTOS on an embedded system?
Many embedded applications are not "real time". Even those that are, will often offload the RT functionality to an 8-bit AVR or PIC, or an FPGA, and then run Linux to handle the high level stuff on the ARM or x86. I have developed embedded systems, including mission critical hard real-time, for more than 20 years, and I have never used an RTOS in a final product. They raise the cost, reduce reliability, and are hard to debug.
Big difference: The RaspberryPi has TTL I/O. This makes it easy to do any of a wide variety of hardware interfacing. This new board only has UART ports, which means if you want to do an easy hardware project, you need another microcontroller, tool-chain, etc.
There is a definite market for prototype devices that talk Ethernet, WiFi, UART, SPI, I2C and hardware I/O too. The Raspberry Pi does that well, and inexpensively.
From the sounds of the article it doesn't include a case, RAM or storage in the price.
So basically it's a barebones mini PC, competing with Intel NUC or Gigabyte Brix and at roughly the same price as their entry-level models.
"Raspberry Pi" only adds to the clickbait.
Not quite true A.C. The instructions for those old 8-bit CPUs could be synchronized down to a single clock tick (basically crystal accuracy), thus allowing perfect read and write sampling of I/O directly. We could do direct synthesis and A/D sampling, for example, with no cycle error, as well as synchronize data streams and then burst data with no further handshaking. It is impossible to do that with a modern CPU, so anything which requires crystal-accurate output has to be offloaded to (typically an FPGA).
RTOSs only work up to a point, particularly because modern CPUs have supervisory interrupts (well, Intel at least has the SMI) which throw a wrench into the works. But also because it is literally impossible to count cycles for how long something will take. A modern RTOS works at a much higher level than the RTOSs and is unable to provide the same rock solid guarantees that the 8-bit RTOSs could.
-Matt