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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.
Orders of magnitude more expensive. This should be compared to a $115 dollar laptop or Android device, not a $35 embedded device.
It starts at $157 because you need a connecting board which is $40.
Totally different beast. It might be useful but not as a competitor to Raspberry Pi.
I don't read your sig. Why are you reading mine?
The board itself, which starts at $117
and theres the non-starter. Intel has forgotten the purpose of the Raspberry pi isnt to outperform anything, its to provide affordable low power computing available for a wide array of applications. And FWIW if youre really that squeamish about linux, the Raspberry pi will run Windows 10 (albeit probably not much else after that.)
Good people go to bed earlier.
These boards aren't really *that* type of embedded system. They're more like smaller PCs really. If there's a simple job that would work great on an old/underpowered computer, but which you want to do ideally on low power, and without a huge metal box (perhaps with very minimal I/O usage) then it's a good solution. Especially if it has to display something on a monitor or TV.
If you want lots of advanced peripherals, a lightweight RTOS and such (instead of a more "desktop-like" OS), then you're definitely looking at the wrong thing.
I personally found out I have little use for these things. Most of the "simple computer" tasks I do work better inside VMs (no need for a display mainly), and most of the stuff that involves "serious" I/O and an RTOS is far better suited to ARM Cortex devices.
I don't think too many people will buy it. Sure, it's x86 and fast, but it's much more expensive than a Raspbarry Pi ($157+), to the point where it's not even targeting the same market anymore. It has *zero* GPIO too (so it's really just a small computer), and it just won't have the community around it which is 90% of the Raspberry Pi's value...
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.
Substantially more expensive computer is faster? You don't say...
Next you'll tell me that I can get larger hard drives just by paying more for them; or shovel more packets by telling my vendor to include 10gigE instead of the default gigE NIC.
Snark aside, it looks like they have a perfectly solid little x86 SBC there; but outperforming something that costs 1/3 to 1/4 as much as you do is 'occupying a different niche' not 'destroying'.
The first thing I did was look and see what it had for GPIOs with a small hope that it might even be at some level compatible with the RPi.
None? I might as well buy a cheap mini-itx board.
While I would love more horsepower for some projects I need GPIO's, I2C and SPI for interfacing.
This one's a non starter and certainly doesn't destroy the RPi and as others have pointed out it has no community support whatsoever.
It's 64-bit, supports up to 3 displays at once, 2 sata channels, 5 usb ports, 8 gigs ram, 2.56ghz max speed, and a tiny 6 watts max. Oh, and it supports running VMs.
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
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.
SolidRun x86 Braswell MicroSoM Runs Linux and Full Windows 10, Destroys Raspberry Pi
It starts at $117
Well then it doesn't really destroy Raspberry Pi, then, does it?
Secession is the right of all sentient beings.
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.
Speaking of getting a free built-in KVM console; has anyone ever built a laptop that can act as a KVM? Have a video-in(probably VGA, since that's the lowest-common-denominator and can usually be relied on to exist when you are crash-carting) and a USB slave port; with a button that toggles between normal laptop operation and displaying the video-in on the internal LCD and exposing the keyboard and trackpad/point as USB HID devices on the USB slave port.
Most embedded systems do not required a hard RTOS. Modern systems are fast enough, that you wouldn't care. Dishwasher, microwave, HVAC, watering system, solar control, home automation, entertainment systems, etc all do fine non realtime. Where that fails is in satellite/rocket guidance, autonomous driving/flying and low level robotic control
plenty of tiny form factor x86 computers out there in that price range
this has nothing to do with the pi market. zero.
.
- cost: $117 --- fail
- runs full Windows 10 --- irrelevant
- significant (outstanding?) maker community support --- fail
.
So that's a minus 2.5 out of a possible 3. Not a fail, but an abundance of hype.
"Industry experts"...as in, vendor salesmen anxious to sell you their stuff you can't possibly live without?
Ezekiel 23:20
At $157 why would it ever be compared to an RPi??
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
So does this SoM have a detailed datasheet on how to interface and boot it or will that require a NDA like everything else that Intel releases? What about drivers, are they open source or binary blobs?
Just looking out for my freedoms.
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
What you're saying goes 100% against every book I've read, every professor I've talked to, every lecture I've attended, all industry experts and so on...
A true example of the "If you can't do, teach" joke.
Also maybe you should find some better books. Not only is offloading realtime to dedicated processors very much the industry norm, the fact you say "crappy" when talking about 8 bitters shows how little you know of the topic, and the fact you said "8 bitters" shows how little you know of the world.
The board itself, which starts at $117, will not operate on its own. To make it a full-fledged usable device for projects and other uses, you must add the SolidPC Q4 single-board 'carrier' computer which is $40. In other words, you are looking at a minimum of $157
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Looks interesting... I've pre-ordered two (both cpu models, 4G) for DragonFlyBSD, we'll get it working on them. Dunno about the SD card, but a PCIe SSD would certainly work. BIOS is usually the sticking point on these types of devices. Our graphics stack isn't quite up to Braswell yet but it might work in frame buffer mode (without accel). We'll see. The rest of it is all standard intel insofar as drivers are concerned.
My network dev says the Gigabit controller is crap :-) (he's very particular). But for a low-end device like this nobody will care.
All the rest of the I/O is basically just pinned out from the Intel cpu. Always fun to remark on specs, but these days specs are mostly just what the cpu chip/chipset supports directly.
I'm amused that some people in other comments are so indignant about the pricing. Back in the day, those of us who hacked on computers (Commodore, Atari, TRS-80, Apple-II, later the Amiga, etc) saved up and spent what would be equivalent to a few thousand dollars (in today's dollars) to purchase our boxes. These days enthusiast devices are *cheap* by comparison. My PET came with 16KB of ram and a tape cassette recorder for storage, and I later expanded it to 32KB and thought it was godly.
-Matt
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
There is no excuse for "I cant buy one" except laziness.
You can even check if they are in stock in major suppliers here - http://whereismypizero.com/
Sure, you cant buy them in batches ( 1 per customer), but i got mine in Pimoroni and arrived in 2 days.
But it's not that much better. A 30 dollar device is nearly as good as a 157 dollar device, if not better due to GPIO and a massive community. Why waste so much money? If you want an atom based computer for 150 bucks, buy a netbook. That at least comes with a screen.