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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.
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...
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.
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.
plenty of tiny form factor x86 computers out there in that price range
this has nothing to do with the pi market. zero.
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