[time-nuts] single board PCs

[Chris Albertson]

There is not "hottest ticket".  It depends on what you need.  The TI
"launch pad" is less then $5 shipped which makes it really popular.   If
you need loots of compute power and have an $85 budget and can stand a 9"
square PCB buy an Intel Atom motherboard it comes with dual core Atom CPU
soldered down and will run a full-on Linux server.  If you just need a
small computer with a nice display any Android phone works and of course
Androids all run Linux.  Arduino is nice because the software is set up for
some one who know ZERO about computers and programming but is still quite
powerful and yo can run the programmed Arduino off a 9V battery

Of those for your use, just buy the miniITX/miniATX with a USB or SD "disk
drive".  Cost is under $100 and they burn about 20W of power.  The
little launch
pad chip will goes for months (years?) on AA battery power.

I think as a general rule ofthumb the bigger the computer the less cost for
make the software.  For example a NTP server is trivial if you have an
miniATX board because NTP ships with Linux but it might take a couple man
years of effort to code an NTP sever on a Up that ha the same level of
maturity and testingas the free NTP you get with Linux.   That is a quarter
of a million dollars in saving.  (yea it does that at least that much
labor, just try and write a test plan the NTP and then execute it.  It
would take months to verify you have covered all the odd-ball failure cases
and done the error reporting correctly, let alone measure the timekeeping
accuracy.

Don't discount using a smart phone.  This is likely betterfor many things
then the miniATX  build your specialized hard ware then connect via USB BT
or WiFi to the phone.


On Sun, Jan 6, 2013 at 4:25 PM, Jim Lux <jimlux at earthlink.net> wrote:

> Consulting the hive mind..
> If you're building a standalone widget (e.g. something like an NTP server
> we've been discussing,  etc.)  with an embedded PC, don't want to fool with
> hardware designing, etc.; use off the shelf OSes (win and Linux) and
> software (Matlab, Labview); have solid state boot/storage media.. No user
> interface needed (access is solely via network)...
>
> What's the hot ticket these days..
> One of the CarPC things (most are a miniITX/miniATX with a USB or SD "disk
> drive"). (This is what I used last time)
>
> Raspberry Pi is a possibility, but I don't know that it has the oomph to
> run things like Matlab: and I suspect it doesn't run Windows....
>
> I'd like something I can just order and give to the software guys to start
> coding on (they're using Matlab, Labview, and Python, in various
> combinations).  Eventually, it will  be packaged "inside the box" which is
> about 10x10x3" along with the GPS receiver and other measuremnet stuff (an
> FPGA with counters and the like). The FPGA will use USB for an interface (I
> think..)..
>
>
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-- 

Chris Albertson
Redondo Beach, California