what is the best SBC?

h s

Intel processors datasheet are freely available:

happy reading ;)

Bye Jack

I know their processors' documentation is public. How is it with the peripheral chips, e.g. display controllers - theirs and from other vendors.

How is it with the wifi chips you find on this "SBC", are they documented.

Dimiter

ash

th

is

You mean like the SoC of the RPi? (or at least the GPU part).

Bye Jack

It really depends what you want to do, but arguably they're just fine as computers. They run code that you load on to them. You might not replace the operating system, but then there are lots of embedded systems that run Windows and nobody tinkers with the bootloader. They have their niche, just like any system.

For instance they're really good at graphics and UI - much better than anything you could cook up by writing bare metal code. Where once a piece of equipment would have an 8-bit microcontroller, a two line LCD and three buttons you press in bewildering combinations, or later Windows XP with keyboard and mouse, now it can have a touch panel and run Android or Windows

2. Notwithstanding that you can compile your Android kernel and OS from source if you really want to, an app can implement your application on top of the facilities provided by the base OS. If you need special hardware you can add that and write the necessary drivers.

However I'd say one distinction is about supply chain. These are /consumer/ products - here today, gone tomorrow. Likely Android will be around for years in some form (like Windows CE is still), but basing your product on the hottest tablet of 2017 is pretty risky because it likely won't last more than a year. Similarly, as consumer products they aren't really set up for the rough and tumble of industrial life, nor are they designed for integrating into larger systems. So they are 'computers', but they aren't /industrial/ computers,

Theo

Then don't base the *product* on the tablet; rather, base the product on an abstraction that the tablet can reify.

E.g., I exploit lots of consumer kit (think: dirt cheap, almost disposable) for UI's. As long as I can port my "UI services" to , I don't care exactly *what* that happens to be.

[Of course, I go to great pains to decouple the implementation from the supporting hardware/software/OS]

E.g., I use a variety of PDA's (in lieu of smart phones) as little "wireless graphic terminals". They run different (native) OS's but each run the same look-and-feel "application" (that implements the GUI).

This week, port the GUI to a rescued Nook Color. Different manufacturer, size, shape, battery life, etc. But, same "application" (which, obviously, knows how to adapt to different screen sizes and aspect ratios).

*Next* week, it may be a Toshiba tablet, etc.

You'd be amazed at how many industrial processes are controlled by consumer kit! Typically, a developer got the "Great Idea" that he could leverage all this UI stuff by repurposing some COTS product. *But*, then followed this with the Bad Idea of developing the product *on* that device -- inheriting all of its limitations (instead of just cherry-picking the good bits).

Sort of like the "let's use a COTS SBC -- but, STILL have to design and layout our own custom 'daughter card' cuz the SBC doesn't have just the right mix of I/O's". (Then, being stuck with that particular SBC because you didn't make a deliberate effort to decouple the design from the base hardware/software)