Open source hardware hobbyists now have a chipset to play with that’s comparable to the powerful processors found in smartphones such as the Nexus One or HTC Incredible.
Texas Instruments has released a new version of its low-power, single-board computer called BeagleBoard-xM. It’s based on the same 1-GHz ARM Cortex A8 processor that drives the most sophisticated smartphones today. That gives it far more processing power than the leading open-source microcontroller platform, Arduino, which many hobbyists currently use to create robots, sensors, toys and other DIY devices.
We’re not sure it makes sense to compare the BeagleBoard with the Arduino, but it keeps coming up in articles.
Adafruit publishes a wide range of writing and video content, including interviews and reporting on the maker market and the wider technology world. Our standards page is intended as a guide to best practices that Adafruit uses, as well as an outline of the ethical standards Adafruit aspires to. While Adafruit is not an independent journalistic institution, Adafruit strives to be a fair, informative, and positive voice within the community – check it out here: adafruit.com/editorialstandards
Stop breadboarding and soldering – start making immediately! Adafruit’s Circuit Playground is jam-packed with LEDs, sensors, buttons, alligator clip pads and more. Build projects with Circuit Playground in a few minutes with the drag-and-drop MakeCode programming site, learn computer science using the CS Discoveries class on code.org, jump into CircuitPython to learn Python and hardware together, TinyGO, or even use the Arduino IDE. Circuit Playground Express is the newest and best Circuit Playground board, with support for CircuitPython, MakeCode, and Arduino. It has a powerful processor, 10 NeoPixels, mini speaker, InfraRed receive and transmit, two buttons, a switch, 14 alligator clip pads, and lots of sensors: capacitive touch, IR proximity, temperature, light, motion and sound. A whole wide world of electronics and coding is waiting for you, and it fits in the palm of your hand.
Have an amazing project to share? The Electronics Show and Tell is every Wednesday at 7:30pm ET! To join, head over to YouTube and check out the show’s live chat and our Discord!
Python for Microcontrollers – Adafruit Daily — Python on Microcontrollers Newsletter: The latest on Raspberry Pi RP2350-E9, Bluetooth 6, 4,000 Stars and more! #CircuitPython #Python #micropython @ThePSF @Raspberry_Pi
EYE on NPI – Adafruit Daily — EYE on NPI Maxim’s Himalaya uSLIC Step-Down Power Module #EyeOnNPI @maximintegrated @digikey
They are orthogonal – the beagleboard is basically a laptop. it can do everything a computer can. it can’t do what the arduino excels at: driving LCDs, motors, LEDs, ‘real time’ stuff, analog inputs, PWM outputs, etc.
Its like comparing a bicycle with a car. yes, they both have wheels, they go on roads and transport ‘stuff’ but they have pretty much nothing else in common.
It’s eerie. Right about the time this was posted I had an idea for a project that required this kind of processing power to pull off.
It also seems to me that TI is trying to be a little more “hobbyist friendly” in some ways. Baby steps, for sure, but I kind of get that feeling. Now if they’d just stop suing people for hacking their own calculators…
Maybe its time for a project to port arduino to beagle board and gumstix.
The beagle board/overo can do pwm ,analog inputs(10) driving leds and motors but the interfacing is a bit more painful and io is limited
(similar number to the smaller arduino boards). Level shifting 1.8V to 5V and 12V takes a bit more work and its wise to opto couple most io.
We’re in the process of building a remotely accessible omap (overo) based experiment/lab for student use which will have pwm control of a dc motor , fan and heater/crystal oven as well as spi control of leds matrixes and spi to read sensors. http://remotelabs.eng.uts.edu.au
This is the io expansion for the gumstix tobi board
It feels like a netbook motherboard with some ARM serial peripherals exposed on a header. Performance is measured in ‘Dhrystone MIPS’, how does that compare to an 8bit microcontroller? Next up, my Dhrystone benchmark sketch for Arduino 🙂
It doesn’t look like BeagleBoard promotes this, and I guess Wired has to appeal to a range of readers with different levels of knowledge. Still, ‘mini open source computer motherboard’ is pretty easy to understand too, though not quite as hip with jargon.
The BeagleBoard does bridge the gap a bit. The obvious functionality is coming down from the computer-like side, but the header includes a bunch of (1.8V) GPIOs and SPI/I2C for connecting A/D converters. With the serial and USB-OTG port, it should be easy enough to put some Arduino-like software on it to make accessing those resources easy, as is suggested above.
What are the major similarities and differences between the Beagleboard and the Arduino? They look as though they are very similar in purpose.
They are orthogonal – the beagleboard is basically a laptop. it can do everything a computer can. it can’t do what the arduino excels at: driving LCDs, motors, LEDs, ‘real time’ stuff, analog inputs, PWM outputs, etc.
Its like comparing a bicycle with a car. yes, they both have wheels, they go on roads and transport ‘stuff’ but they have pretty much nothing else in common.
Thanks for the explanation. Interesting, something else to look into… would that be something you would eventually be selling here?
It’s eerie. Right about the time this was posted I had an idea for a project that required this kind of processing power to pull off.
It also seems to me that TI is trying to be a little more “hobbyist friendly” in some ways. Baby steps, for sure, but I kind of get that feeling. Now if they’d just stop suing people for hacking their own calculators…
Maybe its time for a project to port arduino to beagle board and gumstix.
The beagle board/overo can do pwm ,analog inputs(10) driving leds and motors but the interfacing is a bit more painful and io is limited
(similar number to the smaller arduino boards). Level shifting 1.8V to 5V and 12V takes a bit more work and its wise to opto couple most io.
We’re in the process of building a remotely accessible omap (overo) based experiment/lab for student use which will have pwm control of a dc motor , fan and heater/crystal oven as well as spi control of leds matrixes and spi to read sensors.
http://remotelabs.eng.uts.edu.au
This is the io expansion for the gumstix tobi board
GND
VCC_3.3
GPIO171_SPI1_CLK
GPIO114_SPI1_NIRQ
GPIO172_SPI1_MOSI
GPIO174_SPI1_CS0
GPIO173_SPI1_MISO
GPIO175_SPI1_CS1
GPIO151_RXD1
GPIO148_TXD1
SYS_EN
VBACKUP
GPIO0_WAKEUP
POWERON
GND
VCC_1.8
GPIO128_GPS_PPS
GPIO127_TS_IRQ
GPIO170_HDQ_1WIRE
GPIO163_IR_CTS3
GPIO165_IR_RXD3
GPIO166_IR_TXD3
GPIO184_SCL3
GPIO185_SDA3
GND
VCC_1.8
GPIO146_PWM11
GPIO145_PWM10
GPIO147_PWM8
GPIO144_PWM9
PWM0
PWM1
ADCIN7
ADCIN2
ADCIN6
ADCIN5
AGND
ADCIN3
ADCIN4
V_BATT_5
It feels like a netbook motherboard with some ARM serial peripherals exposed on a header. Performance is measured in ‘Dhrystone MIPS’, how does that compare to an 8bit microcontroller? Next up, my Dhrystone benchmark sketch for Arduino 🙂
It doesn’t look like BeagleBoard promotes this, and I guess Wired has to appeal to a range of readers with different levels of knowledge. Still, ‘mini open source computer motherboard’ is pretty easy to understand too, though not quite as hip with jargon.
The BeagleBoard does bridge the gap a bit. The obvious functionality is coming down from the computer-like side, but the header includes a bunch of (1.8V) GPIOs and SPI/I2C for connecting A/D converters. With the serial and USB-OTG port, it should be easy enough to put some Arduino-like software on it to make accessing those resources easy, as is suggested above.