Re: Industrial Single Board Forth Computer - recommendations?

From	Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid>
Newsgroups	comp.lang.forth
Subject	Re: Industrial Single Board Forth Computer - recommendations?
Date	2015-06-26 12:58 -0700
Organization	A noiseless patient Spider
Message-ID	<87k2uqw8c6.fsf@nightsong.com> (permalink)
References	(9 earlier) <mmehg9$rf5$1@dont-email.me> <87616cyde1.fsf@nightsong.com> <mmfbec$91c$1@dont-email.me> <87wpyswudg.fsf@nightsong.com> <mmfjqg$2si$1@dont-email.me>

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rickman <gnuarm@gmail.com> writes:
>>    http://www.glomationinc.com/products/index.php?n=SBC.GESBC-9G20w
> That is an ARM9 which is still far short of the ARM11 and such used in
> the products we are talking about.

Yes, ok, it's maybe 3-5x slower than a Rpi, but still plenty fast for
what we were doing with it.  I don't know how it compares in power
consumption.  The hardware itself is potentially cheaper too (we did
build some comparable boards ourselves).  The Rpi wasn't available at
the time of that project but maybe we'd have used it if it had been.

> My immediate use is from a potential customer who wants an rPi (mostly
> for the Ethernet interface) along with a push button or two in a box
> shielded from the elements.  I am thinking of making this a standard
> product, but to meet the environmental requirements I would need an
> extended temperature range which the rPi won't support.

Ah cool.  If it's a general purpose box and you're not too
size/cost/power constrained, then you might as well use the more
powerful board.  The BBB has some nice features like the PRU realtime
coprocessors that could be useful for some control applications too.
The Seeed version (Beaglebone Green) has a realtime clock and it would
be nice if the industrial version had one too.  That's missing from both
the regular BBB and the Rpi.

> I think the only thing cutting edge about either is the price point.
> No one had anything with that much power for under $50.

Yeah but there were lots of less powerful Linux boards in that price
range (ARM9/64MB feels about like a small modern VPS) that could still
be programmed with the usual Linux languages and tools.  The Rpi was/is
stupendously powerful compared to what we were used to thinking of as
control boards.  It crushes the workstations and servers from the
early-2000's dotcom era, and software and apps haven't changed *that*
much since then.

IMHO people got excited by the Rpi mostly because they could run desktop
bloatware and media players on it, and it's also nice if you want a
small Linux server with a web interface, database, etc.  For controlling
stuff, it's almost like a GA144: one is first amazed by the amount of
cpu cycles available, but then figuring out what to do with it (outside
of some niches) turns out to be a head scratcher.  It's not like a fast
DSP that you can do SDR or whatever with, since it's general purpose
computing under a multitasking OS.

Have you really thought of a Forth program that's going to use 512MB of
ram?  For most control purposes I'd probably rather have a smaller,
slower board that uses 1/10th as much power.

> The only thing I can't do is to reset the Stellaris board remotely.  I
> was working on getting a powered hub that would support cutting power,

There are various ready-made Rpi expansion boards with relays on them,
or I'm sure you could wire something up to a gpio pin for that purpose.

Thread

Industrial Single Board Forth Computer - recommendations? Howerd <howerdo@yahoo.co.uk> - 2015-06-17 04:35 -0700
  Re: Industrial Single Board Forth Computer - recommendations? Mark Wills <markwills1970@gmail.com> - 2015-06-17 05:21 -0700
  Re: Industrial Single Board Forth Computer - recommendations? Raimond Dragomir <raimond.dragomir@gmail.com> - 2015-06-17 08:57 -0700
  Re: Industrial Single Board Forth Computer - recommendations? Jason Damisch <jasondamisch@yahoo.com> - 2015-06-17 10:58 -0700
  Re: Industrial Single Board Forth Computer - recommendations? Jan Coombs <Jan-54 <jenfhaomndgfwutc@murmic.plus.com>> - 2015-06-17 22:39 +0100
    Re: Industrial Single Board Forth Computer - recommendations? Raimond Dragomir <raimond.dragomir@gmail.com> - 2015-06-17 23:10 -0700
      Re: Industrial Single Board Forth Computer - recommendations? rickman <gnuarm@gmail.com> - 2015-06-18 16:24 -0400
  Re: Industrial Single Board Forth Computer - recommendations? rickman <gnuarm@gmail.com> - 2015-06-18 16:17 -0400
    Re: Industrial Single Board Forth Computer - recommendations? Howerd <howerdo@yahoo.co.uk> - 2015-06-20 07:49 -0700
      Re: Industrial Single Board Forth Computer - recommendations? Raimond Dragomir <raimond.dragomir@gmail.com> - 2015-06-20 09:36 -0700
        Re: Industrial Single Board Forth Computer - recommendations? Howerd <howerdo@yahoo.co.uk> - 2015-06-20 13:40 -0700
      Re: Industrial Single Board Forth Computer - recommendations? rickman <gnuarm@gmail.com> - 2015-06-20 13:00 -0400
        Re: Industrial Single Board Forth Computer - recommendations? Howerd <howerdo@yahoo.co.uk> - 2015-06-20 11:13 -0700
          Re: Industrial Single Board Forth Computer - recommendations? rickman <gnuarm@gmail.com> - 2015-06-20 15:04 -0400
        Re: Industrial Single Board Forth Computer - recommendations? Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2015-06-20 20:25 -0700
          Re: Industrial Single Board Forth Computer - recommendations? Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2015-06-20 20:34 -0700
          Re: Industrial Single Board Forth Computer - recommendations? rickman <gnuarm@gmail.com> - 2015-06-23 09:40 -0400
            Re: Industrial Single Board Forth Computer - recommendations? Raimond Dragomir <raimond.dragomir@gmail.com> - 2015-06-23 08:29 -0700
              Re: Industrial Single Board Forth Computer - recommendations? rickman <gnuarm@gmail.com> - 2015-06-23 13:40 -0400
                Re: Industrial Single Board Forth Computer - recommendations? Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2015-06-23 13:42 -0700
                Re: Industrial Single Board Forth Computer - recommendations? Raimond Dragomir <raimond.dragomir@gmail.com> - 2015-06-24 07:11 -0700
                Re: Industrial Single Board Forth Computer - recommendations? rickman <gnuarm@gmail.com> - 2015-06-24 11:15 -0400
                Re: Industrial Single Board Forth Computer - recommendations? Raimond Dragomir <raimond.dragomir@gmail.com> - 2015-06-24 10:16 -0700
                Re: Industrial Single Board Forth Computer - recommendations? rickman <gnuarm@gmail.com> - 2015-06-24 17:54 -0400
                Re: Industrial Single Board Forth Computer - recommendations? Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2015-06-24 15:01 -0700
                Re: Industrial Single Board Forth Computer - recommendations? rickman <gnuarm@gmail.com> - 2015-06-24 18:38 -0400
                Re: Industrial Single Board Forth Computer - recommendations? Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2015-06-24 16:37 -0700
                Re: Industrial Single Board Forth Computer - recommendations? rickman <gnuarm@gmail.com> - 2015-06-24 21:01 -0400
                Re: Industrial Single Board Forth Computer - recommendations? Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2015-06-26 12:58 -0700
      Re: Industrial Single Board Forth Computer - recommendations? Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2015-06-20 12:24 -0700
        Re: Industrial Single Board Forth Computer - recommendations? Howerd <howerdo@yahoo.co.uk> - 2015-06-20 14:03 -0700
          Re: Industrial Single Board Forth Computer - recommendations? Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2015-06-20 15:03 -0700
          Re: Industrial Single Board Forth Computer - recommendations? Raimond Dragomir <raimond.dragomir@gmail.com> - 2015-06-21 01:33 -0700
            Re: Industrial Single Board Forth Computer - recommendations? rickman <gnuarm@gmail.com> - 2015-06-23 09:47 -0400
  Re: Industrial Single Board Forth Computer - recommendations? darek.maksimiuk@gmail.com - 2015-06-30 13:52 -0700
    Re: Industrial Single Board Forth Computer - recommendations? visualforth@rocketmail.com - 2015-07-01 10:45 -0700
      Re: Industrial Single Board Forth Computer - recommendations? Howerd <howerdo@yahoo.co.uk> - 2015-07-01 15:01 -0700
        Re: Industrial Single Board Forth Computer - recommendations? visualforth@rocketmail.com - 2015-07-01 18:14 -0700
          Re: Industrial Single Board Forth Computer - recommendations? Mark Wills <markwills1970@gmail.com> - 2015-07-02 00:49 -0700
            Re: Industrial Single Board Forth Computer - recommendations? Howerd <howerdo@yahoo.co.uk> - 2015-07-02 03:02 -0700

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