Thursday, March 10, 2011

Another ARM single board computer (SBC)

This is the i.MX53 Quick Start Board:

Full specifications

This should be a pretty neat SBC. It costs $149 and includes a Freescale 1ghz Cortex-A8 ARM processor, 1GB ram, 4GB microsd card with Linux, 5v power supply with worldwide adapters. Expansion boards include a $49 HDMI output and a $199 4.3 800x600 LCD screen. (Which seems a mite overpriced to me given the glut of under-$50 7" photo frames.)

I've also covered the Chumby Hacker Board here. It's $89, and also includes a Freescale ARM processor but only at 454MHZ, 64MB ram and a 512MB microsd card with Linux. On the other hand, while a lot of the processing specs are lower, the Cumby Hacker Board includes several GPIO connections and is even compatible with Ardunio shields. Could be handy for more low level interfacing than this board.

I have yet to find anyone using these boards in a Ham Radio capacity yet. Rig control, Digital modes, Micro Repeater controller, SDR, D-Star adapter (with dongle), Codec2.. There are a lot of possibilities.

Link to the full information on the i.MX53 Quick Start Board on the Freescale website.
Here's the blog post on the Freescale website that I learned about this board.

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