Raspberry Pi ARM Single-Board Computer

This is the Alpha prototype board according the the wiki.

This is a very low cost ARM SBC that is being developed right now. It is unreleased but once it comes out, there could be a multitude of applications in Ham Radio for it. They are talking about making two versions, Version A for $25 and Version B for $35.
Here are the "Provisional Specifications" from the community written wiki

• 700MHz Broadcom media processor featuring an ARM11 (ARM1176JZF-S) core, Broadcom GPU core, DSP core and support for Package-on-Package (PoP) RAM
• 128MiB (Model A) or 256MiB of SDRAM (Model B), stacked on top of the CPU as a PoP device
• OpenGL ES 2.0
• 1080p30 H.264 high-profile decode
• Composite and HDMI video output
• One USB 2.0 port provided by the BCM2835
• SD/MMC/SDIO memory card slot
• General-purpose I/O (About 16 3v3) and various other interfaces, brought out to 1.27mm pin-strip
• Optional integrated 2-port USB hub and 10/100 Ethernet controller (Model B)
• Open software (Ubuntu, Iceweasel, KOffice, Python)
• Capability to support various expansion boards

Anyone's guess if it will come out at the price point they are hyping up. In my experience stuff like this tends to slip into higher price ranges when people get excited about it. Kinda like electrons jumping into higher orbits.

Besides including 256MB RAM, the B version is also suppose to have a chip on board that is a 2-port USB hub and ethernet controller. I'm assuming the ethernet will also use your USB bandwidth.

It is interesting to me that they are stacking the RAM chips right on the processor. That should save some space at least! The Broadcom SoC seems to be pretty neato too. It has the ARM11 CPU, a GPU that does Open GL and 1080p30 H.264 decode, and a DSP but there's currently not enough information known to access that yet.

16 GPIO at 3v3, I2C and SPI interfaces will come in handy, it also has stereo audio out. I wonder if it would also have stereo audio in? That could make a very small interface to something like a SoftRock. They also talk about being able to interface to a cheap LCD module for portable operation. Otherwise, it looks like HDMI output.

v---Click on the sbc label to see my other single-board computer posts.

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.

Chumby Hacker Board

This is pretty neat. It's a Single Board Computer that is basically the guts of a small device called a Chumby. The hardware is all Open and it runs a custom distro of Linux. Specifications below.

• Freescale iMX.233 processor running at 454 MHZ
• 64 MB onboard RAM
• Comes with 512MB uSD card with 100 MB Linux installation all ready to go
• Dimensions are 3.9" (100mm) x 2.4" (60mm) x 0.75" (20mm)
• 3.3V I/O pins can talk to most sensors, motor drivers, etc. No struggling with 1.8V levels.
• Low power, fanless CPU draws only 200 mA at 5V
• Built-in Lithium Ion/Polymer battery charger and 5V boost converter for portable projects
• Three USB ports!
• 1.9W mono speaker amplifier into 4ohm (0.1" JST onboard connector)
• Microphone input (0.05" JST onboard connector)
• LCD controller with 2mm output port
• 3.5mm A/V output jack with stereo audio and NTSC/PAL composite video
• Back of board has GPIO outputs on 0.1" header spacing, plug in an Arduino proto shield! Serial ports, ADC's, PWM, GPIO all running at 3.3v logic
• Quadrature encoder connections onboard
• 5-way joystick on-board
• MMA7455 3-axis +-2G to +-8G accelerometer on-board
• 3.3V TTL serial port for easy shell access
• Full GCC toolchain is ready for you to download and get crackin'!
• Schematics, Gerbers and original layout files are at the Wiki

All for only $89 at adafruit.

This could have quite a few uses for ham radio operators. Linux has integrated support for AX.25 Packet in the kernel. I've heard it's possible to set that up with a sound card interface. If someone made the software available this could end up being a very small Echolink or IRLP node. I wonder if the processor is fast enough to do simple software defined radio tasks? This could make for a tiny, full SDR with one of the softrocks or some other SDR kit. The CPU uses very little power.

My only disappointment is no onboard wifi. It's a small loss though. Not everyone would use it and it's easy enough to add a dongle on one of the usb ports.

Supposedly the board is only in beta right now so it's subject to revisions and has a limited production for now. I see a bright future for this thing.