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Beagle Board vs Super Propeller Board II — Parallax Forums

Beagle Board vs Super Propeller Board II

Luis DigitalLuis Digital Posts: 371
edited 2008-08-12 19:40 in Propeller 1
http://dkc1.digikey.com/us/mkt/beagleboard.html
Is like a war among manufacturers. Price war and characteristic:
- 600MHz ARM Cortex-A8 (>1GHz ARM11 MIPS)
- 128MB low-power DDR RAM
- 256MB NAND flash
- Full Linux Computer
Linux distributions
Angstrom (Open Embedded), Debian, Ubuntu, Gentoo, and more

User mode applications
Productivity: AbiWord, Gnumeric, GIMP
Multimedia: FFmpeg, MythTV
Gaming: ScummVM, solitaire


I ask me which will be the real capacities of the Propeller 2, price, etc.
And more important ¿When will I put my hands on one? smile.gif

Comments

  • Mike GreenMike Green Posts: 23,101
    edited 2008-08-12 04:38
    Many of the capabilities of the Propeller 2 have already been described. Parallax has already made it very clear that they will not discuss this further until the Propeller 2 is released. They will also not commit to a release date nor a price. This is how they do things. Feel free to wonder, but you won't get any answers.
  • AleAle Posts: 2,363
    edited 2008-08-12 04:58
    A summary of the Propeller II info already known is here:

    http://propeller.wikispaces.com/Propeller+II
  • VIRANDVIRAND Posts: 656
    edited 2008-08-12 05:50
    The Processors and the Microcontrollers are different animals living in different environments.

    I'd use the Processor for Linux, and the Propeller without Linux.
  • DroneDrone Posts: 433
    edited 2008-08-12 11:15
    Luis, Virand is right, a full-up embedded Linux board like beagle and the propeller microcontroller (I or II) serve different markets and purposes. If you're looking for a 32 bit microcontroller, propeller I is hard to beat today much less waiting for propeller II. Atmel has a version of the 32 bit AVR32 that can run some flavor of linux (not sure if it has an MMU though). It sort of competes with the ARM on beagle. AVR development tools are completely free from Atmel and WinAVR and there's a very strong AVR community at www.avrfreaks.net. WinAVR has a simulator of sorts and there's a portable flavor of the tool-chain that runs off a pen drive (cool).

    Beagle doesn't have Ethernet on-baord, but it does have auido/video. I've heard the beagle HDMI isn't really HDMI compliant though.

    I don't think beagle is Intel x86 compatible. IMHO life is much easier if you stick with an x86 embedded platform when doing Linux/Unix/xBSD. To run the full-up Linux flavors you listed for beagle, its ARM Cortex-A8 processor must have a hardware Memory Management Unit (MMU).

    Soekris Engineering www.soekris.com and PC Engines www.pcengines.ch have nice x86 boards for the money, some are cheaper than beagle. No on-board video or audio though. But I have used a serial LCD and USB audio dongle with one of the Soekris boards (NET4801-50). Running Linux or xBSD (for example) off a CF card in a RAM file-system is a neat solution for these boards. Some Soekris boards have an IDE port, I think both Sokris and PC Engines (Alix) boards have mini-PCI slots (nice for WiFi cards), compact flash slots, serial ports, USB etc. Have a look at the links above.

    If you're looking for a long term commercial production solution be careful with PC Engines they're in Europe; and although it hasn't happened yet as far as I can tell, you might see them having to increase prices at some point due to the falling US Dollar. I wouldn't blame them for doing so. Soekris is in California. Direct support is much better from PC Engines. There is an active mailing list community for Soekris. I wish both manufacturers would put up a proper user forum.

    Speaking of commercial applications, I've found a stumbling block to using propeller commercially may be a lack of intellectual property protection (IPP). I don't know if propeller-II will address this. I don't think it is addressed in beagle hardware but can be addressed in Linux.

    Good Luck,

    David

    Post Edited (Drone) : 8/12/2008 11:23:01 AM GMT
  • hippyhippy Posts: 1,981
    edited 2008-08-12 13:14
    That Beagleboard sure looks nice. I know people who would "go ape" for that, but I bet they couldn't easily undertake some of the projects I can think of which a Propeller could do with ease, and I'm sure there are projects it's far better at than a Propeller would be.

    It's right tool for right job, there's no 'that's better than this' except for specific applications or particular fields.
  • waltcwaltc Posts: 158
    edited 2008-08-12 18:40
    I'm getting one.

    Its a nifty board and very reasonable at the price considering the serious computational punch it packs and the included software. Also TI was smart IMO marketing it directly at the open source community like that.

    And go with what Virand says about the processor differences. The Prop and Beagle board are totally different animals, can't compare'em.
  • jazzedjazzed Posts: 11,803
    edited 2008-08-12 19:29
    I would be inclined to attach Propeller as a co-processor or peripheral device interface.

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  • RaymanRayman Posts: 14,825
    edited 2008-08-12 19:40
    Nice but for twice that price you can get a whole ASUS Eee notebook...
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