[Arm-netbook] Freescale iMX53 Quick Start board

[Gordan Bobic]

 On Wed, 10 Aug 2011 13:42:33 +0100, Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton 
 <lkcl at lkcl.net> wrote:
> On Sat, Aug 6, 2011 at 1:35 PM, David Given <dg at cowlark.com> wrote:
>
>> Are there any decent-looking Cortex A9 boards out or upcoming which
>> support ethernet and SATA? So far I've found:
>>
>> PandaBoard --- $180, ethernet, no SATA.
>>
>> Samsung Origen --- $250, no ethernet, no SATA.
>>
>> Igloo Snowball --- $209, ethernet, no SATA (but other than that a 
>> very
>> nice looking device).
>>
>> Trimslice --- $199, ethernet, may have SATA (they mention it a lot 
>> but
>> it's unclear whether there's an actual socket or not). Comes in a 
>> box!
>>
>> Anything else worth investigating?
>
>  ok... yes, i can ask.
>
>  question (for everyone): if there existed a board which used a
> single-core 800mhz Cortex A9, maximum hard limit of 512mb RAM, but
> also had SATA-II and 10/100 Ethernet, would it be of interest, and 
> how
> much would you pay for it?  similar spec / design / size / interfaces
> as the pandaboard, origen etc. just with a single-core Cortex A9
> rather than dual-core.
>
>  the CPU i have in mind is the AML-8726-M (which is fantastic but is
> hardware-limited to 512mb RAM) and i am in contact with an ODM/OEM
> whom i believe i could persuade to create such a board if there is
> sufficient interest in purchasing it.  i've already explained to them
> that there are benefits to them i.e. Free Software Developers 
> en-masse
> writing software based around the board etc. etc.
>
>  btw when responding please don't take the piss on a price you'd be
> happy to pay!  apart from anything it has to be enough to encourage
> them to go ahead with the board.  the beagleboard price (A8, 720mhz,
> 512mb) is a fair guide.  unlike x86 systems the CPU isn't the major
> component cost with these embedded boards.

 All that effort just to get native SATA? I really don't think it's 
 worth it.

 What use case do you have in mind? Most of my ARM systems, even for 
 desktop use, get by really well on SD cards (SanDisk and Pretec if you 
 have a choice) and USB sticks (I find the ones based on the Kingston 
 controller handle random-writes particularly well), especially if you 
 switch to using nilfs2 for non-root fs and write a few lines of shell 
 for a cron job to handle killing/spawning nilfs_cleanerd.

 If you really need SATA, then there is this:
 http://www.globalscaletechnologies.com/t-guruplugdetails.aspx

 Granted, it's in a box, but they are cheap and you can always dismantle 
 it and put the board in whatever chassis is convenient for you.

 Gordan