[Arm-netbook] Freescale iMX53 Quick Start board

[Gordan Bobic]

 On Wed, 10 Aug 2011 14:39:19 +0100, Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton 
 <luke.leighton at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Wed, Aug 10, 2011 at 2:17 PM, Gordan Bobic <gordan at bobich.net> 
> wrote:
>
>>>  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.
>
>>  All that effort just to get native SATA? I really don't think it's
>>  worth it.
>
>  it's fitting in with some existing plans that are already underway.
> so there's a window of opportunity for free software developers to
> take advantage of, that will likely be closed within a few weeks as
> they finalise and proceed with their plans.
>
>>  If you really need SATA, then there is this:
>>  http://www.globalscaletechnologies.com/t-guruplugdetails.aspx
>
>  512mb RAM (DDR2 800mhz mind you), 1.2ghz Marvell Kirkwood (not 
> Cortex
> A9, which was david's question - kirkwoods are pretty damn good
> though, having an ARM "compatible" instruction set and had 
> superscalar
> out-of-order execution well before Cortex A9s ever had it).
>
>  eSATA-II, 3gb/sec and _two_ gigabit ethernets, no less.  
> whoopee-doo.
>  ahh, are these the little boxes that massively overheat if you start
> using them for anything beyond a toy, by chance? :)
>
>  so, there you go, david - get one of those and a fire extinguisher 
> :)

 The overheating is muchly exaggerated. The white ones - same CPU/ARM, 
 but no eSATA plumbed in (you can solder it on, though), have no fan in 
 them. I have one, and it's regularly used for a few days' worth of 
 compiling jobs at a time, and yes, it gets quite warm, but after over a 
 year of hammering it hasn't failed. The ones I linked above have a fan 
 and I am not aware of any PSU failure issues due to heat.

 Anyway, glad I could save you a lot of effort in finding suitable 
 hardware. :)

 Gordan