On Jan 27, 2014, at 2:57 PM, Tony Duell <ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk> wrote:
...
Raspberry pi seems to have potential in this regard.
Does it? The Rpi is based around a custo-ish IC in a BGA pacakage. Said
IC is not avaialble sperately, and solderign BGAs is not something that
can be odne with hand tools.
The instruction set of the graphics processor is not documented
(offiically). So forget understnadig nthe system.
There?s a simple workaround for that: use the BeagleBone instead. Same basic concept, but
open hardware. Instead of an SOC from Broadcom whose details are secret, it uses one from
TI which is extensively documented in a free for the download PDF file ? 4500 or so pages
of it.
I?ve been using it (the BeagleBone Black). Nice, inexpensive, flexible. Already built an
add-on board for it, quite easy.
paul