[Noisebridge-discuss] Big LED Screen - potential upgrade?

[nils at shkoo.com]

Now I found "beagle board", which looks like:

256 MB RAM
256 MB flash
$150

It uses the TI OMAP 3530 instead of the atmel chip, which looks like it 
has 4 SPI interfaces available that support DMA.

According to http://beagleboard.org/static/BBSRM_latest.pdf the expansion 
connector exports the following pins:

McBSP3_DX      MMC2_DAT7
McBSP3_CLKX    MMC2_DAT6
McBSP3_FSX     MMC2_DAT5
McBSP3_DR      MMC2_DAT4
McBSP1_FSX     MMC2_DAT3
McBSP1_DR      MMC2_DAT1
McBSP1_CLKR    MMC2_DAT0
McBSP1_FSR     MMC2_CMD
I2C2_SCL       MMC2_CLK0
nReset         I2C2_SDA

Due to pin sharing, it looks like the following pins can used to be access 
SPI3 and SPI4:

MMC2_CLK0   -> McSPI3_CLK
MMC2_CMD    -> McSPI3_SIMO
McBSP3_CLKR -> McSPI4_CLK
McBSP1_DX   -> McSPI4_SIMO

Rock on.  I think this one is my new favorite.  Hopefully I'm not missing 
anything.

As a bonus, I can include it with my next digikey order.  Convenient!

-nils

On Fri, 10 Apr 2009 nils at shkoo.com wrote:

> On Fri, 10 Apr 2009, Andy Isaacson wrote:
>> On Thu, Apr 09, 2009 at 09:49:14PM -0700, nils at shkoo.com wrote:
>>> Does anyone have any input relating to this stuff or ideas of good boards
>>> to use?  Does anyone want 99 of those sparkfun SAM9-L9260 boards so we can
>>> get the bulk discount? :)
>> 
>> I think this is a cheaper way to get an AT91:
>> 
>> http://www.opencircuits.com/Linuxstamp
>> 
>> (haven't looked if its SPI ports are reasonably configured, though.)
>
> Cool!
>
> The at91rm9200 only has a single SPI port.  However, it does make the pins 
> available.  And, as far as I can tell, the only thing the linuxstamp uses SPI 
> for is the flash, so if we store all our data on the SD card (or even on a 
> external usb hard drive) that would put us in the same boat as the 
> SAM9-L9260, minus the potential ability to rework and gain access to the 
> second spi interface if necessary.
>
> Linuxstamp:
>
> 8MB flash
> 32MB RAM
> $120
>
> SAM9-L9260:
>
> 512MB flash
> 64MB RAM
> $200
>
> Both have sd card connectors, so I guess it's mostly bang for buck decision. 
> I'm ok with going down to 32MB RAM for a $80 savings.  So I'm liking the 
> linuxstamp for this application. :)
>
> -nils
>
>