Re: Getting started with embedded programming

["Dmitry A. Kazakov" <mailbox@dmitry-kazakov.de>]

On 2017-11-25 22:39, Andrew Shvets wrote:

> I'd like to get started with embedded programming next year. What 
> would you recommend for hardware as well as OS? I'm looking to spend
> no more than $50 for the hardware and this will be used for hobby
> projects only.

- What are the inputs (sensors) and outputs (actuators). Peripheral I/O 
components are usually far more expensive than the board itself

- What are the controlling cycles you need 100ms, 10ms, 1ms

- How much computations you plan to have

- How much memory you need 1GB or more

- Passive only cooling and power consumption limitations

- How big and reliable the external storage must be. SD cards are 
useless for anything except initial booting. You may need eMMC or SSD etc.

As for the OS, there is little choice. VxWorks is commercial, which 
leaves you with some Linux. The choice of distribution depends on the 
support. Some distributions are well supported, others are not. Booting 
ARM is a great headache. So I would recommend to take the distribution 
and kernel for which there is a ready-to-use image.

> Is Raspberry PI my only option or is there something else that you
> have tried in the past?

There are better boards than Raspberry Pi, but it depends on what are 
going to do. E.g. ODROID xu4 is many times faster than Raspberry Pi 3.

I would recommend to do all developing on a normal PC. The I/O devices 
can be same, mocked or emulated. Ada is 100% portable. Once everything 
works you can port to the board.

-- 
Regards,
Dmitry A. Kazakov
http://www.dmitry-kazakov.de