Dev Kit 8000 - vs BeagleBoard

Michael,

I couldnt buy the original beagleboard because it costed 50$ or so to
come here in EU. Thus I opted for the EBVBeagle which is an exact
replica/clone of the rev.C2 and has a zillion bundled items in its kit
compared to nothing of the bb. I cannot estimate what the cost have
been if I opted for the bb and had to pay for post and all the
peripherals to make it work.
Even though with a quite complete kit as the EBVBeagle, I did not had
any real work done on it. I tried to see the E2E site of TI, and then
I discovered that there is no BSP for the bb or clones. You had to
move to EVM in order to have a BSP and do real work (and give the $$
$).

Then the DK8000 came into sight. I ordered it, and quite surprisingly
when it arrived I found that I could actually do what I wanted when I
first dived into the OMAP world. Even though it has some issues (as
everything else in this world) I feel quite pleased up to now.

I, myself, do not live in a pink world full of roses.
I see the beagleboard project as an initiative to give the OMAP
technology to those hobbyists that cannot afford the huge cost of the
official EVM, but in a Cut Down Functionality version. And carefull
attention has been given not to interfere with the EVM market
otherwise it will be a shot in the foot.

AFAIK the beagleboard project team members are indeed 'Corporate TI'
employees, and the beagleboard is produced by TI (according to
wikipedia) so the 'voluntary' word although might be true makes me
think twice, specially when
'cost'/'profit'/'sales'/'distribution'/'product' concepts are used for
that same beagleboard.

I might make a mistake somewhere but right now this is how I see
it. :slight_smile:

Christos

The BeagleBoard is not owned by TI. If you take the time to look on the board and all of the documentation, you will not find a TI logo, copyright, or anything to indicate that the board is owned by TI. I know this for fact as I have inside information on the board and I do not need to rely on any opinions. BeagleBoard is run all by volunteers. TI does not pay anyone’s salary to do the BeagleBoard. Those that work on it, work on it on their own time and put 1000s of hours into it and are dedicated to it’s success. If you doubt this, please feel free to contact hte members directly to get their take.

When the project was started, the goal was to promote innovation on the OMAP3530 platform from a HW and SW perspective. The best way to do this was a low cost board that was not controlled by TI. In other words, the team did not want TI running it or involved in it. The team was not focused on hobbyists only, as some suggest, but anyone that wanted to take a crack at a CortexA8 processor and the many features of the OMAP3530 processors. There are many users of the BeagleBoard and over 7,000 boards have been shipped. I think you will find that there are all sorts of users of the board and they cover all aspects of the development world.

The team does not consider the DEVKIT 8000 a competitor to the Beagle, but instead a testimate to the success of the project. The team wanted other boards to be created. Otherwise the goal of promoting innovation on the OMAP3530 from a HW perspective would have been a total failure. There are over 12 boards that have been created based on the BeagleBoard design and the hard work of the community. I only hope that those companies that build these boards for commercial gain and profit have the honesty to acknowledge the hard work of the ccommunity in the creation of their commercial products. Many have done this and some have chosen not to.

Beagle will always be the first out with the newest OMAP processors and the most memory. That is the team’s goal. The team has no desire to “compete” with all of the boards out there. Otherwise, those boards would not exist. The team wants more boards, as many as possible. When evaluating other boards, you should go beyond the feature list and look at the company. While many companies have a lot of experience, they may or may not have OMAP experience and are just now learning the platform. While they have leveraged the community for their design, they may lack some of the knowledge required to truly support the product. This will come in time so please be patient with them and help them to be successful.

The team encourages all of the developers of these boards to be come active in the community and to support the community. Because they owe their success in part to the community and it’s efforts. The team believes in the community. No matter what, when a product comes out, in a few months it will be behind because of the advances made by the community and its desire to push the limits of what the platforms can do. The community is the leader and BeagleBoard is about the community.

Please support the community!

Gerald

2009/7/4 sv1eia <sv1eia@gmail.com>

Gerald,

If what you say is true, and I have no reason not to believe you, then
you need to change the wikipedia description of beagleboard

"From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Beagle Board
The Beagle Board is a low-power, low-cost Single-board computer
produced by Texas Instruments in association with Digi-Key, designed
with open source development in mind, to demonstrate the Texas
Instrument's OMAP3530 system-on-a-chip. The board was developed by a
small team of TI engineers."

-> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beagle_Board

You may be correct, but we did not create the entry, someone else did. That is what happens when you get your infomation from someone other than the team. For the straight scoop always ask the team or the community memebers and they will give you the straight story on what BeagleBoard is all about and it’s history. We have two key sponsors bascially, TI, who sells us the parts and DigiKey, who distributes the board. All of the content of the BeagleBoard comes from the team and the community. We run the production operation and the RMA teams as well for BeagleBoard.org.

Gerald

2009/7/4 sv1eia <sv1eia@gmail.com>

I guess that someone else who created the entry had some information
regarding the legal entity that is behind the bb.
I assume that if you provide to Wikipedia your version of the story
with the necessary legal documents to prove it, they will change the
article.
Wikipedia has not given me any false readings yet, and whenever there
is a dispute on a issue, it immediately takes corrective action based
on
facts.

Christos

I will check with the rest of the team and get their take as to the entry and if it should be corrected. For what it is worth, I designed the BeagleBoard and there are four of us that started the BeagleBoard effort over a year ago.

Gerald

2009/7/4 sv1eia <sv1eia@gmail.com>

i'm not sure it's worth getting too wound up about this. it's
wikipedia we're talking about, after all. ignore it and get back to
hacking.

rday

The BeagleBoard is not owned by TI. If you take the time to look on the board and all of the documentation, you will not find a TI logo, copyright, or anything to indicate that the board is owned by TI. I know this for fact…

Italian translation (traduzione in italiano del testo di G.Coley, con evidenziazioni mie; anch’io erroneamente credevo che la TI fosse in qualche modo partecipe del progetto, ed invece…)

La BeagleBoard non è un progetto proprio della Texas Instruments (TI). Se dai un’occhiata alla board e a tutta la documentazione, non troverai nessun logo TI, nessuna indicazione di copyright, né alcunché che indichi la proprietà di TI.

Questo lo so per certo, dato che ho informazioni dirette e precise sulla board (ndt: G.Coley è uno dei quattro progettisti) e non ho bisogno di chiedere opinioni a nessuno.

Il progetto Beagleboard è gestito interamente da volontari. La TI non paga stipendi per “fare la BeagleBoard”. Quelli che ci lavorano, usano il proprio tempo libero investendo migliaia di ore per arrivare al successo. Se hai qualche dubbio, sèntiti libero di contattare direttamente i membri del progetto per sapere cosa ne dicono.

Quando il progetto è stato avviato, lo scopo era di promuovere l’innovazione sulla piattaforma OMAP3530 da una prospettiva sia hardware che software. Il modo migliore per farlo era produrre una board a basso costo senza la direzione della TI. In altre parole, il team di sviluppo non voleva coinvolgere la TI.

Il team di sviluppo non puntava solo al mercato degli hobbysti (come qualcuno erroneamente pensa), ma a chiunque volesse prendere sul serio il processore Cortex-A8 e le tantissime feature del chipset OMAP3530. Oggi ci sono tantissimi utenti della BeagleBoard (ne sono state consegnate oltre settemila), per cui penso che ne troverai in giro ogni sorta di utilizzo, e troverai coperto ogni aspetto del mondo dello sviluppo.

Quanto al Devkit 8000 (ndt: un progetto ufficiale della TI), il team Beagleboard non lo considera un concorrente ma piuttosto un testimone del successo della Beagleboard; se non fosse stato così, l’obiettivo di promuovere innovazione attraverso l’hardware basato su OMAP3530 sarebbe stato un fallimento totale. Ci sono in giro più di dodici tipi di board diverse che sono state create basandosi sul design della BeagleBoard e sul duro lavoro di questa community. Spero solo che le aziende che costruiscono quelle board per cavarne profitto abbiano l’onestà di riconoscere il duro lavoro di questa community che ha reso possibile la creazione del loro prodotto commerciale: molti lo hanno fatto, qualcuno ha scelto di non farlo.

La BeagleBoard sarà sempre la prima ad avere gli ultimissimi processori OMAP disponibili, ed anche quella con più memoria. Questo è un obiettivo esplicito del team. Ciò detto, precisiamo che il team non ha alcun desiderio di “competere” con ogni board presente in giro (altrimenti quelle board non esisterebbero); al contrario, ci fa piacere sapere di quante più board è possibile.

Quando si valuta una board, comunque, bisognerebbe andare al di là della feature list e vedere se l’azienda che la produce ha esperienza dell’architettura OMAP: può capitare per esempio che qualcuno lanci un prodotto sebbene stia “imparando” solo adesso ad utilizzare questo tipo di piattaforma e perciò potrebbe non avere la capacità e le conoscenze per risolvere eventuali problemi e dare vero supporto al prodotto; ecco perché bisogna avere pazienza con loro ed aiutarli ad avere successo.

Il team BeagleBoard incoraggia tutti gli sviluppatori di queste board di essere attivi nella community e di supportarla dato che debbono almeno una parte del loro successo agli sforzi della community. Il team crede molto nella community. Non importa come, ma quando un prodotto arriva sul mercato finisce che in pochi mesi rischia di essere abbandonato a causa degli avanzamenti fatti dalla community e dal suo desiderio di spingere la piattaforma fino ai limiti delle sue capacità.

La community è il leader, e la BeagleBoard riguarda la community.
Perciò, supportate la community!

Oops, sorry!!

I clicked on "send" button before changing the destination. :frowning:
Please ignore "italian translation" if you don't understand the language :slight_smile:

...and erase this message as well.

sv1eia wrote:

Gerald,

If what you say is true, and I have no reason not to believe you, then
you need to change the wikipedia description of beagleboard

"From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Beagle Board
The Beagle Board is a low-power, low-cost Single-board computer
produced by Texas Instruments in association with Digi-Key, designed
with open source development in mind, to demonstrate the Texas
Instrument's OMAP3530 system-on-a-chip. The board was developed by a
small team of TI engineers."

and what is the point you are trying to prove with all this arguing?

Op 5 jul 2009 om 12:48 heeft Vladimir Pantelic <pan@nt.tu-
darmstadt.de> het volgende geschreven:\

sv1eia wrote:

Gerald,

If what you say is true, and I have no reason not to believe you,
then
you need to change the wikipedia description of beagleboard

"From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Beagle Board
The Beagle Board is a low-power, low-cost Single-board computer
produced by Texas Instruments in association with Digi-Key, designed
with open source development in mind, to demonstrate the Texas
Instrument's OMAP3530 system-on-a-chip. The board was developed by a
small team of TI engineers."

and what is the point you are trying to prove with all this arguing?

that everything on wikipedia is 110% true :slight_smile:

Thank you everyone for such a lively discussion , :slight_smile:

I have decided to get the DV8000, at least for starting up…will let you guys know how it goes…

I actually wanted to buy a beagleboard but the entire question of going for another board started when i was looking for
looking for a cheap LCD + touchscreen to add to my project… In fact that was one of the reasons i was waiting for the C2
revision to come out.

I would really like to request the creators of the beagle board if it is possible to create a variant with more complete kit set which does contain all the peripherals and LCD + touch screen. The entire point of having a hobbiest board is that it allow the entire range of amateurs …from mainly software guys like me to … hardware hackers be able to take advantage of said technology.

I do realise that this might be against the principles of Gerald and his team since it will increase the price point of the board, but i do think that many people here will be willing to take that hit just to avoid the hassle of running around to get the required peripherals.

Please do consider this suggestion and let me know if there is anything i can do to help

Regds
Shreyas

I would really like to request the creators of the beagle board if it is
possible to create a variant with more complete kit set which does contain
all the peripherals and LCD + touch screen.

But then it would be an EAGLE board! (The "B" in BEAGLE stands for
"Bring your own peripherals :slight_smile: The philosophy is that a lot of the
target audience already has a bunch of peripherals lying around and
it's better to make the BeagleBoard as affordable as possible by
leaving them off. Personally, I like this philosophy since it allowed
me to get the capabilities of a $1500 development board for $150.

Third parties are encouraged to offer peripheral kits. For example,
Special Computing (BeagleBoard Shop) has an acrylic
case, SD cards with pre-loaded software, and various compatible cables
and peripherals. I don't think they have an LCD + touch screen at
this time.

John

But then it would be an EAGLE board! (The "B" in BEAGLE stands for
"Bring your own peripherals :slight_smile: The philosophy is that a lot of the
target audience already has a bunch of peripherals lying around and
it's better to make the BeagleBoard as affordable as possible by
leaving them off. Personally, I like this philosophy since it allowed
me to get the capabilities of a $1500 development board for $150.

Third parties are encouraged to offer peripheral kits. For example,
Special Computing (BeagleBoard Shop) has an acrylic
case, SD cards with pre-loaded software, and various compatible cables
and peripherals. I don't think they have an LCD + touch screen at
this time.

True, but what i was implying was a "recommended" setup or an
"endorsed" setup..
I havent really seen anything on the beagle board site which
says ...buy this 'bare bones' kit ... or if you dont have the
peripherals
then go here to get/order the entire set together ...everything u will
ever need ..blah blah/...

my point being that it would probably get the attention of total
"hardware" amatuers ..or rather lazy ones....

... but i get it ...its ok this way too......it was just a
suggestion...which i thought made a lot of sense ..

Shreyas

Dear All,

As someone has said before: If you have a hammer in hand, there would be more nails in your eyes. I doubt these words could be applied
to some OMAP35x developers. If you are working on OMAP35x chips, your heart would be full of peripherals.

However, the purpose of our work is not just play with these chips. The mission of our work is to find a position for these chips in the ecosystem
of electronic devices. So, Spare the time in some low-level driver development, save the time wasted on searching for cables, connectors, adaptors,
and so on, share the experience in some OS stuff, DSP Link stuff, etc. Just focus your attention of OMAP35x itself, concentrate your attention on the requirements of your customers, that is all the purpose of DevKit8000, that is, this could be the business logc of Embest.

Embest owe lots of her achievement to the work of beagleboard. Open-source is a kind of game where anyone could take part in it. There would
be some kind of competition, that is all right. Because the benign competition and the rules of Open-source promotes the fast evolution of the ecosystem, which invariably would shorten the time when the final consumers would benefit from technology.

Any person interested in DevKit8000 could contact with us. Pls contact Linda for purchase zhangmei@embedinfo.com

The main business of Embest is not just saling those cheap EVMs, we define ourselves as design houses. If you have some industrial applications
in hand, we would be very glad to offer our services for HW and SW customization ODM and OEM services. If you have some kind of requirement
like this, pls feel free to contact Liu Enze. liuez@embedinfo.com

Liu Enze

I agree with you Doug, TI has to be happy when is
selling more.
Christos

Unless the TI chip was built on a ghost shift or in a ghost plant.
Ever wonder why you can buy a usb/serial ATEN cable on ebay for one
dollar?

This biggest selling point of this board is the LCD/touch screen.
This just means "we" need to provide a small/low cost/turnkey solution
for beagle.

+1

i think this has been flogged pretty thoroughly so far, but i'll
chime in and say that the primary value of that dev kit 8000 is the
one-stop shopping for everything. i realize that selling the BB sans
cables and power adapter is what keeps the price down, but it does
take time to possibly zip around to get all the other parts you need
-- i had to visit three geek stores to finally find a compatible 5V
power adapter. and there was an extended discussion regarding which
touchscreens would work so getting one that is allegedly already
verified is a nice bonus.

  and i realize you can get all those extra parts thru folks like
specialcomp(?) but for busy people, it really appeals to get
everything at once. is there any market for an extra package of all
that stuff? call it a "BeagleBag"? full of cables and power adapter
and JTAG cable, etc? just thinking out loud.

rday

You can buy beagleboards at the specialcomp store as well, so specialcomp is the one-stop beagle shop for lazy people :slight_smile:

regards,

Koen

you're right, i'd forgotten that they sell the board, too. maybe
they'd be interested in advertising a "beaglebag". hey, i just made
that up. you can't use that. :slight_smile:

rday