Gumstix Microcontroller

Posted 29 Jan 2004 at 01:45 UTC by steve

A couple of readers have submitted links to gumstix, a homebrew microcontroller based on the Intel PXA255 XScale CPU. The board is 20mm x 80mm, has 64MB SDRAM, 4MB of Flash, draws 200ma at 3.6-5v and runs Linux. At present, the site only has a brief description and a photo but it sounds like the creator may be releasing the design as Open Hardware soon. Slashdot also carried a story on the gumstix board today.

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Gumstix microcontroller, posted 29 Jan 2004 at 08:35 UTC by kunal » (Master)

Im freakin' impressed with what I saw, the gumstix microcontroller is excellent....4Megs of flash mem, and 64 Megs of Ram....thats awesome, we could frag bots and play quake-3 on that tiny lil thing..;). The PXA255 processor is based on the older .18u technology....I speculate they will be launching the 0.13u silicon soon, as the mainstream processors will all be manufactured on the .09u. If manufactured using a 0.13 micron silicon die, the PXA255 will be drawing around 160mA, may work on something like 2.8volts, thats all the more impressive. Im pretty impressed with the Transmeta Crusoe, tailored for ppl who are going to work on Hard-core voice recognition, and other high end applications, though the Crusoe kit is a bit expensive at 900 odd Dollars.....

More info on the gumstix, posted 30 Jan 2004 at 15:13 UTC by steve » (Master)

I finally tracked down more about the plans for the gumstix. The creator has formed a company and will be shipping gumstix controllers within a month. Prices are $109 with a 200MHz CPU or $139 for a 400MHz. The company site also has a more formal features list for the boards.

But the real trick is how to compile for it...., posted 1 Feb 2004 at 14:46 UTC by earlwb » (Master)

The real trick is how you would get a program to compile for it. If it uses a GnuCC compiler. What are the actual command lines and options needed to compile a program for it? RTFM is fine and dandy but it doesn;t really mean all that much. Or do you spend $12,000 US for a Codewarrior IDE and compiler? If they have a embedded Linux, do you use Python or Perl instead maybe? Unfortunately, its too small and light to make a decent paper weight.

Doubting, posted 2 Feb 2004 at 06:50 UTC by outsider » (Journeyer)

I doubt that this guy will release the hardware as open hardware, since he has started his own business based on it.
Do you imagine using that hardware with pino (http://www.symbio.jst.go.jp/~yamasaki/)?. Our own biped bot like Sony's!