A Low-cost PowerPC Controller

Posted 5 Oct 2004 at 20:45 UTC by steve

Buffalo Technology of Austin, Texas has announced the Kuro Box, a $160 PowerPC platform. Inside the toaster-shaped enclosure is a 200MHz MPC8241 PowerPC with 4MB of Flash ROM, 64MB RAM, 10/100 Ethernet, USB 2.0, IDE, and serial. Full specs (PDF format) are available on their website. The system supports Linux and includes a 2.4-based kernel and the complete GCC tool chain for development. The Kuro Box will be sold through Buffalo's Revolution organization who have come up with an anime character named Saysha to market the box. They've also announced a design contest with a $500 prize. The I/O options seem a little limited for robotics use but the good news is that it will run on 12V right out of the box making it an interesting option.