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From: Grant Edwards on 6 Jun 2010 12:10
On 2010-06-06, Michael Kellett <nospam(a)nospam.com> wrote:

> Now for the bee in my bonnet !!!
> Why do people buy development boards?

1) They allow you to run benchmark code to compare different
processors.

2) They allow you to evaluate toolchains and other infrastructure.

3) They allow software development work to start long before the
custom product boards are ready.

4) They're free: you often don't buy them -- you borrow them from the
CPU distributor.

> They either have no hardware (like the Silabs ones) so you need to
> make a board with your own stuff on to get your project going or they
> have loads of stuff on them (like the ST ones) but it's never what
> you want, so you need to make a board with your own stuff on to get
> your project going. Why not make a board with the processor and your
> own stuff on to get your project going - that way you get real
> hardware a damn sight sooner.

How do you decide which processor to use without doing any testing or
benchmarking? Are you going to lay out 3-4 different boards in order
to run some benchmarks?

What do the software people do while you're designing and laying out
your board?

--
Grant
From: RockyG on 6 Jun 2010 13:17
>Hi Michael,
>
>Michael Kellett wrote:
>> Why do people buy development boards ? They either have no hardware
>> (like the Silabs ones) so you need to make a board with your own stuff
on to
>> get your project going or they have loads of stuff on them (like the ST

>> ones) but it's never what you want, so you need to make a board with
your
>> own stuff on to get your project going.
>
>Yes! I simply cannot understand this huge waste of effort.
>You are *going* to design a board *anyway*. Do it and at least
>get started on the path to nailing down all the "gotchas" that
>*will* come up in the design.
>
>Years ago, I could *almost* understand the rationale that "it
>lets the programmers get started" (yet another self-delusion!).
>But, nowadays, you can write and debug *lots* of code without
>ever needing real hardware. For most projects, you don't even
>need to use the actual tools for the targeted platform for
>much (most?) of the code!
>
I find them useful from the POV that you can use them as a sanity check.
I.E. Have I installed the tool-suite correctly or is it my hardware that
has a problem?
Once the 1st project is done, the usefulness falls away as you have
reasonable confidence that the h/w is OK.

---------------------------------------
Posted through http://www.EmbeddedRelated.com
From: Spehro Pefhany on 6 Jun 2010 13:39
On Sun, 6 Jun 2010 16:10:18 +0000 (UTC), the renowned Grant Edwards
<invalid(a)invalid.invalid> wrote:

>On 2010-06-06, Michael Kellett <nospam(a)nospam.com> wrote:
>
>> Now for the bee in my bonnet !!!
>> Why do people buy development boards?
>
>1) They allow you to run benchmark code to compare different
> processors.
>
>2) They allow you to evaluate toolchains and other infrastructure.
>
>3) They allow software development work to start long before the
> custom product boards are ready.
>
>4) They're free: you often don't buy them -- you borrow them from the
> CPU distributor.

If it's a one-off, test fixture etc. then the develoment board could
be the end product. No need to send stuff out for assembly, debug,
etc.

>> They either have no hardware (like the Silabs ones) so you need to
>> make a board with your own stuff on to get your project going or they
>> have loads of stuff on them (like the ST ones) but it's never what
>> you want, so you need to make a board with your own stuff on to get
>> your project going. Why not make a board with the processor and your
>> own stuff on to get your project going - that way you get real
>> hardware a damn sight sooner.
>
>How do you decide which processor to use without doing any testing or
>benchmarking? Are you going to lay out 3-4 different boards in order
>to run some benchmarks?

You can find out if there are any major gotchas with the toolchain and
hardware relatively fast.

Variations on processors you're already using are another matter.


>What do the software people do while you're designing and laying out
>your board?


Best regards,
Spehro Pefhany
--
"it's the network..." "The Journey is the reward"
speff(a)interlog.com Info for manufacturers: http://www.trexon.com
Embedded software/hardware/analog Info for designers: http://www.speff.com
From: hamilton on 6 Jun 2010 13:41
On 6/6/2010 8:53 AM, Michael Kellett wrote:
>
> Now for the bee in my bonnet !!!
> Why do people buy development boards ?
>
> Michael Kellett

Now for the bee in your bonnet !!!

Why do people complain about thing they can not change.

With the number of development boards out in the world, there must be
some kind of a demand, but that would require thinking past your own
little world.

hamilton
From: Frank-Christian Krügel on 6 Jun 2010 14:13
Am 06.06.2010 16:53, schrieb Michael Kellett:

> Now for the bee in my bonnet !!!
> Why do people buy development boards ?

I use them as a known-good starting point for my own tests. I've
recently bought an MSP430 board made by Olimex in order to get used to
this new (for me) architecture, the tools, software etc. These board are
even more useful as fewer and fewer parts are available in a
breadboardable package. The chip on the Olimex board was an F1611, my
own board used an F2274. There were some differences, but they were not
so big, and the transision was done in an hour or so.

--
Mit freundlichen Gr��en

Frank-Christian Kr�gel

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