The interesting part of this one, to me, is the Octavo packaging of the AM335X processor with on-die RAM. That makes the board much simpler. Though, I thought it would make a bigger difference in price. The BeagleBone wireless that uses the same chip is ~$68, which is $7 higher than the Black that has separate RAM.
If you haven't used a BB product, check out the thing that I think is the biggest upside of these...the built in pair of PRUs. It's like having the best of a normal linux board plus a microcontroller on the same board. Since the PRU shares memory with the main CPU, you can offload things that need to be realtime. That allows for things like a near professional-level LED matrix controller (https://trmm.net/LEDscape) or even a DIY video controller (https://trmm.net/Mac-SE_video).
http://www.cnx-software.com/2014/06/18/bluesteel-basic-beagl...
The interesting part of this one, to me, is the Octavo packaging of the AM335X processor with on-die RAM. That makes the board much simpler. Though, I thought it would make a bigger difference in price. The BeagleBone wireless that uses the same chip is ~$68, which is $7 higher than the Black that has separate RAM.
If you haven't used a BB product, check out the thing that I think is the biggest upside of these...the built in pair of PRUs. It's like having the best of a normal linux board plus a microcontroller on the same board. Since the PRU shares memory with the main CPU, you can offload things that need to be realtime. That allows for things like a near professional-level LED matrix controller (https://trmm.net/LEDscape) or even a DIY video controller (https://trmm.net/Mac-SE_video).