Hacker News Reader

Comment by michaelt | Hacker News Reader

In the world of embedded compute modules, "developer kit" isn't the equivalent of a "developer workstation" with super-high specs.

Instead, it means "We sell this module for use on PCBs, but you want to start developing software and testing before you've made your first PCB. Here's the module plugged into a PCB that provides USB, HDMI and Ethernet connectors. We'll also throw in a power supply and an SD card with a working OS image on it."

View on HN

I agree 100%, edited with clarification to cause less confusion since most seemed to take it I was saying the opposite. Thanks for the clear description of what I failed to describe.

Are USB, HDMI, and Ethernet really the ports you want for your embedded system?

Some people have different views on what’s an embedded system, but hardware serial, USB and Ethernet are tablestakes for interfacing with any most industrial hardware or for robotics uses.

Depends what you're doing with it. You can just glue this dev board in to your hobby system, or if you're making an interactive kiosk, maybe you want a usb webcam & hdmi screen. If you want to debug, those ports can be pretty handy, you can have a monitor and keyboard on it. If you do your own pcb integration, you can decide what ports you want on your board.

If you want to connect a screen, keyboard and mouse? Or plug in a wifi dongle? Absolutely!

And by the point you don't need them, you can graduate from the dev kit and spin your own PCB without them on, if you like.

The development kit will probably break out other signals too - but if you know what SPI and CSI are, you probably don't need to be told what an embedded dev kit is :)

On an embedded system out in the field? Depends on the use.

On your prototype devkit? Absolutely.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com