Standalone Android PC?

1a. Yes, you will be able to connect the power supply (wall transformer) to the Zedboard to supply DC power.

1b. Yes, you can connect a USB keyboard and mouse to the zedboard, however the drivers must be installed on the operating system running on the ARM core(s).  If you are running Android, it must have those drivers available to load at boot.

1c.  Again, as with 1b, if you are running an OS that supports it, the Zedboard hardware (and more specifically the Zynq hardware) will support any USB peripheral including a USB Hard Drive.

1d. The zedboard does have an HDMI encoder IC as well as an HDMI port.  You will need to load in custom code to drive the HDMI encoder IC, or load in a third party GPU core (contacting you local Avnet FAE can provide you with additional information).

2a.  The Zedboard supports several Operating Systems, including versions of Linux that will run Eclipse and the Android specific development tools.

2b.  This is one possible option yes.  There is a boot loader internally in ROM that will allow the Zedboard to boot from an SD-Card.  Multiple images could be placed on this card and selected from uBoot.

2c.  Multiple Operating Systems running on the Zynq device is a possibility, however significant configuration may be necessarily.

2d.  I do not know of any applications currently written for Android that would configure the FPGA fabric.  The development team is working hard to create as many example projects and applications as possible.  You may be better off posting this question in the "Software Application Development" section of the forums (ref link: http://zedboard.org/forum/20).

4a.  Due to the highly configurable nature of the 7-Series FPGA fabric and IO structurs, there are very few peripherals that the Zynq EEP will not be able to interface too.  The exact interaction will require a better understanding of what peripherals you are talking about.  In the event that they are USB based, they will, again, need to have the correct drivers installed on the local Operating System.

4b.  The Zedboard can run in USB Host mode as well as Slave mode depending on what Operating System and USB stack is loaded/configured.

4c.  Since the Android Accessory Development Kit provides a USB host, and an application must be run on the Android side (to handle handshaking after enumeration), interfacing to the AADK should not be hardware dependent.  The ability to interface will depend on the version of Android that the AADK Android client runs on, and what version will be supported by Zynq.

On a side note:  I would not suggest doing development on the Zedboard it's self, as the ARM cores will not provide the same level of performance as a traditional desktop PC.  Android allows for a significant number of hooks into the OS for debugging software on hardware in real-time via USB - I would recommend going that route.

Thank you for your detailed and thorough answers (including the followup you posted later). Especially since every answer was "yes"!

Since the Zedboard will run as a complete PC motherboard for Linux or Android, where will I be able to get one assembled and ready to boot from local storage (including drivers and an HDMI desktop)? The only HW development I want to do is in FPGA with software, not a PC construction project. That's the whole attraction of the Zynq: HW development by SW developers. I'd assemble a kit from provided parts, but I don't want to source all the parts independently myself, and then hunt down the drivers and other OS/tools integration. I want to pay some bucks and within an hour or two start generating "Hello, world!" in Java, then start porting parts of it to FPGA.

Your welcome!  And I was just as happy as you were that all the answers were "yes"!

You can purchase a Zedboard from this link:

http://www.zedboard.org/node/2

(note the different price at Digilent is for student/educator use.)

As previously mentioned in my post as well as by others in this thread, I would highly recommend doing your Android development on a standard PC (regardless of OS since Eclipse is written for Linux, Windows, and Mac OS) and then push your code down to the Zedboard.

The Zedboard will ship with a version of Linux on the SDCard so you will be able to boot right out of the box.  As for the Android image, since it is handled by a Third Party, you will need to check with them (or contact your local Avnet FAE) to get more info on the timeline.

Well, the Zedboard kit does include the power supply and motherboard, and a SD card with bootable Linux or Android. And it's easy enough to use a USB keyboard, mouse, HD.

But to get started programming on it, don't I have to first find drivers for those specific USB devices? Or is its Linux OS as complete with USB drivers as is a typical desktop Linux PC out of the box?

And to use a HD monitor seems like even more work, adding some HW to the Zedboard to drive HDMI, and also finding/installing Linux drivers for whichever HD HW I use.

That sounds like many hours turning the kit into a PC before I have a fully functional target for SW development.

Well, the Zedboard kit does include the power supply and motherboard, and a SD card with bootable Linux or Android. And it's easy enough to use a USB keyboard, mouse, HD.

But to get started programming on it, don't I have to first find drivers for those specific USB devices? Or is its Linux OS as complete with USB drivers as is a typical desktop Linux PC out of the box?

And to use a HD monitor seems like even more work, adding some HW to the Zedboard to drive HDMI, and also finding/installing Linux drivers for whichever HD HW I use.

That sounds like many hours turning the kit into a PC before I have a fully functional target for SW development.