EOMA-68 finally ?

agrahambell wrote:

 

Could this be the first actual EOMA-68 turned into a product that you can (almost) buy ?

(note: i will be announcing a crowd-funded campaign in the next 2-3 months)

things happen when they're ready.  do you use ubuntu or do you use debian?  you're aware that the ubuntu team force-release every six months, whereas the debian team release when the software has been properly tested.

it's a similar thing here.  EOMA-68 is a long-term standard that is designed with at least a decade of life (hence why it has the wires which are presently used for USB 3 that will be upgraded to USB 3.1 within the lifetime of the standard).

Have rhombus tech been beaten to the finish line ?

if you meant by the improv then no - we were their supplier.  unfortunately they didn't get enough take-up and a MOQ of 2500 units had been set.

if you meant "has rhombus tech been beaten to the finish line by a standard similar to EOMA-68" then the answer is a most definite resounding no.  there simply does not exist anything - anywhere - like the EOMA-68 standard.  there does exist this: ICE Computer however:

• i don't immediately see any specifications for the standard - perhaps someone could help look for them?
• i don't see any mention of invitations to create compatible modules or base-boards,
• the bar is set extremely high for the interfaces (eDP and HDMI) which immediately rules out the possibility of a CPU Card with a BOM of $USD 12 to 15 because no $2 SoC is ever going to include the multi-dollar royalties required for outputting data in eDP or HDMI format: it would double or triple the cost of the $2 SoC!
• the size of the modules are actually quite large: there's no way you could consider fitting them inside a wallet (i have carried an EOMA68 CPU Card around in my wallet for a while just to demonstrate that it can be done).

 

It'll be interesting to see where it leads, now that there's an actual product (almost) available, not sure on the $75 though, it seems that there's probably better value boards available today, and that there's only going to be more of those in the next year.

right.  this is where the point of EOMA68 is most misunderstood by people in the engineering and open hardware community, by comparing EOMA68 CPU Cards to SBCs.

if you want an SBC which you intend to use in a short-term product that will never require any kind of upgrades, and has no requirement - ever - to be upgraded, or if you just want something to tinker with that will, after a year, sit on a shelf or be thrown into landfill and you intend to buy another one after a year or two, then please feel free to do exactly that.

however if you have any kind of environmental conscience that makes you think twice before throwing away those SBCs that you're no longer using, or if you are designing a product that you would like to upgrade the CPU and RAM on in two or more years time but you don't want the hassle of doing a total redesign, and you really don't think it's okay to spend more money on doing the upgrade, *then* you want to consider investing - and it is a long-term investment - in EOMA68.

think about it.  you only need to buy one base unit, and you can upgrade the CPU Card at less cost.  or, you can buy two or more base units and only one CPU Card, and share them between bases.

either way you save money... *long-term*... and that also means less land-fill.

We've seen mention of an OLinuXino-LIME2 with almost identical specs plus gigabit ethernet, which could possibly be below this price point.

 

yeah, see above.  also you can't put SBCs into a tablet or a laptop, can you.  EOMA68 is designed as an environmentally-conscious mass-volume computing appliance standard.  that means - just as there is on the ICE PC web site (who have $200m investment rather than doing things as a self-bootstrapped grassroots project) - that you will be able to buy these as off-the-shelf units.

now, as this is being done by someone who is from the software libre community, that means that every unit that's available in supermarkets will be possible to replace the OS and install Software Libre OSes on it.

i have friends who have a stack of tablets a METRE HIGH where they have tried to re-use low-cost china tablets for engineering purposes.  it sounds great: instead of spending $50,000 to design their own hardware and it costs $200 per board because they only expect to sell 500 units, they buy $30 tablets and expect to be able to replace the OS with their own.

... except that they discover that there's endemic GPL violations - mjg59 | Android, GPL violations and Google - and actually putting an alternative OS onto the product is flat-out impossible and requires specialist reverse-engineering skills way beyond their budget.

so there is a lot going on.

agrahambell wrote:

 

Could this be the first actual EOMA-68 turned into a product that you can (almost) buy ?

(note: i will be announcing a crowd-funded campaign in the next 2-3 months)

things happen when they're ready.  do you use ubuntu or do you use debian?  you're aware that the ubuntu team force-release every six months, whereas the debian team release when the software has been properly tested.

it's a similar thing here.  EOMA-68 is a long-term standard that is designed with at least a decade of life (hence why it has the wires which are presently used for USB 3 that will be upgraded to USB 3.1 within the lifetime of the standard).

Have rhombus tech been beaten to the finish line ?

if you meant by the improv then no - we were their supplier.  unfortunately they didn't get enough take-up and a MOQ of 2500 units had been set.

if you meant "has rhombus tech been beaten to the finish line by a standard similar to EOMA-68" then the answer is a most definite resounding no.  there simply does not exist anything - anywhere - like the EOMA-68 standard.  there does exist this: ICE Computer however:

• i don't immediately see any specifications for the standard - perhaps someone could help look for them?
• i don't see any mention of invitations to create compatible modules or base-boards,
• the bar is set extremely high for the interfaces (eDP and HDMI) which immediately rules out the possibility of a CPU Card with a BOM of $USD 12 to 15 because no $2 SoC is ever going to include the multi-dollar royalties required for outputting data in eDP or HDMI format: it would double or triple the cost of the $2 SoC!
• the size of the modules are actually quite large: there's no way you could consider fitting them inside a wallet (i have carried an EOMA68 CPU Card around in my wallet for a while just to demonstrate that it can be done).

 

It'll be interesting to see where it leads, now that there's an actual product (almost) available, not sure on the $75 though, it seems that there's probably better value boards available today, and that there's only going to be more of those in the next year.

right.  this is where the point of EOMA68 is most misunderstood by people in the engineering and open hardware community, by comparing EOMA68 CPU Cards to SBCs.

if you want an SBC which you intend to use in a short-term product that will never require any kind of upgrades, and has no requirement - ever - to be upgraded, or if you just want something to tinker with that will, after a year, sit on a shelf or be thrown into landfill and you intend to buy another one after a year or two, then please feel free to do exactly that.

however if you have any kind of environmental conscience that makes you think twice before throwing away those SBCs that you're no longer using, or if you are designing a product that you would like to upgrade the CPU and RAM on in two or more years time but you don't want the hassle of doing a total redesign, and you really don't think it's okay to spend more money on doing the upgrade, *then* you want to consider investing - and it is a long-term investment - in EOMA68.

think about it.  you only need to buy one base unit, and you can upgrade the CPU Card at less cost.  or, you can buy two or more base units and only one CPU Card, and share them between bases.

either way you save money... *long-term*... and that also means less land-fill.

We've seen mention of an OLinuXino-LIME2 with almost identical specs plus gigabit ethernet, which could possibly be below this price point.

 

yeah, see above.  also you can't put SBCs into a tablet or a laptop, can you.  EOMA68 is designed as an environmentally-conscious mass-volume computing appliance standard.  that means - just as there is on the ICE PC web site (who have $200m investment rather than doing things as a self-bootstrapped grassroots project) - that you will be able to buy these as off-the-shelf units.

now, as this is being done by someone who is from the software libre community, that means that every unit that's available in supermarkets will be possible to replace the OS and install Software Libre OSes on it.

i have friends who have a stack of tablets a METRE HIGH where they have tried to re-use low-cost china tablets for engineering purposes.  it sounds great: instead of spending $50,000 to design their own hardware and it costs $200 per board because they only expect to sell 500 units, they buy $30 tablets and expect to be able to replace the OS with their own.

... except that they discover that there's endemic GPL violations - mjg59 | Android, GPL violations and Google - and actually putting an alternative OS onto the product is flat-out impossible and requires specialist reverse-engineering skills way beyond their budget.

so there is a lot going on.