[Mono-list] questions about embedded devices with mono

[Engler, Eric]

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>I've read something about running Mono on ARM processors and got 
>quite interested in development of embedded devices.

I do a lot of embedded work in C, but I haven't tried to use Mono in
that space yet. I normally use the smaller Arm7 and Cortex M3 chips that
can't run linux. They either don't have an OS, or else they have
something light like FreeRTOS.

However, I've been extremely impressed with a recent board that does run
linux, and it has a powerful AVR32 chip. This is perhaps the cheapest
embedded board that runs linux and is well supported. I can't speak to
the difficulty in making Mono work on it, though, since it's not an
Arm9:

http://www.atmel.com/dyn/products/view_detail.asp?FileName=AVR32NGKit_3_
26.html&family_id=682

If you want a true Arm9 processor, Atmel has these dev boards but they
cost a lot more:

http://www.atmel.com/dyn/products/tools_card.asp?tool_id=3820
http://www.atmel.com/dyn/products/tools_card.asp?tool_id=4057

Olimex is a well known and trusted source for much cheaper boards.
They've got some Cirrus Logic Arm9's and some Atmel SAM9's:

http://www.olimex.com/dev/index.html (then click on Arm on the left)

You can google the MicroFramework to see what Microsoft is doing in the
"deeply embedded" market lately. The deeply embedded market typically
doesn't have an OS, but the MicroFramework becomes the OS of these
devices. I personally don't care for this implementation because you
have to buy specific hardware and you can't roll your own.

The MicroFramework is one level under the Compact Framework which sits
on top of Windows CE.

Eric

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