new user needs clarification

Hi there,

i'm interested to buy Mini210 | S5PV210 ARM Cortex-A8 Board for my project:

Please help me clarify on these matters:

- Basically, i want to use the hardware to acquire ADC values from 16-32
channels. the values will then be used to construct a 2D (64x64 pixels)
image. if the hardware is also capable (have enough IO ports), it will be a
main controller that will also control some switching on other external
circuitry. 

1) what kind of software or IDE that will be used to program and construct
a GUI on the hardware?

2) is the ARM processor able to do floating-point calculations? fast?

3) with the purchase, will i need any optional hardwares to load the
programs into the Mini210?

4) will there be needing to buy any other optional software/drives so that
i can use the IOs? 
- if i want to use USB to transfer data to the PC, need buy any drivers?
- if i want to use bulk transfer mode with the USB, need buy any drivers?
- if i want to use the WiFi to transfer data to the PC, need buy any
drivers?
- if i want to use the SPI/I2C, need buy any drivers?
- if i want to construct GUI, need buy any drivers?
- if i want to use the touchscreen, need buy any drivers?

Please help me clarify these, especially if the sales/technical team can
answer this for me, it would be very very useful.

Thank you.

Hi there,

Hi Miskal

i'm interested to buy Mini210 | S5PV210 ARM Cortex-A8 Board for my project:

Please help me clarify on these matters:

- Basically, i want to use the hardware to acquire ADC values from 16-32
channels. the values will then be used to construct a 2D (64x64 pixels)
image. if the hardware is also capable (have enough IO ports), it will be a
main controller that will also control some switching on other external
circuitry. 

1) what kind of software or IDE that will be used to program and construct
a GUI on the hardware?

You can use Android, Ubuntu, Debian, Plain Linux with Qt4, uC-ISII, etc.
The IDE can be Eclipse for target compiling or into a NFS on your PC. Or
with the tools loaded under Debain or Ubuntu you can compile directly on
the Mini210 (sometimes this avoides cross-compiler bugs).

2) is the ARM processor able to do floating-point calculations? fast?

Yes. (How fast is fast? The system is 1 GHz) The S5PV210 has hardware
floating point and VFP/NEON vector floating point hardware for 2D/3D
graphics. Debian now supports the hardware FP in the tool chain.

3) with the purchase, will i need any optional hardwares to load the
programs into the Mini210?

No. It comes with cables and can also be programmed or started from an SD
card.

4) will there be needing to buy any other optional software/drives so that
i can use the IOs? 
- if i want to use USB to transfer data to the PC, need buy any drivers?
- if i want to use bulk transfer mode with the USB, need buy any drivers?
- if i want to use the WiFi to transfer data to the PC, need buy any
drivers?

No.

- if i want to use the SPI/I2C, need buy any drivers?
- if i want to construct GUI, need buy any drivers?
- if i want to use the touchscreen, need buy any drivers?

No. But you may have to search for them. I think you will also need to use
GPIO as a chip select and a couple of analog multiplexers to read as many
analog inputs as you describe.

Please help me clarify these, especially if the sales/technical team can
answer this for me, it would be very very useful.

Thank you.

Hi Miskol,

I have the Mini210 and if you use it as it comes out of the box with
Android then you can develop your application with Eclipse on whatever OS
you have, Linux, Windows or Mac.

As for IO, it is unlikely that a USB ADC device will work straight off as
Android does not come with drivers for anything other than the standard
sort of stuff you would use with a phone etc.

As for IO there are GPIO pins and SPI and I2C are available. FriendlyArm
provide a limited hardware driver for these (I wish they would release the
code for this as the board is very versatile but useless without source
code that can use the available IO)

There is no external bus on the Mini210 as there was on the Mini6410 but
most people won't use this.

For programming you will most likely code for Android in a Java like
language or you can get the Google NDK and use C++ which is a bit more
work. GUI is fairly easy with Android once you get familiar with it and I
don't see any issues with your requirements on this.

Touchscreen is native to Android so this is covered.

WiFi works well on the Mini210 and uses TCP/IP so talking to your PC will
be easy.

USB is the only part you may need to do drivers for.

I have not done any heavy processing with Android and the Cortex A8 but it
is a capable device. I am sure others of sales will assist with the
additional information.

Dave...

Thank you very much for the replies!!

i will study more based on the helpful replies. currently searching for
local supplier to purchase Mini210 (Malaysia).