alt Hacker NewsOh running Linux on a MCU without MMU.
I feel there is a gap between MCU and modern CPU, and also between the software running on top of them. The missing piece is a mid-size computer with: - A processor, single or multi-core, with computing power like 20 years ago, but modern fabrication process. Maybe without MMU for simplicity. - RAM between 100MB~1GB and DDR2/3 bandwidth. - An OS designed and implemented for this type of hardware rather than tailored Linux.
I don't think you can use it for working or your daily entertainment, so I guess not a good business to attract interests.
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There are multiple offers like Allwinner V831, Rockchip RV1108, etc with devboards costing ~$15
For all intents and purposes, the fist raspberry pi is pretty much that, except maybe the tailored OS. Although I'm not sure what would even fit between a fully featured rtos and a trimmed down linux.
That was Intel Quark. It was too expensive for the “big microcontroller” use case and too power hungry for the “small Linux” use case.
The marketing was confusing, I’m not sure Intel even knew what it was for, except to show investors they had an IoT play.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_Quark
I found some of these boards in a box last year and was unable to do anything with them… Intel has thoroughly erased all documentation and SDKs from the internet. If anyone has those artifacts, please push to archive.org