How to get an XCore development board/kit?

New to XMOS and XCore? Get started here.
Post Reply
User avatar
iBradleyAllen
New User
Posts: 2
Joined: Mon Sep 27, 2010 2:26 am

How to get an XCore development board/kit?

Post by iBradleyAllen »

Hi all

Im new to your forum, came here by way of a youtube video showing an LED cube...

I have a few different kinds of dev boards but want to try out some hardware and was not sure where to start. A used setup would be best right now.

Just finished building a 4x LED cube but havent connected it up to anything yet... turns out my pc motherboard didnt come with the printer port (Asus P5W DH deluxe), and 2 laptops dont have one, and I dont have the expansion docking station? what a hassle to find a working parallel port. so far only have a Rabbit semi rcm3400 dev kit, will try driving it with this; Then it would be nice to compare to the XCore


User avatar
bsmithyman
Experienced Member
Posts: 126
Joined: Fri Feb 12, 2010 10:31 pm
Contact:

Post by bsmithyman »

Hi iBradleyAllen,

It probably depends on where you are, but I know that Digikey is the main source in North America. Sparkfun has a custom board that they developed, which is perhaps the cheapest option; however they are in the process of doing some revisions to address user comments. The XMOS XK-1 or XC-1A development kits are the most common and have a good user base (as well as being reasonably priced). If you mean used as in pre-owned, I don't know where to tell you to look; other forum members might have ideas, but I think you'll find most of us are pretty attached to our XCores.

The best choice of board depends on what else you would like to get from the hardware, how many I/O ports you need, and your processing requirements. Any feelings on what else you might want to do with a dev board?
User avatar
iBradleyAllen
New User
Posts: 2
Joined: Mon Sep 27, 2010 2:26 am

Post by iBradleyAllen »

Hi bsmithyman,

Yes it comes down to not having a budget. Thanks for that link they have some great products!

What Im hoping to do is 2 things, realtime processing and I/O data streaming. its a hassle to try to make one processor manage interrupts, in fact its a waste of time. a single cpu thats running on average about 60% useage and streaming data fine can hit an rare combination of some interrupt condition that breaks the data flow, which is unacceptable.

simple embedded stuff, Im always interested in finding a low cost processor with great support; but i want to find the parallel setup and play with that... gotta run
User avatar
rp181
Respected Member
Posts: 395
Joined: Tue May 18, 2010 12:25 am
Contact:

Post by rp181 »

I would go with the XC-1A. It allows you to try multi-core programming, but also use it just like a single core device. If you do not need the chaining ability, its a great solution. My only complaint is that UART connection is useless for transmitting lots of data. For that, the XTAG would be better.
User avatar
TonyD
XCore Addict
Posts: 234
Joined: Thu Dec 10, 2009 11:11 pm
Location: Newcastle, UK
Contact:

Post by TonyD »

Hi iBradleyAllen

About a year ago I put together a quick comparison of the Xmos boards costing < $100
User avatar
lilltroll
XCore Expert
Posts: 956
Joined: Fri Dec 11, 2009 3:53 am
Location: Sweden, Eskilstuna

Post by lilltroll »

Probably not the most confused programmer anymore on the XCORE forum.
User avatar
jason
XCore Expert
Posts: 577
Joined: Tue Sep 08, 2009 5:15 pm
Contact:

Post by jason »

Post Reply