Had bumped into Beagle while looking out for some expandable platforms on which Me could try my ideas out. Must admit that Me was totally baffled at the power this small little 3"x3" beast packs in itself. Added to that, interesting videos like this and this and this and this gave me all the boost to go check it out at FOSS.IN where Khasim was hosting a talk about Beagle. Had a very good chat with him about the board, its features and how developers could use it.
And boy! what a revelation that interaction turned out to be! The first shocker was the fact that every part of this little thing is opensource! Right from the schematics to the software that enables the peripherals on the device, to the community based development of solutions - everything. Somehow, never imagined TI going the opensource way. My chat with Khasim firmed up my impression on Beagle even more. Khasim spoke about how he/ the beagle community can help small groups like us explore and try to work our dream products out.
Subbu also told me about how versatile a processor OMAP was and how Beagle would be the best companion to learn building linux devices from scratch.
At the end of FOSS.IN, Me was totally resolved that Me'd give this little thing a good shot. Lucky for Me, Sharat was returning from US, and Me had ordered a Beagle for myself through Digi-key, so he could get it here. Must point out here that the Live chat with Digi-key support staff was one feature that Me loved a lot.
A while later, 7th Dec 2008, Me met Beagle. Sharat was surprised to see that a 3"x3" board had support for so many functions. Its been a good 4 days since. Reading up the system reference manual, purchasing all the necessary peripherals, making up a kit with all these so Me could carry it around etc... etc...
Haven't been able to boot it up yet. And each of those attempts have been learnings of some sort. They'll follow in further posts.
Yes, slowly but steadily, our journey begins.
Me.
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