News:

2box forum: accident-free since the last one.

Main Menu

Actual hardware in the brain?

Started by MisterE, May 01, 2011, 06:39:03 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

MisterE

When i buy electronic toys i always like the know the inner workings.
So, i like to know stuff like:
* processor (type)
* operating system (i assume some kind of embedded linux?)
* does it have some specialized hardware chips for MP3/mixing sounds/Digital effects/sample decompression/positional sensing

I'm afraid everything is done in software, so has the processor the juice to do all those last things without sacrifice the latency.

Maybe someone has a picture of the board inside the brain?

Baby Samus

#1
Quote from: MisterE on May 01, 2011, 06:39:03 PM
When i buy electronic toys i always like the know the inner workings.
So, i like to know stuff like:
* processor (type)
* operating system (i assume some kind of embedded linux?)
* does it have some specialized hardware chips for MP3/mixing sounds/Digital effects/sample decompression/positional sensing

I'm afraid everything is done in software, so has the processor the juice to do all those last things without sacrifice the latency.

Maybe someone has a picture of the board inside the brain?

* processor (type) -
yes, the processor has the juice.  Latency has been measured by some forum members and it ranges from 3.5m/s to around 8m/s I think, but it averages around the 4 or 5 m/s mark.  It seems responsive enough to my ears anyway.
* operating system (i assume some kind of embedded linux?) - The O/S is extremely simple and so not much to say about it.  You can't really customize it if that is what you mean.
* does it have some specialized hardware chips for MP3/mixing sounds/Digital effects/sample decompression/positional sensing - Yes, it can play .wav and .mp3 (think .mp3 is already enabled if not future update), it has a limited set of EQ and Effects but of course that can change in future updates.  Sample compression will be 3 to 1 in future update too.

MisterE

the point is that if it don't has dedicated chips for the things i mentioned, it will have a negative influence on the rest of the system, and so probably the triggering (because the main processor has to do the multiple jobs)

nobody made a photo of the internals ??

Baby Samus

There are photo's on the forum of the 2Box opened up so you can check there.

Manfred


Hi,

the processor is an Atmel AT91SAM9261 with ARM-Core. It is possible that the current brains have a slightly different processor. Not sure but somewhere i read that this was the reason for a new version of the bootloader.

Regards, Manfred

Baby Samus

If thats correct, here's the link to the board:

http://www.atmel.com/dyn/products/product_card.asp?part_id=3638

Interesting - 'an integrated graphics LCD controller supporting screen resolutions up to 1280x860 with 16M colors and 24bpp'

MisterE

well, seems a dedicated chip, so probably not an Operating system like linux running. Making programming the thing much more difficult.
I wonder if it has dedicated chips for the MP3 support/compression.

Manfred


Hi,

why should the board have a chip for MP3 compression even though the brain does not support MP3? I didn't open the brain up to now and saw only a picture with a section of the board. So i'm not sure but i can't imagine that there is a MP3-chip.

The processor is not really a dedicated chip, it has an ARM9 core with some DSP enhancements and is also used in many other applications. But the main reason against an operating system like linux is performance. Usually operating systems are used if you have graphical user interfaces, ethernet, wifi or things like that. The 2Box-brain has not so much standard ports that i would expect an operating system. But maybe i'm wrong.

Regards, Manfred

MisterE

Quote
why should the board have a chip for MP3 compression even though the brain does not support MP3? I didn't open the brain up to now and saw only a picture with a section of the board. So i'm not sure but i can't imagine that there is a MP3-chip.
AFAIK, playback of MP3 songs/3x lossless compression are promised (Is there a official statement for this?) If you should use the ARM chip for it all other things would be slower.


Quote
The processor is not really a dedicated chip, it has an ARM9 core with some DSP enhancements and is also used in many other applications. But the main reason against an operating system like linux is performance. Usually operating systems are used if you have graphical user interfaces, ethernet, wifi or things like that. The 2Box-brain has not so much standard ports that i would expect an operating system. But maybe i'm wrong.
You can really strip a linux kernel to the bare minimum. Video output, and all other stuff you mentioned, is optional. You can compile it as a RTOS (Real-time operating system). I'm not a embedded programmer, but i can imagine the overhead is very very marginal. For this little overhead you get a easy to program computer, it knows filesystems (like the flash card) and adding MP3 playback is simple adding a library.

The point is, in the past if seen  companies promised features which were impossible to realize or the just released a newer model and stopped the development. True, mostly cheaper devices....so we'll see

Baby Samus

#9
Yeah its a basic SOC/micro controller board (system on chip) so in essence just a very low power pc with small amount of memory and CPU core, I don't think you need an MP3 chip to decode or play MP3 files really, you just need enough spare CPU and RAM to do it with I guess.  If they promised MP3 support then it must be capable of it in theory.  Seeing as no files have to be loaded from hard drive into RAM the only CPU draw would be decoding it, doubt it would slow the system from accessing/playing samples because those files are already in flash memory.

You need something like Yagarto or Crossworks to program it I think:

http://www.rowley.co.uk/
http://www.yagarto.de/

nonoduweb

More infos about the ARM926:
http://www.arm.com/products/processors/classic/arm9/arm926.php

I don't know if the module has exactly this kind of processor; it seems that there are some good features.