

Y Combinator is hosting its first-ever hackathon — with a twist - Lime
http://venturebeat.com/2013/01/29/y-combinator-is-hosting-its-first-ever-hackathon-with-a-twist/

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wtracy
If I may hijack this thread:

The only computer systems I can find that offer easy-to-access input and
output pins are low-power single-board computers like the Arduino. Are there
any options for people who need desktop-equivalent computer power to run their
creations? The only options I really see are to run I/O through an Arduino, or
to jab wires into an ISA slot on a desktop motherboard.

~~~
csense
> ISA slot

Good luck finding one of those. It's been well over a decade since systems
switched to PCI.

> desktop-equivalent

If a Raspberry Pi [1] doesn't have enough horsepower for you, the Kickstarter-
funded Parallella project [2], currently shipping prototypes, will offer a
dual-core ARM main processor and a 16- or 64-core Epiphany Multicore
Accelerator.

If you still want a desktop, I don't know a thing about hardware, but I've
heard that parallel/serial ports are easy to use for people who do. So maybe
you should look into building your hardware for the parallel/serial port (and
using a USB adapter since most modern systems don't have them onboard)?

Of course, AFAIK serial ports max out at 115200 bits/second, so if you need a
faster I/O rate for your application, look into USB, Ethernet, or PCI.

[1] <http://www.raspberrypi.org/faqs>

[2] <http://www.parallella.org/board/>

~~~
wtracy
> It's been well over a decade since systems switched to PCI.

I keep getting the two reversed in my head. >_<

I somehow completely missed that the Raspberry and the Parallella featured
GPIO pins (and I sank a lot of money into the Parallella Kickstarter!). Thanks
for pointing that out to me.

