On Sun, Mar 08, 2015 at 07:09:52PM -0500, Adam Thompson wrote: > I'm looking for a very (physically) small (embedded) platform that can run > OpenBSD properly, including at least: > USB 2.0, > ethernet, > MIDI (presumably via USB), > OK-to-good-quality analog audio out (can be USB), > some kind of decent storage (i.e. not USB!), > and enough CPU horsepower to run a soundfont-based softsynth like > timitidy or fluidsynth (so ~500MHz+). > > All preferably for no more than ~C$100 per board. > > Locally, I can get RasPis, BeagleBone Blacks, and MinnowBoards cheaply.
> The RasPi isn't supported at all, the BeagleBone Black doesn't have USB yet, > and the MinnowBoards don't have ethernet yet. The RasberyPi is said (search linux audio lists) to be unusable because of the poor quality hardware. > Looking at the OpenBSD platform list, I see these options > Wandboard, SABRE Lite, Nitrogen6X, Pandaboard (armv7): all too > expensive, although the wandboard comes close on price (~C$110 to $125 + > S&H). > SH-4 (landisk): not fast enough > RB600A (socppc): not available anymore. > IIRC OpenBSD arm-based boards have no audio drivers yet (but it'd be not too hard to add). The pandaboard seems promising as a synth, but I'm not sure about the quality of the audio input/outputs. > That leaves i386 and amd64 platforms. > There are a few Intel J1800 boards available for <C$100 (not including RAM), > but I have no idea how well they run OpenBSD, and most of them seem to have > UEFI boot only. > > If you know of a small, cheap, fanless, x86-compatible board available in > Canada *that runs OpenBSD reasonably well*, please let me know. Otherwise > I'll probably have to give the Wandboard a shot despite the > slightly-too-high price. > > (In case it's not blazingly obvious, I want to try creating a replacement > for a hardware MIDI synthesizer, but that can choose between soundfonts.) I failed to find this kind of box (tryed to build my synth as well). Most platforms I've found seem to be designed either for networking or to serve as TVs (i.e. inexistent or poor quality analog input/outputs). For now my best option is to get and old PC from the bin and to add a good pci sound card. Unfortunately this doesn't qualify as small. Another (unsolved) problem is how to control the synth. Unless you have a screen and a keyboard, you'll need few buttons to adjust parameters or at least switch between presets. For now I use a bulky MIDI control surface but I get no visual feedback about what is going on. Let me know if you find interesting platforms, even if they don't seem perfect.
