Soc newbie help

[ecekat]

hello,
i am new to the system on chip group.I am buying betwwen the raspberry pi model B+ and the beaglebone black.i am elecrical engineer with roborics specialazation.i am familiar with c, python and the basics of matlab.what one should fit better for me?

[adafruit_support_mike]

That's kind of a toss-up.

They're both good systems, and they both run Linux, so the hardware differences are less visible from the programming end.

What do you want the device to do?

[ecekat]

thanks for the quick repsonse.since i am new one , i will stick with the basics such as pwm, connecting sensors etc..i am familiar with the tiva c series microcontrollers also,

[adafruit_support_mike]

For general learning, the RasPi is a bit easier.

The RasPi was designed to be a low-cost educational device. The BBB is a rather more mature (aka "complicated") hardware design, and has a slight advantage for embedded systems that require the power of a full-scale computer.

[ecekat]

complicated you mean in programming ?what kind of programming do they require?(i mean the bbb and the pi)

[adafruit_support_mike]

Complicated in terms of writing code that exploits the special features of the hardware.

The RasPi has one major chip.. the Broadcom 2835 microprocessor. If you read and understand the datasheets for that (and that's a lot of work) you know pretty much everything the RasPi can do.

The BBB has several advanced chips. The TPS65217C PMIC.. a single chip that contains several voltage regulators and boost/buck converters that regulate power to all the rest of the circuits.. has a datasheet longer than the microcontroller in an Arduino. The Sitara AM3359 microprocessor is an ARM-8 architecture with about three datasheets, and has two built-in microcontrollers with their own datasheets. There's an TDA19988 HDMI encoder that you have to deal with if you want to program display hardware, etc.

The BBB's additional hardware complexity allows it to do a lot of impressive things, but there's more of a learning curve.

[ecekat]

hmm..so you mean in order to use some motors and an inertial measuring unit will be that painful?in terms of time and reading i mean

[adafruit_support_mike]

The RasPi will probably be easier to use for those kinds of tasks.