BeagleBoard - your personal computer smaller than your wallet
It is amazing how big progress was made in embedded systems recently. I remember when I had microcontrollers class at Wroclaw University of Technology (about 3 years ago) and we were programming in Assembly. When I heard (3 years ago) that the main language for programming microcontrollers is C++ I was so excited. It would be so much easier than in Assembly. Now (3 years later), I started working on my Master Thesis at Kansas State University. The ultimate goal is to create prototype of medical device using embedded computer BeagleBoard XM.
This board has 1GHz ARM processor (Cortex-A8), 512MB RAM, 4 USB ports and even HDMI output. Moreover, it has MicroSD slot which allows you to run Linux or Android Operating system!
There is also Ethernet port, which allows to update the Operating System without any external PC. The key part of the device is set of PWM pins, which will allow me to control the medical device engine.
I will use Ada programming language with cross-compiler from AdaCore. However you can install Java VM and run Java programs if you want! It blows my mind! Programming microcontrollers in Java (the very high-level programming language) instead of doing it in Assembly.
The cost of this Board is $149, which is another advantage of this device.
More info about the board can be found here.
It usually comes along with MicroSD card and Angstrom Linux on it. Additionally, you can find Angstrom images here. To update existing installation (of Angstrom) just do
opkg update
opkg upgrade
More info about OPKG Package Manager (Angstrom's Package Manager) can be found here.