Gumstix

Gumstix is a US-based company that designs and markets full function miniature computers and related products to customers in sixty (60) countries around the world. The company is focused on the [Network Computer], [Telephony], [Location based service] as well as the [Robotics] market and has a much more general focus because the gumstix "is just a computer".

gumstix has become synonomous with their product lines of very small computers and boards, which is a motherboard-and-daughtercard alternative to Single-board computers (SBC's) based on Intel XScale processors (200 MHz and 400 MHz). RAM memory is 64 MB.

All gumstix computers and motherboards come preloaded with the latest Linux operating system. The motherboards measure just 80 mm x 20 mm x 6.3 mm. A range of daughtercards are available which can extend the I/O function of the system in a wide range of possible ways. I/O options via daughtercards include synchronous and asynchronous serial, USB, Ethernet, Bluetooth and Wifi wireless interfaces.

Computers

Gumstix has two computer product lines: netstix and waysmalls.

netstix

The netstix computers provide 10/100 Mb Ethernet connected computers with CompactFlash (CF) for storage and Wifi expansion.

waysmalls

The waysmall computers have USB and serial connectivty with MultiMediaCard (MMC) storage capability.

Motherboards

The gumstix line of motherboards features two main motherboards: connex, and basix. Both motherboards provide an Intel XScale® PXA255 processor running at 200 MHz or 400 MHz as well as 64 MB of SDRAM, Linux 2.6 and a userspace toolkit based on the uClibc C library with the BusyBox utilities. The software is a full-blown Linux environment and a large range of Linux applications can run on the device.

To all motherboards, expansion cards can be connected via an onboard 60-pin Hirose I/O header or, on the connex, via a 92-pin bus header. Both the basix and the connex motherboards feature an Infineon Bluetooth module as an option and draw less than 250 mA @4V at 400 MHz without Bluetooth while running and less than 50 mA while idling, waiting for input.

connex

The connex motherboard also feature on-board 16 MB strataflash, an onboard 60-pin Hirose I/O header, a 92-pin bus header for connecting additional expansion cards and Infineon Bluetooth as an option.

basix

The basix motherboard features 4 MB strataflash, an onboard 60-pin Hirose I/O header, an onboard MMC slot and Infineon Bluetooth as an option. Basix-xm models extend the 4 MB of flash to 16 MB.

Expansion Boards

The gumstix motherboards are designed for flexibility of function with a range of cards which can be connected to the motherboard for modular expansion. Some cards provide simple I/O transceivers, while others provide more complex functions:

GPS
Audio
Servo motor controllers
Analog-to-digital converters
General-purpose digital I/O
single and dual 10/100 Ethernet
10/100 Ethernet with MMC
dual 10/100 Ethernet with MMC
WLAN 802.11 b/g
CompactFlash
MMC and SD
Robotics
Robotics with audio

Software Development Kit

The gumstix SDK is available at no charge and does not require gumstix hardware.

External links

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