Expansion headers as BeagleBone

[suarezvictor]

IDEA #1

* Make expansion headers compatible with the also nice BeagleBone board, since planed size are equal (3.4x2.1 inches)
* Route pixel signals (as feeded to HDMI chip) to expansion header, like in BeagleBone, in order to allow interfacing a VGA or touch TFT-LCD (i.e. pin compatible with existing LCD/VGA "capes")



Example: Embest LCD "cape" (with FPC connector to LCD):


Circuitco's "cape" (board pinout that can be used for LCD compatibility):

[admin]

Thank you for the suggestion, we absolutely see where you are coming from! The BeagleBone capes are brilliant and we seriously considered being compatible with BeagleBone capes, but in the end it conflicted with a more important design consideration: maximizing the board IO bandwidth. More information about the Parallella GPIO coming soon..

Once the IO spec is published, we would really appreciate help coming up with a "shim" solution for cleanly mating our IO solution to the large number of cape boards out there.

[errolt]

[suarezvictor]

Thanks for appreciating my idea, besides you somewhat thought about it before.
To maximize I/O bandwidth will be very good. But anyways if for BB capes one needs an adaptor, please take into account the mechanical positions of the headers so an adaptor is at least possible... since "surprinsingly" BB and parallella are exactly the same size, capes should match mechanically.

PS: how do you knew where "I'm coming from"??

[Bryant]

[9600]

I just wanted to add that in terms of creating a Parallella/Cape shim there is a great example of something similar for Raspberry Pi/Arduino in the form of "Ponte" from Omer Kilic and SK Pang — see the and from Omer.

It would great to see something similar for the Parallella board and extremely cool if it enabled use of both BeagleBone Capes and Arduino Shields.