POCO on Tiny Hardware

We recently got our hands on a Digi Connect ME 9210, one of the smallest Linux-capable embedded computers in the world. The system, which is just a bit larger than an Ethernet RJ-45 socket, is based on an ARM9 CPU running at 75 MHz. With 4 MB of Flash and 8 MB or DRAM, the system is powerful enough to run POCO-based applications. For example, we ported the Mindstorms/iPhone controller application from the demo we showed at Embedded World in Nuremberg to the Connect ME, and it runs great. Well, porting is a bit overstating, as we merely had to build a new Flash image for the Connect ME, and update the application’s config file. Well, a 75 MHz ARM9 CPU provides enough power to run an application with a built-in web server powering an Ajax-enabled website. Also, the performance improvements for the 1.3.4 release help a lot to make the application work great. Additionally, the 1.3.4 release will introduce some minor changes to help reduce the executable size of statically linked applications. For example, it is possible to build the Util library without XMLConfiguration support, which prevents the XML library from being linked in, cutting about 500K from the executable size.

Working with this little device has been a lot of fun, and we are looking forward doing some cool projects with it.