With the Raspberry Pi, Arduino Due, and BeagleBone, the world is full of cheap, tiny computers that can be used by creative developers in everything from robots to space flight.

One thing these platforms have in common is an ARM processor. Now they have some competition from Intel with its "MinnowBoard," a $199 computer in the form of a 4.2" x 4.2" board with an Intel Atom processor.

The first 500 MinnowBoards rolled off the production line a few months ago and sold out within a week, Senior Embedded Systems Engineer David Anders of CircuitCo told Ars at the LinuxCon conference on Tuesday. CircuitCo, also the maker of the BeagleBoard and BeagleBone computers, made the MinnowBoard after being approached by Intel, which wanted to build an x86-based open hardware platform. A new MinnowBoard production run of 5,000 boards began this week.

Those numbers won't threaten the Raspberry Pi's million-plus-selling business, and the MinnowBoard at its initial price is likely to attract a different customer base. But Anders believes x86 boards will reduce in size and price to the point where they will become more suitable for hobbyists.

Open hardware lets users do what they want

It's notable that the MinnowBoard is an open hardware platform, a distinction that Arduino and BeagleBone can claim but Raspberry Pi cannot. Users could create their own MinnowBoards by buying the items on the bill of materials—all the design information is published, and CircuitCo chose components that can be purchased individually rather than in the bulk quantities hardware manufacturers are accustomed to, Anders said. Users can also buy a pre-made MinnowBoard and make customizations or create their own accessory boards to expand its capability.

And being an open hardware platform means that the source code of (almost) all the software required to run the platform is open.

In a keynote address, Intel CTO Dirk Hohndel told the LinuxCon crowd that the MinnowBoard was "specifically designed as the first open hardware board based on x86, and that allows you to build derivatives without an NDA. All the pieces are open and available, all the blueprints you need, all the source files you need. You can create your own embedded platforms without Intel, without any of the vendors involved."

There's just one exception: with the graphics processing unit, only the binary files required to drive the GPU are available, as the source code remains closed. Anders said that's a sticking point for some purists, but he's hoping that "as long as we continue to keep pressure on companies like Intel, Texas Instruments, and Freescale… eventually they'll see the light and say, 'we'll make these open as well.'"

MinnowBoard can load any operating system that can run on the Intel Atom processor. It ships with the Angstrom Linux distribution, which is compatible with the Yocto Project, a set of templates and tools that helps users "create custom Linux-based systems for embedded products."

Cool specs, bro

The device is suitable for anything from hobbyist projects to high-performance embedded applications, with I/O performance being one of the MinnowBoard's standout capabilities. PCIe, SATA disk support, and Gigabit Ethernet make it suitable for file servers and network appliances, Intel notes in a video:

MinnowBoard uses a 5V/2.5A power supply. Other specs are as follows:

Intel Atom E640 CPU (1.0GHz, 32-bit with Hyper-threading and Virtualization Technology)

Integrated Intel Graphics Media Accelerator (GMA) 600

PCI Express

SATA2 3Gbps

Gigabit Ethernet

MicroSD

USB

UEFI Firmware

1GB DDR2 RAM

8 GPIO pins

2 GPIO-controlled LEDs

4 GPIO switches

Although it's more than four times the price of the BeagleBone Black, the MinnowBoard is also four or five times more powerful, according to Anders. "If you look at optimizing a few things, you can get it up to 10 times more powerful," he said.

The most likely use cases today aren't hobbyist applications but industrial uses, Anders said. "The BeagleBone is a very small, low-power device, and it's targeted for some very specific applications for hobbying. You know, developing small proof-of-concept designs," Anders said. "Our initial offer for the MinnowBoard is actually more targeted toward industrial automation, industrial controls. What you'll find is a lot of manufacturers, companies creating products, if they want to create an x86 design, they have to buy a third-party reference platform which is closed. They have to buy large software support packages, support contracts, and they generally don't get the right to use the existing design as it is. They have to buy additional licenses and things to create the product."

Not only that, they would probably pay $1,000 for the development platform instead of $200, he said.

As noted above, this first MinnowBoard uses a three-year-old, 32-bit, single-core Intel Atom processor. That might disappoint some people, but Anders said there are good reasons for the decision from a design perspective. "We use an older processor for several reasons," he said. "The main reason is that internally to Intel there was a lot of concern about doing an open hardware platform because there's not really ever been one. We wanted to choose a processor that we knew was very stable. We used an older one to get our feet wet, so to speak, and understand the design."

Anders hopes to build a MinnowBoard with Intel's new Bay Trail chips within the next six to 12 months, but he noted that the final decision is not his alone. More generally, he believes the MinnowBoard will follow a similar path as the Beagle line of products. The original BeagleBoard cost $149 in 2008. Anders said ARM development platforms were typically going for $1,000 to $4,000 when they first came out.

Anders predicted that sequels to the MinnowBoard will drop in price and size to the point where they become interesting to a much bigger set of developers, including the kinds of hobbyists buying the BeagleBone today. "We expect that within the next 12 to 36 months, we'll see a lot of competitiveness in this market, whether it's from AMD or whoever else that wants to do x86 designs," he said.

UPDATE: There already is an x86 open hardware board with an x86 processor, it turns out. It's called the Gizmo. The device was launched in January, and its design documents were released in August, after the launch of the Minnowboard. However, the files did not come with any license allowing free use, whereas the Minnowboard files are licensed under Creative Commons.