Cheap PowerPC Evaluation Board?

Question

Hello all,

I've been trying to learn embedded software development for some time (been doing software for almost 15 years, 10 in Java, plus good knowledge of C/C++/X86 Asm from College.) Started playing with a PIC-based evaluation board just for kicks.

Where I work, there is a dept. they have some openings on embedded systems from time to time. One of the things they look for is experience with PowerPC architecture.

I've looked over the interweebz for cheap evaluation boards with PowerPC chips, but all I've found are boards between $400-$1000 and above. I wonder if there is a cheap way to learn embedded systems on a PowerPC architecture since I've seen evaluation boards for other architectures for a fraction of that price range.

Or, if an eval. board is not available at affordable prices, at least a cheap platform in which to practice programming in PowerPC assembly (even if it's not embedded.)

Anyone that could pitch some suggestions?

Oh, and if you could recommend some books on PowerPC architecture and programming, that'd be great, too.

Thanks.

Answer 1

You could go the emulation route. I run qemu-ppc to test out my compiler:

[~/ecc/ellcc/test/source] main% cat write.c
int main(int argc, char** argv)
{
    write(1, "hello world\n", sizeof("hello world\n") - 1);
}
[~/ecc/ellcc/test/source] main% ~/ecc/ellcc/bin/powerpc-elf-ecc write.c
[~/ecc/ellcc/test/source] main% ~/ecc/ellcc/bin/qemu-ppc a.out
hello world
[~/ecc/ellcc/test/source] main%

There's no reason you couldn't do assembly programming with it. qemu-ppc emulates a ppc Linux process. qemu-system-ppc emulates a powerpc system (it can boot Linux). I'm hoping to use that for stand-alone targets also but i haven't gotten that far, yet.

Answer 2

Just get an old PowerPC Mac, anything from an old System 7 machine to whenever they stopped selling PowerPC ones.

http://www.google.com/products?q=g3+mac&hl=en&aq=f

http://www.google.com/products?q=original+imac&hl=en&aq=f

Answer 3

I don't know as far as evaluation boards, but the Gamecube and Wii both run PowerPC processors. You can usually pick up a Gamecube used for $30, and there is a workable linux distribution and plenty of information at the GamecubeLinux Wiki

Answer 4

+1 to the PPC Mac... that will be by far the most convenient way.

Or, if you want something new that you could use as a router, the Routerboard 600 series are PowerPC based: http://routerboard.com/index.php?showProduct=55