<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html charset=utf-8"></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space;" class=""><div><blockquote type="cite" class="">Another contributor to the difficulty of making a successful keyboard/DAW<br class="">hardware solution is the amount of effort/time required to build and run<br class="">the system. It's a good couple of man years of effort to wrap it all up<br class="">into a simple UI. Add the cost of manufacturing hardware and it quickly<br class="">become very difficult to compete on price with the established players.<br class=""><br class="">It's a minefield to build a simple system that just works. Realistically<br class="">it requires building out a complete stand alone distribution.<br class=""></blockquote></div><br class=""><div class=""><div apple-content-edited="true" class=""><div style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space;" class=""><div style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space;" class=""><div style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space;" class=""><div class="">My 2cents here:</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">On the hardware part, I might be wrong but a powerful ARM platform is more interesting than any of the Intel NUCs.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">If we are talking multiple cores we have the Cubie8, the Optimus and others based on the AllWinner A80 which is an 8 core, 2MHz, ARM v7 + ARM v15 (BIG.little) CPU</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">If we’re talking performance per core, the Pine64, the DragonBoard 410 and even the Raspberry 3 (though I would not recommend the later) are a great option for the new 64bit ARM cpus.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">And of course, there are at least a handful of companies offering these SBCs already with a Board Support Package for the Industry: Toradex, Eurotech and Variscite are some.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">On the software part, I’d divide it into the OS + BSP and your actual software (the actual application)</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">If you're making a business, then outsource all the OS + BSP and focus on your application. </div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">The specification of OS + BSP are defined by the application, so I would do it at least in two rounds, doing a first round of prototypes using as much readily available elements as possible (and caring very little to aesthetics, ergonomy and actual performance), build a preliminary/pilot application over this prototype and then, if you decide you’re game on, you can then precisely specify the outsource job to be done. I can assure you it will pay off in the long run :-)</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">if you are using AllWinner CPUs, companies like Free Electrons can do all OS and necessary drivers. Even better, they do it in mainline vanilla kernel, which not only keeps your Open Source assumption but also gives you a much longer life cycle.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">If you’re doing for fun, try to find the board that offers the smallest effort on the OS + BSP. Magic word here for the tool is Buildroot ;-)</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">hope I have helped</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">Gianfranco Ceccolini</div><div class="">MOD Devices</div><div class="">+49 160 646 9313</div><div class=""><a href="mailto:gianfranco@moddevices.com" class="">gianfranco@moddevices.com</a></div><div class=""><br class=""></div></div></div></div></div></div></body></html>