I went to the post office this morning to collect an early Christmas present for myself, a Beaglebone ARM development board – basically a Linux server the size of a credit card, powered by the same processor as in a mobile phone.

For those who are looking to get on themselves, I bought mine from Farnell in the UK, and got a separate power supply while I was at it. The 3 components were:

The 3 items added up to £12.50 for the power supply, and £58.11 for the Beaglebone itself, so for £70 that’s a pretty decent little box!

Inside the box was a microSD card with the Beaglebone software loaded, a USB cable, and a nice little tin to keep everything in – all looking very polished and much better than I expected.

Once I’ve had a bit of time with it, I’ll do a little write up of what it’s like up and running.