Considering parallella, Have a few questions.

[rwGast]

So i am just a lowly micro controller programmer, but I do like unique platforms like the 8 core propeller, cypress PSoC, and XMOS. I have two projects I am currently considering the parallella for.

The first one is for SDR applications, parallella just makes sense here.

Secondly I have been working on a robot for a few years I use two propellers as sort of soft fpga type chips to write interfaces to slower sensors and other hardware. Then I use PSoC to do hardware quadrature decoding and motor control along with some decision making. Lastly I need a more powerfull board, I had considered an ARM SBC for a long time. This board is meant to run some highly parallel AI algorithms, and help assemble and save maps made from a homemade laser scanner. I have always wanted to try the kinnect out but I never wanted a full blown PC on my bot, when I saw there were kinnect drivers for the parallella I was super excited!

Before I make the jump I just want to make sure the parallella works the way I think it does, I dont need another dusty dev board. First off you run linux on the A9 and develop all your code right on the board, no cross compiling correct? Secondly if that is true for any ARM/Ephinay code what about the zynq FPGA. Will I need to buy a bunch of xilinix stuff to access the FPGA? This would be my first foray in to FPGA dev but one of the biggest sellers is those DSP blocks.... Software Defined radio and things like 2d/3d SLAM with a kinnect can be greatly improves with doing the DSP on the FPGA and then running the other code in chinks on the ephinay. Secondly I see the headless model has no GPIO :/ the other models have GPIO plus E-Links, what is an E-Link??? Is an E-Link maybe a hi speed way to cluster boards together? Lastly how fast are the GPIO pins, and are there drivers to make them SPI or i2C? I use a 20mhz SPI link between all my other chips so I am trying to figure out the best way to get this guy talking to micros.

[sebraa]