Setting up the hardware

Since the BeagleBoard comes with no cables or connectors, this section will discuss the required and optional additional hardware for BeagleBoard development and illustrate how to connect these peripheral devices to have a working BeagleBoard.

Like working with other embedded devices, developing with BeagleBoard generally involves the use of two systems, a desktop development system and the BeagleBoard itself. For convenience, the BeagleBoard hardware is occasionally referred to as "target hardware" or "target system" and the desktop system is referred to as "host computer" or "host PC". In this book, the host computer we are using is a common desktop PC running Windows 7.

Compulsory hardware

You need several cables and accessories for setting up a minimum BeagleBoard development environment. They are as follows:

• A host computer that can be a desktop or laptop computer with USB, Ethernet ports, and SD card reader. We need the SD card reader to prepare the BeagleBoard...