BeaglePlay also has sub-1Ghz wireless, (along with 2.4Ghz programmable wireless), a PRU (essentially a built-in microprocessor suitable for realtime I/O work). The core processor supports CAN, and a bunch of other features, but I'm not sure if these are broken out in a way that is usable.
Beagleboards are just different than RPis. They aren't really trying to be the same thing. RPis are small computers with simple GPIO meant for turning on and off things, Beagleboards are computer/microprocessor hybrids with GPIO meant for doing realtime I/O.
> RPis are small computers with simple GPIO meant for turning on and off things,
Maybe you didn't mean this in a way to diminish how handy Raspberry Pis are, but I've used it in tons of situations that are more interesting than turning LEDs on and off. It being a usable computer is icing on the cake. I have RPis for all kinds of things: Home Assistant using the Bluetooth module (+ external Z-wave/Zigbee controller via USB), OpenJVS for running arcade I/O emulation (GPIO for serial communication), I doubt I need to explain how useful it is to have a FlashROM setup, I've gotten a Pi to drive a Commodore SID...
I can see based on the RPi Pico which seems to have similar functionality to the Beagleboard in terms of I/O that in fact there is so much more that COULD be done, and I'm glad that we have these now. That said, I don't want people to think that RPi is a toy! Having a moderately powerful small form factor computer connected to all of this I/O lets you do things that you couldn't even when GPIO is involved. Not to mention, you can bitbang the GPIO really fast on a Raspberry Pi, which can come in handy.
Yeah agreed, and I don't think I communicated that in my comment above. It's not that the Pi is universally better in all cases, but it is better suited for many common consumer applications... Which logically leads to it being the higher selling device.
The soc on the original Black had two 200MHz PRUs which ran independently of the main processor and could be used for signalling and sensing tasks that require tight timing guarantees, and can then trigger interrupts on the main CPU.
The PRUs are simple single-issue in-order CPUs designed to make cycle-counting easy. They are more than an accidentally turing complete useful combination of a down-counter and shift-register. Don't get me wrong the RP2040 PIO is a very flexible, powerful peripheral for a sub-$1 MCU. A single PRU is probably larger than the whole RP2040.
The 2040's PIO is indeed similar but the PRU has features the PIO doesn't like IOs directly wired to CPU register bits so the result of an instruction is immediately available on IO lines.
edit: also Ti's PRU has been around waaaay longer than the RP2040 so the PRU is likely an inspiration for the PIO.
Beagleboards are just different than RPis. They aren't really trying to be the same thing. RPis are small computers with simple GPIO meant for turning on and off things, Beagleboards are computer/microprocessor hybrids with GPIO meant for doing realtime I/O.