To work through the examples provided in this book, you need to setup a proper development environment, which involve a development workstation and a Compact 2013 capable target device.
Development workstation requirements to support Compact 2013 development:
· 1.6 GHz processor (2.4 GHz recommended)
· 2 GB of RAM (To support Virtual PC or Hyper-V virtual machine as target device, 4 GB or more is needed)
· Video display to support 1024 x 768 or higher display resolution
· 100 GB of available hard disk space, NTFS file system format
· Windows 7 (x86 and x64) or Windows 8 (x86 and x64) operating system
· Microsoft Visual Studio 2012 with Update 1 installed
· Blend for Visual Studio 2012 (This should be installed along with Visual Studio 2012 installation)
· .NET Framework 3.5. Available for download from the following URL:
http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=22
Compact 2013 Target Device
A Compact 2013 target device (Target-device) is needed to support Compact 2013 development and to work through the sample exercises in this book.
The sample exercises in this book are created using an eBox-3300MX as the target device. The eBox-3300MX is a low-cost and compact computing device, built with PMX-1000 a derivative of the Vortex86MX processor, based on x86 CPU architecture, as shown in Figure-i.1.
Figure i.1 - eBox-3300MX (Shown with optional 2nd Ethernet)
The eBox-3300MX is designed with the following:
· 933 MHz x86 processor with 512 MB DDR2 RAM
· 10/100 Ethernet, VGA, Audio
· 3 USB 2.0 host interface and 2 RS-232 serial ports
· PS/2 keyboard and mouse
· Boot from SD flash
As of Q1 2013, the street price for an eBox-3300MX in North America is around $170.00 US dollars. Here is the URL for more information about the eBox-3300MX:
http://www.embeddedpc.net/eBox3300MX/
The eBox-3350MX is a lower cost alternative to the eBox-3300MX, which does not have serial ports. Other than the serial ports, the eBox-3350MX has the same features. As of Q1 2013, the street price for an eBox-3350MX in North America is around $100.00 US dollars. Here is the URL for more information about the eBox-3350MX:
http://www.embeddedpc.net/eBox3350MX/
It's possible to use other hardware platform to work through the exercises in this book. To use another platform, you need to have Compact 2013 BSP that supports the device you plan to use.
If you don't have access to a real target device, you can setup and use a Virtual PC as the target device. Other than the features unique to the eBox-3300MX, you can work through all of the examples in this book, using the Virtual PC as the target device. Information and instruction, showing how to setup and use Virtual PC as the target device, are covered in Appendix-C, toward the end of the book.
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