Re: [GTALUG] "Atom Pi"

[Stewart C. Russell via talk]

On 2019-09-17 10:20 a.m., D. Hugh Redelmeier via talk wrote:


- when they are gone, they are gone.  This means that one should not
   use these in a project that expects system replication over time.
   [Few of my projects are intended to be replicated.]


A wise person once told me “Don't specify surplus”, and that's served me 
well. I see so many maker projects that are based on a critical 
component that was available as surplus. These are dead projects now.


(example: Active Surplus used to have a good-sized alphanumeric display 
available for 50¢. They came with no datasheet and had a distinctive 
1.27 mm pitch not-quite-flexible ribbon cable. Turns out that this 
display had a very strange clocking requirement that relied on a 
long-superseded driver chip. Getting anything to display on it at all 
was extremely difficult even with a fast microcontroller.)



Those are useful labels for consumers (which we are).  I thought you
had some technical issues in mind.


Turns out that you can get much higher rates in benchmarks with certain 
cards and a Raspberry Pi 4, but in day to day mixed use, there's not 
much in it. It seems confusing: 
https://www.jeffgeerling.com/blog/2019/raspberry-pi-microsd-card-performance-comparison-2019



- the first MMC cards were dead simple to read and write.  I think that
   a simple parallel port could do it (slowly).  One data pin!


Note that this is still the way you have to do it, unless you want to 
buy a licence from the SD Association.



   I daydreamed about adding a disk to my Altair using this simple
   interface.


Josh Bensadon, a local retro computer guru, recently made a whole new 
S100 CPU card with an SD card for storage. It's only as fast as the 2 
MHz 8080A can move data, though:

http://www.s100computers.com/My%20System%20Pages/8080%20CPU%20Board/8080%20CPU%20Board.htm

cheers,
 Stewart
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Re: [GTALUG] "Atom Pi"

[D. Hugh Redelmeier via talk]

| From: Stewart C. Russell via talk 

| Something like 28,000. There's a bit more on the Mayfield Robotics Kuri, the
| machine that had the Atomic Pi as its core, here:
| https://hackaday.com/2019/06/06/the-atomic-pi-is-it-worth-it/

That review's opinion is brutal.  It also fills in a bunch of the
backstory and is quite detailed.  Very useful: thanks!

I can imagine use-cases for this board, even so.  I just don't have
any of those at the moment.

The main negative points:

- when they are gone, they are gone.  This means that one should not
  use these in a project that expects system replication over time.
  [Few of my projects are intended to be replicated.]

- no future support from the source [but that's true of almost all
  Chinese SBCs and people still find them attractive]

- no community support because 28000 isn't enough for a user community
  to form.  [That seems wrong to me.  True, it's not anything like the
  Raspberry Pi base.]

- the I/O is mediocre [should be good enough for many uses]

- the power supply is a problem [odd, but solved; may interfere with
  access to I/O pins]

- no shielding on WiFi and Bluetooth [isn't that true of other SBCs?
  I don't know enough to say if this is a problem]

- 16G is not enough eMMC for Windows [I don't care about Windows; many
  SBCs have none; enough for a tight installation of any full-fat
  Linux and generous for light distros]

- not enough CPU compared to a current desktop [a strange bar to set]

| > How do you know when an SD card is "the right card"?
| 
| I think it's a U1 or A1 or A2 card. Not sure.

Those are useful labels for consumers (which we are).  I thought you
had some technical issues in mind.

Based on NO actual experience at the low level, and a scan of the
Wikipedia article 

- the first MMC cards were dead simple to read and write.  I think that
  a simple parallel port could do it (slowly).  One data pin!
  I daydreamed about adding a disk to my Altair using this simple
  interface.

- SD Express (2018) adds one PCIe lane!

Between those two was much incremental development.

There was a lot of care put into backward compatibility.  But just because 
a card works does not mean that its speed can be exploited.  I'd like to 
have card readers come with specs about which standards they implement.

The original Raspberry Pi could not exploit the higher performance
modes of the fastest cards.  Most devices don't disclose this
information but there are hints when they specify the largest card
capacity that they support.



Confusing all that, pre-3 Pis have firmware that cannot boot from
exFAT.  SD cards larger than 32G are supposed to be delivered
formatted with exFAT.  But that's not exactly hardware.


The real trouble is that everyone involved thinks that giving us all
the technical details would confuse us or embarrass them.  So we get
incomplete information, confusing me even more.
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Re: [GTALUG] "Atom Pi"

[Ansar Mohammed via talk]

That review was golden

“
The Atomic Pi fills a market need for guys who think the ability to install
Kali Linux constitutes a personality.
“

On Mon, Sep 16, 2019 at 8:55 PM Stewart C. Russell via talk 
wrote:

> On 2019-09-16 2:08 p.m., D. Hugh Redelmeier via talk wrote:
> >
> > Interesting.  Sad.  I wonder how many they made.  Maybe that's why
> > Ameridroid seems to have run out of the larger breakout boards.
>
> Something like 28,000. There's a bit more on the Mayfield Robotics Kuri,
> the machine that had the Atomic Pi as its core, here:
> https://hackaday.com/2019/06/06/the-atomic-pi-is-it-worth-it/
>
> > How do you know when an SD card is "the right card"?
>
> I think it's a U1 or A1 or A2 card. Not sure.
>
> cheers
>   Stewart
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Re: [GTALUG] "Atom Pi"

[Stewart C. Russell via talk]

On 2019-09-16 2:08 p.m., D. Hugh Redelmeier via talk wrote:


Interesting.  Sad.  I wonder how many they made.  Maybe that's why
Ameridroid seems to have run out of the larger breakout boards.


Something like 28,000. There's a bit more on the Mayfield Robotics Kuri, 
the machine that had the Atomic Pi as its core, here: 
https://hackaday.com/2019/06/06/the-atomic-pi-is-it-worth-it/



How do you know when an SD card is "the right card"?


I think it's a U1 or A1 or A2 card. Not sure.

cheers
 Stewart
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Re: [GTALUG] "Atom Pi"

[Alex Volkov via talk]

It seems that I was looking at the wrong side of the board, looking more 
closely, it looks like the power is connected through a two single 
female dupont pins on the bottom of the board and not JST connector near 
the heatsink.


I found this thread about powering the board up. Sorry, reddit link -- 
https://www.reddit.com/r/Atomic_Pi/comments/bp0hvt/megathread_powering_your_atomic_pi_ask_all_your/


It is said that you need to connect several pins at once, perhaps this 
usb-to-dupont splitter should be more appropriate for the application -- 
https://ae01.alicdn.com/kf/HTB18quXpQCWBuNjy0Faq6xUlXXal/Dupont-head-4-to-USB-PC-Fan-Power-Cable-Adapter-Connector-10cm.jpg


I'm not sure why the person who started the thread says that several 
pins are needed, because dupont connector is rated for 3A.  (according 
to this thread -- 
https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/157026/dupont-connector-for-5a).


Full disclaimer -- I'm not an electrical engineer.

Alex.


On 2019-09-16 2:16 p.m., Alex Volkov via talk wrote:
It is so weird to have a home server board that doesn't have sata 
ports, one of the older cubieturck boards is better equipped for this 
task because it has gigabit ethernet and a sata port, though 
throughput is limited to 40MB/s.


As for Hugh's note for the connector -- it looks like a standard JST 
2-pin connector.
Technically you don't need to solder connectors because they are 
crimped, but this is a technicality. I have a crimper if anyone 
interested in making their own power supply out of usb cable.


Here's someone connecting it to power -- 
https://twitter.com/drunknbass/status/1158054016397393920?s=21


This connector is compatible with dupont connector, for which I also 
have a crimper. More practically any electronics store would have the 
cable, or something like this connected to a 3A 5V power supply will 
do the job -- 
https://ae01.alicdn.com/kf/HTB1W1culKOSBuNjy0Fdq6zDnVXaM/Dupont-head-to-USB-PC-Fan-Power-Cable-Adapter-Connector-22cm.jpg


The price is really great, but I'm not going to buy it because I have 
a similarly-spec'd cromebook that I can retire for the same role.


Alex.

On 2019-09-16 1:39 p.m., Stewart Russell via talk wrote:
On Mon., Sep. 16, 2019, 12:30 D. Hugh Redelmeier via talk, 
mailto:talk@gtalug.org>> wrote:


... I just assumed that it was some surplus board that was
being blown out.  Maybe it is.


It is. It's from a home server thing that bankrupted the developer 
before they got to market. Once they're gone, they're gone.


While it may not be as fast as eMMC, the Raspberry Pi 4 does have a 
faster connection to microSD (with the right card). It also has DDR4 
which makes it fairly quick.


I wrote a preso last week on a 4 GB Raspberry Pi 4 (over VNC, even) 
and it didn't feel like an SBC at all.  I hear that the Raspberry Pi 
4 is somewhat unexpectedly picking up corporate sales as a cheap 
dual-screen thin client.


Cheers
 Stewart




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Re: [GTALUG] "Atom Pi"

[Alex Volkov via talk]

It is so weird to have a home server board that doesn't have sata ports, 
one of the older cubieturck boards is better equipped for this task 
because it has gigabit ethernet and a sata port, though throughput is 
limited to 40MB/s.


As for Hugh's note for the connector -- it looks like a standard JST 
2-pin connector.
Technically you don't need to solder connectors because they are 
crimped, but this is a technicality. I have a crimper if anyone 
interested in making their own power supply out of usb cable.


Here's someone connecting it to power -- 
https://twitter.com/drunknbass/status/1158054016397393920?s=21


This connector is compatible with dupont connector, for which I also 
have a crimper. More practically any electronics store would have the 
cable, or something like this connected to a 3A 5V power supply will do 
the job -- 
https://ae01.alicdn.com/kf/HTB1W1culKOSBuNjy0Fdq6zDnVXaM/Dupont-head-to-USB-PC-Fan-Power-Cable-Adapter-Connector-22cm.jpg


The price is really great, but I'm not going to buy it because I have a 
similarly-spec'd cromebook that I can retire for the same role.


Alex.

On 2019-09-16 1:39 p.m., Stewart Russell via talk wrote:
On Mon., Sep. 16, 2019, 12:30 D. Hugh Redelmeier via talk, 
mailto:talk@gtalug.org>> wrote:


... I just assumed that it was some surplus board that was
being blown out.  Maybe it is.


It is. It's from a home server thing that bankrupted the developer 
before they got to market. Once they're gone, they're gone.


While it may not be as fast as eMMC, the Raspberry Pi 4 does have a 
faster connection to microSD (with the right card). It also has DDR4 
which makes it fairly quick.


I wrote a preso last week on a 4 GB Raspberry Pi 4 (over VNC, even) 
and it didn't feel like an SBC at all.  I hear that the Raspberry Pi 4 
is somewhat unexpectedly picking up corporate sales as a cheap 
dual-screen thin client.


Cheers
 Stewart




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Re: [GTALUG] "Atom Pi"

[D. Hugh Redelmeier via talk]

| From: Stewart Russell via talk 

| On Mon., Sep. 16, 2019, 12:30 D. Hugh Redelmeier via talk, 
| wrote:
| 
| > ... I just assumed that it was some surplus board that was
| > being blown out.  Maybe it is.
| >
| 
| It is. It's from a home server thing that bankrupted the developer before
| they got to market. Once they're gone, they're gone.

Interesting.  Sad.  I wonder how many they made.  Maybe that's why
Ameridroid seems to have run out of the larger breakout boards.

| While it may not be as fast as eMMC, the Raspberry Pi 4 does have a faster
| connection to microSD (with the right card). It also has DDR4 which makes
| it fairly quick.

How do you know when an SD card is "the right card"?  Is it which SD
standard that the card claims to conform to?

I seem to remember that microSD has half the pins compared with normal
SD cards.  That ought to be a strike against.

| I wrote a preso last week on a 4 GB Raspberry Pi 4 (over VNC, even) and it
| didn't feel like an SBC at all.  I hear that the Raspberry Pi 4 is somewhat
| unexpectedly picking up corporate sales as a cheap dual-screen thin client.

I have ordered two 4bs recently.  Still a month away from delivery
(slow boat from China).

Seeed Studio has free shipping if an order was large enough.  Two 4GiB
pi's plus power supplies was large enough.

I already have one FLIRC case.
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Re: [GTALUG] "Atom Pi"

[D. Hugh Redelmeier via talk]

| From: Ansar Mohammed via talk 

| It seems that power is supplied through GPIO.

Yes.

|  So some soldering is required.

I think that the "baby breakout" and the "large breakout" (404 so
maybe no longer available) do this task.  They plug into the
expansion sockets and then are screwed down.  They provide a socket
for an ordinary external 5V power supply.

That's why I included the Baby Breakout in my pricing.
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Re: [GTALUG] "Atom Pi"

[Stewart Russell via talk]

On Mon., Sep. 16, 2019, 12:30 D. Hugh Redelmeier via talk, 
wrote:

> ... I just assumed that it was some surplus board that was
> being blown out.  Maybe it is.
>

It is. It's from a home server thing that bankrupted the developer before
they got to market. Once they're gone, they're gone.

While it may not be as fast as eMMC, the Raspberry Pi 4 does have a faster
connection to microSD (with the right card). It also has DDR4 which makes
it fairly quick.

I wrote a preso last week on a 4 GB Raspberry Pi 4 (over VNC, even) and it
didn't feel like an SBC at all.  I hear that the Raspberry Pi 4 is somewhat
unexpectedly picking up corporate sales as a cheap dual-screen thin client.

Cheers
 Stewart

>
>
>
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Re: [GTALUG] "Atom Pi"

[Ansar Mohammed via talk]

It seems that power is supplied through GPIO. So some soldering is required.

I love these boards, but they need to realize that not everyone feels
comfortable firing up a soldering iron.



On Mon, Sep 16, 2019 at 12:30 PM D. Hugh Redelmeier via talk <
talk@gtalug.org> wrote:

> This is an inexpensive Atom-based Single-Board Computer (SBC).  It
> created a flurry on Amazon a few months ago and then seemed to go out
> of stock.  I just assumed that it was some surplus board that was
> being blown out.  Maybe it is.
>
> Now it is being sold by AmeriDroid, a distributor/vendor of several
> interesting single-board computers.  Cheap!
>
> https://ameridroid.com/products/atomic-pi
>
> Why I think that this is interesting:
>
> - SBC is an interesting form factor
>
> - cheap: US$37.95 for board + US$12.95 for power + ? for shipping.
>   That's cheaper than a Raspberry Pi 4b with 4GiB.
>
> - x86 so any off-the-shelf distro should work.  And the video driver
>   is in-tree open source (a big missing piece with ARM).
>   It would run Windows 10 but has no licence.
>
> - OK resources:
>   + Intel Atom x5-Z8350 (hence name)
>   + 2G RAM (not expandable)
>   + 16G eMMC (preloaded with some Linux) (should perform better than
> Raspi's SD)
>   + SD socket (supports up to 256G)
>   + gigabit ethernet, dual band WiFi, Bluetooth
>   + some kind of potentially interesting audio amplifier
>   + HDMI
>   + USB 3.0 port
>   + fanless, with a big heat sink
>
> - oddities
>   + need to add a weird power supply connector and a power supply
>   + need to add WiFi antennae
>   + no case
>   + I don't really understand the choice of power supplies offered by
> AmeriDroid.  The cheaper one has higher output (possibly useful
> in support of the audio amp).
>
> Why I won't buy it:
>
> - I have too many small PCs already.  And too many unfinished
>   projects.
>
> - 2GiB is a little cramped these days.  First-world problem!
>   But it is certainly fine for most SBC applications.
>
> I recommend browsing Ameridroid.com for other interesting toys.
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[GTALUG] "Atom Pi"

[D. Hugh Redelmeier via talk]

This is an inexpensive Atom-based Single-Board Computer (SBC).  It
created a flurry on Amazon a few months ago and then seemed to go out
of stock.  I just assumed that it was some surplus board that was
being blown out.  Maybe it is.

Now it is being sold by AmeriDroid, a distributor/vendor of several 
interesting single-board computers.  Cheap!

https://ameridroid.com/products/atomic-pi

Why I think that this is interesting:

- SBC is an interesting form factor

- cheap: US$37.95 for board + US$12.95 for power + ? for shipping.
  That's cheaper than a Raspberry Pi 4b with 4GiB.

- x86 so any off-the-shelf distro should work.  And the video driver
  is in-tree open source (a big missing piece with ARM).
  It would run Windows 10 but has no licence.

- OK resources:
  + Intel Atom x5-Z8350 (hence name)
  + 2G RAM (not expandable)
  + 16G eMMC (preloaded with some Linux) (should perform better than
Raspi's SD)
  + SD socket (supports up to 256G)
  + gigabit ethernet, dual band WiFi, Bluetooth
  + some kind of potentially interesting audio amplifier
  + HDMI
  + USB 3.0 port
  + fanless, with a big heat sink

- oddities
  + need to add a weird power supply connector and a power supply
  + need to add WiFi antennae
  + no case
  + I don't really understand the choice of power supplies offered by
AmeriDroid.  The cheaper one has higher output (possibly useful
in support of the audio amp).

Why I won't buy it:

- I have too many small PCs already.  And too many unfinished
  projects.

- 2GiB is a little cramped these days.  First-world problem!
  But it is certainly fine for most SBC applications.

I recommend browsing Ameridroid.com for other interesting toys.
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