Chip - $9 Linux board... Wow!

https://makezine.com/2015/05/07/next-thing-co-releases-worlds-first-9-computer/

Excerpt: The board is Open Hardware, runs a flavor of Debain Linux, and boasts a 1Ghz R8 ARM processor, 512MB of RAM, and 4GB of eMMC storage. It is more powerful than a Raspberry Pi B+ and equal to the BeagleBone Black in clock speed, RAM, and storage. Differentiating Chip from Beagle is its built-in WiFi, Bluetooth, and the ease in which it can be made portable, thanks to circuitry that handles battery operation.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1598272670/chip-the-worlds-first-9-computer

I sense this could be used for some rocket stuff?

Why so low tech in rocketry? --Area66

:duck:

blackbrandt said:

I sense this could be used for some rocket stuff?

Click to expand...

Much more processing power (and power consumption) than would be needed for the vast majority of airborne uses, but the electronics folks hang out more in this section, so this is where I put it. Maybe someone will think of a rocketry application. Anyway, I'm laying down the whopping $9 to buy one.

Bat-mite said:

Why so low tech in rocketry? --Area66

:duck:

Click to expand...

Hey, we got to the moon with a couple of programmable calculators...

I'll bite on this one, it's actually the first Kickstarter that I've ever given money to. Look at it as being a replacement for the processor, not an entire platform... something to build on. The sensor side of things isn't that hard, it's all about software.

Can we create a new forum rule? No posting Kickstarter stuff that is really cool, and will empty my wallet just as fast as rocketry empties it?

Please, guys, one money-burning thing at a time!

OMG they are based in Oakland! My, that will get people's interest up here!

I dont see any real use in hobby/HPR rocketry due to size and such but it looks really fun to play around with. I think I'm going to get one. Thanks for sharing!

Okay. Now THAT is cool!

I'm probably going to get one. I need to decide whether to buy the VGA or HDMI one. I don't want to be stuck with the default NTCSC display output. It's worth the few extra bucks...

Ya I will be getting a few of these.

TA

With Linux and Creative Commons, The $9 CHIP Computer Reveals Its Open Source Details

https://makezine.com/2015/07/22/wit...hip-computer-reveals-its-open-source-details/

I backed it on Kickstarter - ordered the version with the the Pocket Chip (keyboard, display and battery pack that you plug the Chip into) and the HDMI hat. Pity it won't ship until April or May next year - I wanna play with it now!

gpoehlein said:

I backed it on Kickstarter - ordered the version with the the Pocket Chip (keyboard, display and battery pack that you plug the Chip into) and the HDMI hat. Pity it won't ship until April or May next year - I wanna play with it now!

Click to expand...

Hmmmmm,

Getting interesting now. I've been looking for a small micro Linux solution to run a tracking program with B/T connectivity. Android devices won't run straight linux apps and this little puppy might do Xastir and YAAC (YAAC since it's java) using a KISS TNC like a Mobilinkd. I've run Xastir on a 1.6Ghz Celeron for years and though slow to fire up the app, once it's running, it's very
usable. Will keep this in mind unless somebody comes up with something else before it's release. 3.7V Lipo? Holee molee that's quite a cut in power requirement. Kurt

Does it have to be Linux? Or could you do the job with a mini Arduino? Adafruit sells these and they are really small: https://www.adafruit.com/products/2590

gpoehlein said:

Does it have to be Linux? Or could you do the job with a mini Arduino? Adafruit sells these and they are really small: https://www.adafruit.com/products/2590

Click to expand...

Yeah,

To run Xastir it needs to be linux. The EggFinders update once a second whereas to maintain reliability with APRS tracking applications, the update rate is once every 5 seconds. Yeah, I know Nexus devices have Linux "underpinnings" but it is not a full fledged Linux OS. After I unlocked and rooted my device the filesystem looked
very familiar.

Now I've plugged the EggFinder Dongle into the USB port/location where Xastir expects a GPS. It will decode the incoming strings just fine and the increased resolution
is readily apparent. Whether this is helpful or not is arguable. All commercially available GPS units stop sending position data at 1200mph and some tolerate G loads better than others. The question of resolution further becomes moot because I believe most if not all of the APRS based rocket trackers have onboard memory that can be selected to "save" the position at a higher frequency even though an RF packet is scheduled once every 5 seconds.

The SainSonic AP510 is a Bluetooth compatible APRS transceiver for roughly $125.00. Can use it as an APRS receiver bonded to a computer or Android device and run APRSDroid as a receive station and a second AP510 could be used as a tracker. With a quarter wave antenna mounted in a large nosecone would make for a higher powered GPS tracker. https://www.sainsonic.com/ap510-apr...th-thermometer-tf-card-support-aprsdroid.html

Only problems: Size. Only viable for larger projects. Power output. The selectable 500Mw and 1 watt Rf power could dork some deployment electronics.
On the 2 meter band so a 1/4 wave antenna is longer. The device is tunable so one is not fixed to the 144.390 national APRS frequency. Send a packet out once every 5 seconds on the national frequency will tick off a lot of Hams. Sirf chipsets one can't rely on for accurate altitude reporting, position is fine though.
The AP510 will record its position on a micro SD card up to 1/sec (rate selectable) for later download of a .kml file. File type is selectable also.
A real big kicker here is manufacturer support of this Chinese device is nil. There is a newsgroup for it and a helpful setup video but it is truly a DIY device.
Firmware updates have been coming out though that fixes some of the options but again, this can be daunting for some folks.

But.......... ~$125.00 for an APRS transceiver that is Bluetooth connectable is really something. Kurt

Pre-orders open Monday, Nov. 30 for $8, not $9:

https://getchip.com/

Just got an email that my CHIP has shipped. Now if only I had time to mess with it...

cerving said:

Just got an email that my CHIP has shipped. Now if only I had time to mess with it...

Click to expand...

I took a chance and ordered it with the screen and what have you. Might not see it until June. Was going to toy and see if Xastir would run. That laptop tracking program can be made to plot the positions coming in from the EggFinder/TRS plus save the
data for replotting later in various forms. Can even make a .kml file with no muss or fuss.

Only problem is setting up Xastir is a bear and the free baseline maps that one can store on their hard drive have gone away. Lee, K5DAT, has a script to convert the free USGS maps:

https://store.usgs.gov/b2c_usgs/usg...rd&carea=$ROOT&layout=6_1_61_48&uiarea=2)/.do

into a format Xastir can read. Another fellow, Jason KG4WSV, wrote a perl script that takes the NMEA and turns it into a "pseudo" APRS packet: https://www.ece.uah.edu/~jdw/rockets/gps2aprs.txt (change .txt to .pl)
Only thing a person has to do is plug in their EggFinder receiver USB or have it paired via B/T, define the port in the script (which the comments will help), have enable networking selected in Xastir and fire up the gps2aprs.pl
script in a terminal window while Xastir is running on the screen. Then just minimize the terminal window with gps2aprs.pl while it's running. The EggFinder/TRS positions will be plotted on the map once a second as long as the received signal is "decodeable".

Kurt Savegnago

Just got my Shipment Info Request yesterday - they are getting ready to ship the Pocket CHIP and HDMI Hat! Looks like they managed to stay pretty close to their original schedule - they forecast April or May shipment ont the Pocket and the video hats (Pocket is a screen, keyboard and battery pack in a plastic case that the CHIP plugs into to make a complete computer). Looking forward to getting mine!

Of course, technology marches on - when this was announced a year ago, it was cutting edge for tiny, low cost Linux boards - now the RPi Zero is cheaper ($5) and the RPi 3 is a lot more powerful at about 4x the price of thee CHIP ($35), but the complete and portable package is what interests me here!

conman13 said:

I dont see any real use in hobby/HPR rocketry due to size and such but it looks really fun to play around with. I think I'm going to get one. Thanks for sharing!

Click to expand...

Didn't notice this thread the first time around, but the board is only 1.5" x 2.3" so it will easily fit in 54mm rocket.

Bob

bobkrech said:

Didn't notice this thread the first time around, but the board is only 1.5" x 2.3" so it will easily fit in 54mm rocket.

Bob

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I guess as long as one can program Linux it might be workable. I've taken a chance with a pocket chip to see if I could get a limited version of Xastir to work. Kurt

ksaves2 said:

I guess as long as one can program Linux it might be workable. I've taken a chance with a pocket chip to see if I could get a limited version of Xastir to work. Kurt

Click to expand...

Linux is the operating system, which usually comes with Python as a programming language. These small, inexpensive computers were primarily intended for kids to learn programming on - since neither Windows nor OSX comes with a programming language environment any more. The creator of the Raspberry Pi (which is the model on which all the rest have been built) noted that kids and teens today are very comfortable with computers but we were creating a generation who could not program the apps and programs. Of course, once hobbyists found out about these things...

gpoehlein said:

...since neither Windows nor OSX comes with a programming language environment any more...

Click to expand...

Hmmm, not sure how you missed this:

https://www.apple.com/swift/

"Swift is a robust and intuitive programming language created by Apple for building apps for iOS, Mac, Apple TV, and Apple Watch"

And from the Swift Wikipedia page:

"A second free implementation of Swift that in addition to Cocoa also targets Microsoft's Common Language Infrastructure (a.k.a. .NET) and the Java/Android platform exists as part of the Elements Compiler from RemObjects Software."

It's free, now open source, incredibly powerful, and there are huge amounts of free online learning resources for it.


Tony

Hah, OSX has perl, python, ruby, and tcl included, with full Xcode for C, objective C, and swift as a free download. Not sure why anyone thought it was lacking in dev tools.

Winston said:

https://makezine.com/2015/05/07/next-thing-co-releases-worlds-first-9-computer/

Excerpt: The board is Open Hardware, runs a flavor of Debain Linux, and boasts a 1Ghz R8 ARM processor, 512MB of RAM, and 4GB of eMMC storage. It is more powerful than a Raspberry Pi B+ and equal to the BeagleBone Black in clock speed, RAM, and storage. Differentiating Chip from Beagle is its built-in WiFi, Bluetooth, and the ease in which it can be made portable, thanks to circuitry that handles battery operation.

Click to expand...

This looks cool but after a few bad rounds I am done with Kickstarter.

If it was a real product available today for that price I would buy a half dozen immediately.

watermelonman said:

Hah, OSX has perl, python, ruby, and tcl included, with full Xcode for C, objective C, and swift as a free download. Not sure why anyone thought it was lacking in dev tools.

Click to expand...

I didn't mean to imply that there were no dev tools for either Windows or OSX, nor that some of them weren't free, but that they didn't come pre-installed and root level like BASIC was in the old days. Back in the days of the TRS80, Pet, Apple II and even PC DOS, everything was command line operated and the BASIC was already there and ready to go. Plus, there weren't a lot of programs out there (forget apps), and those that were were not always easy to find or get hold of. So you wrote BASIC programs to make the computer do what you wanted it to do. Now, if you want a game or app, you just search for it in the App Store and download right there with wifi or 4G.

I'm not saying the "olde days" were better - just that kids today generally have less incentive and opportunity to "roll their own". And, of course, these single board Linux computers vastly out-perform those old late 70s and early 80s machines by a long shot, and all for $9! (My Model I Level II TRS-80 cost $1000 in 1978 and had 4K RAM an a cassette recorder for mass storage.)

watermelonman said:

This looks cool but after a few bad rounds I am done with Kickstarter.

If it was a real product available today for that price I would buy a half dozen immediately.

Click to expand...

I've generally had pretty good luck with Kickstarter. Some of the projects I've invested in have run into production delays (having been in the game publishing biz, I can understand how that can happen, and even more so for new tech like Single Board Computers and 3D Printers). That said, the CHIP has managed to stay pretty close to their timeline, and the computers themselves are now available for sale on their website. They should start shipping the computer boards this coming month (just keep an eye on their website and order one they announce that they are shipping if you don't want to pre-order). My guess is that they aren't fulfilling post Kickstarter orders because the Kickstarter supporters get theirs first.

https://getchip.com/pages/store

gpoehlein said:

I didn't mean to imply that there were no dev tools for either Windows or OSX, nor that some of them weren't free, but that they didn't come pre-installed and root level like BASIC was in the old days...

Click to expand...

Hmm, from the Python.org website on Mac:

"The latest version of Mac OS X, El Capitan, comes with Python 2.7 out of the box. You do not need to install or configure anything else to use Python."

https://docs.python-guide.org/en/latest/starting/install/osx/

The problem is that it is root level (hidden folders) so it is easier if you install a user version at a more accessible location with better dev tools.

Just keeping it real.


Tony

gpoehlein said:

I didn't mean to imply that there were no dev tools for either Windows or OSX, nor that some of them weren't free, but that they didn't come pre-installed and root level like BASIC was in the old days. Back in the days of the TRS80, Pet, Apple II and even PC DOS, everything was command line operated and the BASIC was already there and ready to go. Plus, there weren't a lot of programs out there (forget apps), and those that were were not always easy to find or get hold of. So you wrote BASIC programs to make the computer do what you wanted it to do. Now, if you want a game or app, you just search for it in the App Store and download right there with wifi or 4G.

I'm not saying the "olde days" were better - just that kids today generally have less incentive and opportunity to "roll their own". And, of course, these single board Linux computers vastly out-perform those old late 70s and early 80s machines by a long shot, and all for $9! (My Model I Level II TRS-80 cost $1000 in 1978 and had 4K RAM an a cassette recorder for mass storage.)

Click to expand...

Oh I totally get what you are saying, but I personally do a TON with nothing more than the python installation that came with OSX on my laptop. The romanticism of rolling it all on your own, for better or worse, has been left behind. Systems are far too large and complex for any of us to entirely grasp on our own, but the flip side is that we can do bigger and better than ever before.