Tiniest Linux COM Yet? 76
DeviceGuru writes: "An open-spec COM that runs OpenWRT Linux on a MIPS-based Ralink RT5350 SoC has won its Indiegogo funding. The $20, IoT-focused VoCore measures 25 x 25mm. How low can you go? Tiny computer-on-modules (COMs) for Internet of Things (IoT) applications are popping up everywhere, with recent, Linux-ready entries including Intel's Atom or Quark-based Edison, Ingenic's MIPS/Xburst-based Newton, Acme Systems's ARM9/SAM9G25 based Arrietta G25, and SolidRun's quad-core i.MX6-based MicroSOM. Now, an unnamed Chinese startup has raised over six times its $6,000 Indiegogo funding goal for what could be the smallest, cheapest Linux COM yet."
Internet of Things isn't (Score:5, Insightful)
Just like "Web 2.0" and other non-concepts, this term gets used to pretend something is a new version of something else, just because its "Internet". Its a small computer, just like small computers that are already in things. Get over it.
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I patented it as "Method and Apparatus for Allowing Devices to Access the Internet on the Internet". I have the sole right to use this IP and plan to leverage it to its fullest extent in my subsequent patent "Method and Apparatus for Allowing Devices to Access the Internet on the Internet on a Mobile Device".
For some reason, the above makes me think of the phrase "now all restaurants are taco bell"...
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There are quantitative differences that end up causing qualitative changes. When cellphones became sufficiently powerful to run a general purpose operating system, feature phones were replaced by smart phones, and smart phones aren't just faster feature phones with more memory.
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I would hope that the next version would focus on getting the power consumption down. A tiny little computer is no use if it needs a shopping cart to haul its batteries around.
It occur
Re:Internet of Things isn't (Score:5, Informative)
> It occurs to me that this is just the sort of device that the Raspberry Pi people could very well have come up with in the 2 or 3 years since since the Model A and B were developed. It's a shame they never took the concept further.
They did, in April: http://www.raspberrypi.org/ras... [raspberrypi.org]
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Just like "Web 2.0" and other non-concepts, this term gets used to pretend something is a new version of something else, just because its "Internet".
Ordinarily, I'd agree. Too many "but on the Internet" patents granted, businesses started, etc.
Its a small computer, just like small computers that are already in things.
This is where I'll disagree. Sure, there's been small computers for a while. However, this is the first time these small computers are both cheap enough to be in too many places and complex enough to run a common free OS that provides an IP networking stack. Previously, small computers that could speak IP were too costly to be ubiquitous, and small computers that were cheap enough to be ubiquitous were too simple
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The only reason they used to be too small for IP was because the people that wanted to buy these small computers weren't planning on hooking them up to a network. They were used in industrial controls and cars and other applications where network connectivity was a non-issue.
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Perhaps I'm being cynical and there's other reasons to put computers in toasters. However, the fact remains, a simple microcontroller is still cheaper than som
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SoCs with network access won't be replacing microcontrollers any time soon, if ever. There are two problems preventing them being commonly used in toasters, even if the price comes down.
First you have reliability. An 8 bit microcontroller is easy to harden and give a wide operating temperature range, ideal for use in something that contains multiple heating elements. It's not just the peak temperature that is a problem, the heating and cooling cycle is too. Everything from the type of ROM used to the densit
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What if the toaster was free, so long as you had to deal with a screen on the side with speakers that played ads with sound while it toasted your bread? Sure, *you* wouldn't willingly buy it, and *I* wouldn't willingly buy it, but if enough of the market did, we may end up with that being the business model for toasters and nothing else being available.
Google, Facebook and and their ilk are doing that exact thing. Their services are all free* (as in getting raped at the train station after dark).
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I don't think many people would accept a free toaster with ads, considering a basic one only costs a few Euros anyway.
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Sure, there's been small computers for a while. However, this is the first time these small computers are both cheap enough to be in too many places and complex enough to run a common free OS that provides an IP networking stack.
The only reason they used to be too small for IP was because the people that wanted to buy these small computers weren't planning on hooking them up to a network.
I assume that by "small" you mean "inadequate", because your comment makes absolutely no sense otherwise. The reason embedded processors used to be incapable of participating on IP networks is that it would have cost too much to embed that much CPU. Today that much CPU comes in your crackerjack box, even though they usually just give you a sticker these days.
They were used in industrial controls and cars and other applications where network connectivity was a non-issue.
It wasn't until the nineties that PCMs even went 32-bit. The cars of the eighties (even with sequential fuel injection) had single-digit-MHz speed, 8-
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The problem isn't so much "speaking IP", a PIC18 can do that.
But when you want TCP, SSL, HTTP, support for several types of VPN* and so-on it gets harder and harder to implement on a small microcontroller and something a bit more powerful that can run a proper OS (albiet a pretty stripped down one) looks more attractive.
* VPN support is useful in "internet of things" type applications because you often want to deploy them where you don't have a public IP and/or you don't control the network and yet you woul
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There is another similar project simultaneously up on Indiegogo from AsiaRF
https://www.indiegogo.com/proj... [indiegogo.com]
It was put up about a week later so its funding is not as far along. There are still a few Early Birds left.
It based on the same chip and around the same price. The main difference is that the AsiaRF module has already gone through CE/FCC testing and it is already in production. So there is very little risk of the project not shipping. Support for the AsiaRF unit is already checked into OpenWRT.
I fin
Re:all of it? (Score:5, Informative)
The board that provides wired ethernet and USB in their usual connectors(and presumably with the magnetics for ethernet) and a micro-USB +5v input is additional.
So you can get fully up and running for $20 (and a +5v source to apply to the correct contact), presumably good for adding a wifi connection and a moderately capable command-and-control module to something that can hang from the GPIO or USB data lines.
If you want the wired interfaces, and a little case, and need a PSU, because this isn't being integrated into something, it'll cost more.
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The $20 Vocore is for the module only. If you want the Ethernet, USB and power connectors you need to order the $40 Vocore+Dock choice. instead I'd recommend getting the $38 choice form the AsiaRF campaign. https://www.indiegogo.com/proj... [indiegogo.com]
AsiaRF is going to ship three months earlier and support for it is already checked into OpenWRT.
These unit aren't really the same thing as a RaspPi. RaspPi is oriented towards having a GUI and screen. These units are oriented towards networking and embedded control. The
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In part it depends on what you are looking to do: If you are looking to put a brain and a wifi link on top of an existing project, missing connectors aren't a big deal. You patch in +5v, ground, a TTY to the microcontroller, and maybe a few GPIOs for blinkenlights.
If you do have some sort of USB host
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The AsiaRF one includes the small PCB antenna in the photo. The PCB antenna has twice the range of those tiny chip antennas. Since there is a jack there you can use larger antenna if you want. Another advantage to the PCB antenna is that you can move it around and aim the signal where you need it.
In Vocore's blog he says that his external antennas did not perform as well as the chip one. I suspect that is because he doesn't own the expensive test equipment needed to adjust his RF path to match the external
What about Wi-Fi microSD cards? (Score:4, Informative)
http://haxit.blogspot.com/2013... [blogspot.com]
http://hackaday.com/2013/08/12... [hackaday.com]
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AIUI the trouble with those cards is that the only interface between the card and the thing it's plugged into is a shared storage array and said shared storage array is rather lacking in terms of good mechanisms to handle writes from both sides without corruption.
This kind of limits their utility for anything beyond their intended use of making it slightly easier to get the pics off your camera.
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Of course, if small size / obscenely low power consumption isn't the ultimate goal, a Raspberry Pi has way more bells and whistles at about the same price...
Java (Score:2)
A decade ago, this was predicted to be the realm of Java. An internet of things incorporating chips that natively execute Java bytecode, I'm thankful that hasn't come to pass. Even more so now that Oracle is in the picture.
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Yes, ARM sees to have become what Java promised to be.
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As it is, ARM doesn't exactly appear to be, um, strongARMing, licensees on fees, at least if the fact that MIPS is more or less standing on a street corner
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I think it was a marketing hallucination. They were advertising this concept to replace 8 and 16 bit microcontrollers while JAVA had no support for unsigned a
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And assembly.
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I remember thinking there would be great future in Dallas Semiconductor "one wire" Java buttons, because they could be used to store RSA keys, and so on.
These days, the "one touch" Dallas Semiconductor iButtons seem to be very rare... although they would be nice to have as an alternative to a mechanical keyswitch in some situations.
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iButtons still seem to be popular in Point of sales systems (for staff authentication. But those are little more then a unique id in iButton format.
I have a couple of TINI's around here somewhere. Lots of IO options. Even ethernet (albiet very slow) not bad for a decade old 8 bit microcontroller (with some 32 bit internal extensions)
A lot of smartcards of almost any kind run java. Mostly beacuse of dumb mobile phones with enabled apps on the smartcard (not what you would call apps nowdays:). Orginially wri
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A decade ago, this was predicted to be the realm of Java..
Not Java specifically, but Jini [wikipedia.org], since Java didn't have a networking stack built-in and was too big (even then) to do cooperative processing/communications w/o requiring a far beefier CPU than most embedded devices could muster at the time (which is why Sun started the whole Jini project in the first place).
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I'm thankful that hasn't come to pass
Me too, because implementing Smalltalk on top of that would be a nightmare.
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An internet of things incorporating chips that natively execute Java bytecode, I'm thankful that hasn't come to pass.
Well, modern SIM cards run Java Card, is that creepy enough for you? Apps can be loaded onto the SIM by the phone any time it is active.
Not what I was thinking (Score:3)
Who else pictured Linux running inside a MS-DOS program?
Re:Not what I was thinking (Score:5, Interesting)
Smallest .COM? That would be zero bytes, and on DOS 2.11 it would have the funny effect of running the last program you ran, if it was compatible with executing itself in place again.
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Smallest .COM? That would be zero bytes, and on DOS 2.11 it would have the funny effect of running the last program you ran, if it was compatible with executing itself in place again.
Now that is arcane knowledge.
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OpenWRT = famous open source firmware for routers
SoC = System on a Chip (CPU, IO, RAM, Video, etc)
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open-spec COM OpenWRT Ralink RT5350 SoC Indiegogo IoT-focused VoCore
The only word I understood was "Linux".
TL;DR
All I got out of this comment is "I am not much of a geek". You might be more at home on reddit.
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What I got out of it is that he's not an 'IT Geek.' That's a specialized kind, ya know. Do you have a good understanding of the relative benefits of CMOS and TTL? How about the different types of lapidary grit?
I agree, though, that Slashdot isn't so much 'news for nerds' as it used to be. It's infested with IT types who think they're the whole community.
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What I got out of it is that he's not an 'IT Geek.' That's a specialized kind, ya know. Do you have a good understanding of the relative benefits of CMOS and TTL? How about the different types of lapidary grit?
I agree, though, that Slashdot isn't so much 'news for nerds' as it used to be. It's infested with IT types who think they're the whole community.
What I got out of it is that he's not an 'IT Geek.' That's a specialized kind, ya know. Do you have a good understanding of the relative benefits of CMOS and TTL? How about the different types of lapidary grit?
I agree, though, that Slashdot isn't so much 'news for nerds' as it used to be. It's infested with IT types who think they're the whole community.
So if an article has terms you don't understand do you whine about it or look it up? That's the difference.
Slashdot has always leaned towards the highly technical, and because of the specialization of technology it's unlikely that anyone is going to understand ALL the jargon.
A geek will look it up and perhaps even be a little excited to LEARN something, I don't know what to call someone who just whines that they weren't spoon fed.
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Open-spec: Open specification (i.e. you don't need to sign anything to get the documentation)
COM: Computer-On-Module, otherwise known as a single-board-computer (but smaller), usually a SoC (System-on-Chip) with very few other components
OpenWRT: Linux distribution with a focus on small installed size, spin-off from the Linksys WRT54G router firmware which Linksys had to make available under the GPL.
Ralink RT5350: System-on-Chip with a MIPS CPU architecture core and assorted peripherals (network interfaces,
because (Score:1)
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when i was young i never understood why old bastards weren't excited about all the exciting new shit happening in technology now 15 years later i see why all this "new" shit isn't exciting at all...i think that's why start-ups really don't want old people, because old people realize how boring and unimportant it all is.
Developer's blog (Score:3)
Here is a blog from the developer: http://vonger.cn/ [vonger.cn]
Judging from the entries this thing looks real enough
$45 for voCore plus dock isn't half bad (Score:2)
I've spent more for less. Best case I get a toy to play with in October. Worst case I do a CC charge back (assuming I can do one 6 months after purchase).
Plan 9 (Score:1)
This tiny wifi enabeled computer has a killer app (Score:5, Funny)
Apparently it has a pin out dedicated to PORN ;)
https://images.indiegogo.com/f... [indiegogo.com]
That's pretty small. (Score:2)
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So small, there's no room for mounting holes, aside from the through-hole vias. Is that normal for COMs?
The ones that expose a substantial number of I/Os often repurpose whatever flavor of DIMM or SODIMM socket is current at the time, since that's a well known, mass produced, connector that can handle the fairly touchy signal integrity demands of RAM and so is probably qualified for most assorted I/O stuff.
If you don't go that route, the alternative for getting that small is usually some sort of terrifyingly fiddly fine-pitch Hirose connector(Gumstix COMs are good examples of doing this).
Through-hole li
20 u$s for a pcb (Score:2)
You might as well buy the bare chip for u$s 5, it's almost the same as this board.
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You might as well buy the bare chip for u$s 5, it's almost the same as this board.
How much will you charge me to deadbug it to an ethernet socket?
Unnamed Chinese Startup (Score:1)
I love China and enjoy living here, but funding an "unnamed Chinese startup" is one step above flushing your money down a toilet in terms of likelihood of a return on your investment.
Why can't Microsoft do this? (Score:2)
I know why, but sometimes I love to hear Microsoft people come to its defense. The short answer is THEY CAN but they have to start over to do it. For some reason, they seem terribly allergic to the idea.
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More interesting as an AP (Score:3)
If you combined it with PoE it'd make the perfect retrofit for old satellite dishes, e.g. Primestar. And in general, would make dandy small access points.
TL-WR703N (Score:1)
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Whats with all the fuss (Score:1)