Wandboard ROM

The wandboard rom has appeared on the downloads page. I suspect that this is still work in progress as the rom is only 14 bytes long… However this is excellent news.

It’s got to 2.5Mbytes fairly quickly – so fast progress!

Bit off topic but it would be nice to see the full Omap 5 build as well.

Bit off topic but it would be nice to see the full Omap 5 build as well.

I suspect that what would be nice and what would be permissible under the terms of the agreements in place are two different things.
Do remember that the Wandboard (iMx6) is the outcome of commercial development with a closed(time limited closure) source and that only as the agreed source closure period expires do you see the source and it’s built binary appear for general use.
No doubt the same holds true for other development streams.

Is it a ‘complete’ ROM (SATA, accelerated graphics)? Someone can tell more about sound quality on jack output? iMX8m is told to have audiophile quality (384 kHz sound!). Perhaps the iMX6 is also pretty good here.

Nota: I promise to buy an ARMx8 if RComp made one/ And even many more if needed. Mail me Andrew :)

The new Wandboards have no SATA, but eMMC (16GB for the Pro version = enough for RISC and apps) and USB 3.0. To be honest I would prefer a ‘buy the OS only’ option. Even if very pricey.

Bit off topic but it would be nice to see the full Omap 5 build as well.

If you compile your own roms you should be able to do that by downloading the Omap5Dev Product via CVS. The IMX6 roms have been available recently via that route. Note the IMX6 product is more like the ArmX6 development roms than their stable releases.

The new Wandboards have no SATA, but eMMC

Can you clarify this? The page for the Quad doesn’t mention either SATA or eMMC, but the datasheet says that the Quad has SATA.

I guess David refers to the new i.MX8 based Wandboards, not the i.MX6 based Wandboard Quad that is also used inside the ARMX6.

Correct.

Nice and confusing when the Wandboard site has big bold “new revision” text on the MX6 ones!

https://d15z4ngi7vchau.cloudfront.net/media/catalog/category/Wandboard-Image_1.png

The Wandboard in this picture has a SATA connector.

And Mouser confirms the SATA connector on their site

https://www.mouser.co.uk/new/Wandboard/wandboard-quad/

This is the i.MX6 version (current), not the i.MX8 one (next).

I am a bit disappointed with this development board, I feel that they should have just updated the chip on the current board but they seem to have gone down the Pi clone route
they have lost all the good bits that made the MX6 a top notch development board. (but this is just my opinion) what do you you think your comments please.

they have lost all the good bits that made the MX6 a top notch development board.

Being a Pi clone has a lot of advantages. Like having a choice of extremely cheap peripherals and a wide range of cases.

The i.MX8 version has only lost the SATA connector – everything else got much more powerful. Non-RISC OS-platforms can easily use the new USB3 capabilities to achieve similar I/O performance compared to the old SATA capabilities (which could not easily use a port multiplexer). Gigabit Ethernet on the i.MX8 also is no longer internally limited to 480 Mbps. Video is now proper 4K@60Hz including hardware decoding.

So from a non-RISC OS standpoint, everything is better with the new i.MX8 based models, including the I/O capabilities. The RISC OS perspective is a rather unique one…

Maybe after the Pi clone, they will produce a bigger board based on the i-MX8QuadXPlus – Cortex-A35 and double Gigabit Ethernet. Maybe include a PCIex connector on board, that would be nice.

what do you you think your comments please.

In fact the board could be good if – and only if – they choose a removable EMMC card. It’s easy to find some with high capacities… but if it’s soldered.

Funny to see too that there is no analog audio output. For (almost) an audiophile SoC, it’s really strange.

Funny to see too that there is no analog audio output.

What standards does its HDMI support for audio? I assume it supports one of the higher standards, and you’re likely to have at least as good a D→A converter at the other end of your HDMI cable as you could expect on a reasonably-priced Pi-sized card.

What standards does its HDMI support for audio?

Max 8 audio channels, 24 bit and 192 kHz (up to 4 channels) or 96 khz (up to 8 channels).

and you’re likely to have at least as good a D→A converter at the other end of your HDMI cable as you could expect on a reasonably-priced Pi-sized card.

That depends of your screen…

Max 8 audio channels, 24 bit and 192 kHz (up to 4 channels) or 96 khz (up to 8 channels).

Cheers! Not quite the most HDMI can handle, but more than most (all?) people’s ears can…

That depends of your screen…

Yes – or whatever other audio system you have connected to your HDMI. The quality of audio if you have an analog output depends on your audio system, too. Why put the D→A in the computer rather than in the audio system? The further down the line the D→A occurs, the less the risk of losing quality.

bq. Max 8 audio channels, 24 bit and 192 kHz (up to 4 channels) or 96 khz (up to 8 channels).

Cheers! Not quite the most HDMI can handle, but more than most (all?) people’s ears can…

My ears can handle more than 8 channels ;)

These were the specs for HDMI 1.4, HDMI 2.0:
32 channels at 48 kHz
16 channels at 96 kHz
8 channels at 192 kHz

Why put the D→A in the computer rather than in the audio system? The further down the line the D→A occurs, the less the risk of losing quality.

In theory I agree. For a Pi sized device sometimes it’s convenient to have an analogue output. Not everyone uses a Pi as a desktop computer or for home cinema. Why should I carry around an extra device, that’s bigger and costs more than a Raspberry Pi and needs an extra power supply (or USB cable for power)? Why should I need an extra device for my simple computer speakers?

My ears can handle more than 8 channels ;)

Hmmm. What species are you?

As for your reason for having an analog output, unless I’m misunderstanding my good friend David Feugey, it’s at exactly the opposite pole from his reason: he wants a top notch analog output that puts his screen’s audio to shame, and you want a cheap-as-chips analog output you can stick into your cheap in-ear headphones? The only objection I can see to the latter is the space taken up by the socket on the board – but then David and his like could complain that it’s not giving them a golden ears output…

Hmmm. Not sure how small and low power and cheap you can get a really good quality D→A convertor. Last time I actually designed anything using one I built it myself with discrete components (apart from a couple of good quality op-amp ICs) – so you can guess how long ago that was.

The quality of audio if you have an analog output depends on your audio system, too.

That’s the problem. On modern screens it’s bad 100% of time. Of course a good HDMI audio extractor, that will let the video going through (at 4K), is a solution. But where to find one? I use DAC, but there is no DAC/DAP quality HDMI audio extractor on the market.

Back on topic, I saw that Andrew propose an ARMX6 ROM with multicore enabled. I hope there are some examples on how to use it (I still dream of some way to use it from Basic). But even if it’s not the case, it’s a great idea. I wasn’t on the ARMX6 train but I could be on the next offer from RComp.

but then David and his like could complain that it’s not giving them a golden ears output…

None of my devices I used had a on-board audio output that would satisfy an audiophile. Doesn’t matter if it is a desktop, laptop or phone – good enough for watching movies, but listening with good headphones would drive some people nuts.

Finally, we agree. For a decent audio quality I would use HDMI audio or an USB audio device.

If the Wandboard 8M has the I²S bus on the GPIO like the Raspberry or ESAI, that would be another possibility (I have no idea how that works and if RISC OS supports audio over I²S). The i.MX8 chip has that feature:
https://www.nxp.com/docs/en/fact-sheet/IMX8FAMFS.pdf

and SATA, PCIe, HiFi 4 DSP (whatever that is)

Edit: even SPDIF

he i.MX8 chip has that feature:

Be careful: there is i.MX 8, i.MX 8M and i.MX 8X. The Pi-Wandboard is based in i.MX 8M, which does not feature SATA and unfortunately also not the Cortex-A72.

Back on topic, I saw that Andrew propose an ARMX6 ROM with multicore enabled. I hope there are some examples on how to use it (I still dream of some way to use it from Basic). But even if it’s not the case, it’s a great idea. I wasn’t on the ARMX6 train but I could be on the next offer from RComp.

Once 5.24 is released, I’d like to see all the development ROM builds switch over to SMP versions (where applicable). There are some pretty fundamental changes that need to be made to low-level bits of the OS – these could do with as much testing as possible, to make sure ordinary programs don’t break when running on SMP-friendly OS versions.

Then once the lower-level bits have been tackled we should hopefully see the SMP module/environment itself improve to the point where it’s sensible for programs to start making use of it.

I have no idea how that works and if RISC OS supports audio over I²S

Quite a few of the hardware ports use I2S for audio (with I2C for configuring the chip). However we don’t have a generic I2S API – all of the code tends to get built directly into the HAL as part of the audio driver. So there’s currently no easy way of writing drivers for add-on I2S audio devices.