Pi Top?

Is the Pi Top working with the current Risc OS ?
( Power Off function and such?)

I believe there’s an article on the use of PiTop and RISC OS in the latest issue of Drag’n’Drop.

We don’t think that Power control, battery monitoring and screen control should be that difficult once we have access to the API or sources to the relevant PiTop OS sources. Unfortunately PiTop haven’t released them yet.
Of a bigger concern is the keyboard, quite a few of the Function keys do not work and worse it has a habit of crashing if the top row of keys are pressed (They are Function keys when the Fn button is used as a modifier and controlling the screen brilliance etc unmodified). I am trying to find a solution but my original thought of persuading the Pi-top team to look at the problem hasn’t succeeded yet so I’m trying another tack but it won’t be a quick solution. I do have a backup plan to the backup plan… but it would involve reinventing the wheel and probably very slow:-(

Is there something news about the PiTop?

Does it work now with RISC OS, or is there no chance to get it running? (F-Keys)
Does F12 work on it?

I’m planning to buy a PiTop, and would like to be able to run RISC OS on it (As a main OS)

I have ordered a new German keyboard as a replacement für the old UK/US one. Should arrived me this ore next week.
Any of my “German words” also for RISC OS you find here .

RE a RISC OS Pi-Top:
We have made significant progress in the last week or so, we’ve stopped the keyboard from crashing and have the function keys working!
Also we can now at a low level read the battery level, estimated time to full charge, if its charging or not and drain so we can calculate time left!

We haven’t yet found out how to turn it off or adjust the screens brilliance, watch this space.

Unfortunately Pi-Top have not been at all helpful and we have wasted quite a bit of time up blind alleys and time is money, so the software won’t be cheap.

@ Chris Evans:I expected, that it will not be cheap. I’m allready happy, if there will be a solution. I hope you will sell the software separate?

The software will be available separately.

Also we can now at a low level read the battery level, estimated time to full charge, if its charging or not and drain so we can calculate time left!

Out of interest, how long does it estimate it will last on a full charge with RISCOS loaded?

Existing RISC OS users report 10+ hours

The software will be available separately.

Good point. Just need to find French/German/Whatever keyboards now :)

Quote Pi-Top Team:

At the moment the pi-top is available with UK, US and DE keyboards!

I also asked about a French keyboard.

I have order a German replacement.

@Raik: what about Speakers? is there space in the case for some small speakers?

Small speakers maybe.
Speaker aviable as Pi-Top addon.

I am pleased with my Pi-Top which is fitted with a Pi3. It works well with Raspian and Rene in the user group has already written software to display battery status, control screen brightness and power off in software. The software is written in C and can be found in Github. Perhaps someone could port the code to RISC OS?

I also run RISC OS on the Pi-Top and as already reported the function keys do not work under RISC OS. I have ordered the Pi speakers which work using HDMI/SPDIF but in the meantime I built a small speaker and amplifier which works from the audio port. Raspian works with the built in wi-fi but following the example of andym in another post, I use a TP-Link Nano Router in client mode to give the portability that laptops deserve.

At the moment I swap my SD cards between Raspian and RISC and am still trying to work out how to dual boot a Pi3. All in all I am very happy with the Pi_Top and would buy it again.

The software is written in C and can be found in Github. Perhaps someone could port the code to RISC OS?

We’re already¹ working on it! Though it is Rene’s documentation of the API we are using rather than porting his software as we think that will be quicker. The I2C part of the software is going well but part of the control is done with SPI which is new to us so is taking a bit longer!

¹ We started work last year and established that control and monitoring was done with I2C and SPI. We were promised the API by Pi-Top but after many unsuccessful hours spent chasing them, found Rene’s excellent work.

Stupid question. Does Pi-top or Pi-topCeed use IPS screens?
Quality is important to me :)

Existing RISC OS users report 10+ hours

I’ve been using mine quite a bit over the past few weeks and the longest I’ve got from a full charge is around 3 hours. Added to this, key presses fail to register if you press the key in the wrong area and the mouse jumps around all over the place if you have your left hand resting on the mouse buttons.

It’s truly awful to use, I certainly wouldn’t recommend it.

Stupid question. Does Pi-top or Pi-topCeed use IPS screens?

Pi-Top looks like a TFT to me, certainly not IPS.

Whilst testing MiG-29M on my Pi-top today, I noticed the function stop working under this game. After some investigation, I tracked it down to NumLock being forced on during the initialization sequence. Could NumLock, which is on by default unless you turn it off in Config, be the reason why the function keys don’t work for some people?

Is it even possibly to turn NumLock on/off on the keyboard itself?

Could NumLock, which is on by default unless you turn it off in Config, be the reason why the function keys don’t work for some people?

Well spotted Jon! If you turn off NumLock it does seem that FN+P1 = F1 etc., as it should do!

Is it even possibly to turn NumLock on/off on the keyboard itself?

I don’t think so.

Andrew

If you turn off NumLock it does seem that FN+P1 = F1 etc.

Well, that solves that problem then. And leads on to the question…what on earth does NumLock do on a PiTop to break the function keys? I’ll have a play at some point to see if if changes any key values.

There’s a button up the top right of the keyboard, that could be a calculator, I’m wondering it it’s actually the NumLock key which is non-functional under RO and somewhere on the keyboard are the number pad keys, which aren’t labeled on the keys themselves and need a specific USB driver to work.

It certainly seems odd that the keyboard doesn’t have an obvious NumLock feature, most laptop keyboards provide the feature these days.

I haven’t had any response in the Community Support subforum to my problem with accessing the internet from my Pi-Top via the TP-LINK Nano WiFi gadget inside and a mobile hotspot. I thought somebody must have achieved this?
The prblem is explained here .