Pinebook

Pine at what could have been a low cost laptop at around quarter the price of the pi-top. It’s an A53 core, unfortunately in an Allwinner SoC.

As you say this is crying out for a port would make a great RISC OS laptop there seem to be a lot of low cost (cheap) allwinner SoC on the market.

what could have been a low cost lapt

It is lightweight and came with

Came with? Could have been? Past tense?

Don’t know anything about the Allwinner SoC – what’s wrong with it?

Apparently the documentation is extremely sparse and insufficient for actually writing any software.

Came with? Could have been? Past tense?

Bit of engrish translation. They have a valid excuse not being native English speakers.¹

Don’t know anything about the Allwinner SoC – what’s wrong with it?

As with many of these things the simplistic statement is that it’s lacking in the documentation.
There is documentation but certain elements would be in the realms of guesswork and a major brick wall unless we could magically use the linux binaries.

¹ Of course the presence of “Could of been done by first line” alongside a tick box in our departmental incident/change/etc system can only be explained by lack of brain cells, particularly since I have pointed out the error numerous times to people with the access to change it.
Mind you, when someone has set up a fault category of “unexpected behaviour” right from day one you know you aren’t dealing with MENSA members.

Bit of engrish translation.

Yup – I guessed that for “came with” – but the other example is Jon Abbott 8~) – or is he not a native English speaker either? (I hasten to add that I’m perfectly capable of making silps like that myself. And I’m supposed to be a professional writer…)

Making “silps”, you say? Case in point :)

Lediberate on this occasion, my fiend 8~)

Looks like they’ve beaten Olimex to the table with an “open source ARM laptop”…

Aah! You’re killing me here. If the AUD wasn’t so pathetic against the GBP …or anything else really I’d get the DDE and have a crack at the AllWinner nuts. er. yeah.

What I have worked out is if you like to cheat, U-Boot has already done the hard work. It detects the monitor, sets native resolution, sets up a framebuffer, has access to the (16550 based) UART and ethernet, and sets CPU states to safe initial values. Sure that’s for the H3 but still it’s a glimmer of hope.
I’ve also been humming and hawing over getting an Orange Pi PC 2, which happens to have the AllWinner H5. Ie the A64 based SoC. I want to see if I can chat to it’s hardware too.

If the AUD wasn’t so pathetic against the GBP

It’s comparatively strong at the moment so this might be your best chance. Are you aware that the DDE costs £41.67 (not £50) outside the EU?

Hi Tristan where in Aus do you live I live in Melbourne 3977

Just barely over the border into NSW. I lived in Melbourne maybe 10 years ago for a bit.

Chris, I had no idea that DDE cost less for people outside EU. Is that a VAT exemption thing?
Still a bit too much for something non essential at this time. I’m just biding my time, waiting for a point where GB is circling the drain a little closer than Australia.

Is that a VAT exemption thing?

ex-VAT. 50 / 1.20 = 41.66666

Simplest way of adding VAT at any percentage is pre-VAT amount x 1.xyz where xyz is the digits of the percentage.
To get from the VATed amount to the VAT excluded amount is simply the reverse i.e
VATed amount / 1.xyz = ex-VAT amount.

To get from the VATed amount to the VAT excluded amount is simply the reverse i.e
VATed amount / 1.xyz = ex-VAT amount.

That’s a useful maths hack. 1234 + 20% is 1480.80, and then 1480.80 / 1.20 is 1234.

You would be depressed by how many people seem to think that if 1234 + 20% = 1480.80, then 1234 - 20% would get you back to the original figure. I can only imagine they think a percentage is some arbitrary amount added on, not understanding what “per cent” implies…

That’s a useful maths hack.

There’s two things to be said there, the first is that I regard it as standard maths probably covered early on in primary school.
The other is that I’ve argued with accountancy types about the “proper” method of dealing with percentages for things like VAT and they have often trotted out the totally incorrect 15% VAT added and subtract 13% to go back which is not just inaccurate but also bad practice and more awkward to do anyway. Summary – it’s stupid.

I can only imagine they think a percentage is some arbitrary amount added on, not understanding what “per cent” implies…

Accountants apparently.

I have sinned. I placed an order for an Orange Pi PC2. So I guess I have an A53 based board on the way. It still comes in way under what DDE costs before anyone asks.
Given how integrated the AllWinner SoCs are, it may be reasonable to expect the fabled Pinebook would probably use essentially the same kernel as the OPi PC2. I haven’t looked at the A53 datasheet, but I know the H3 uses pretty much the same registers for HDMI as LCD panels.