Raspberry Pi Zero

There are various versions of the AX88772 (I’m not sure that the original AX88772 is made any more), not all work (most of the non working units we have, report as AX88772 family) also I’m told some assemblers scrimp and only use one crystal when two should be used. Also most listings do not tell you the chip set:-(
Many use the same white plastic casing, we have three that are externally the same but internally different.
We hope to have reliable units in stock within a few days.

I have try 4 or 5 adapter with various versions of the AX88772. All are working but most of than must setup with
*Set EtherUSB$Product_VVVV_PPPP AX88772.

AX88772B doesn’t work

@Chris – All that you report is just what I found, but some can be made to work if set up as Raik suggests.

On the other hand, the first item I mentioned above, with the USB hub, does specify the chip set and has worked reliably so far with the A+. It is not the cheapest, but by no means expensive.

I expect my zero tomorrow ¹, so I will confirm that it works with that.

¹
I took my pennies
To the market square.
…
And I looked for a MagPi
‘Most everywhere.
…
But they hadn’t got a MagPi, not anywhere there.

With apologies to A A Milne

The Pi Zero runs at 1 GHz. Given that RISC OS can only use a single core, and that the Pi 2 runs at 900 MHz, does that mean the Pi Zero will run RISC OS faster than any other Pi?

Not necessarily: the BCM2836 is (for some things, I think) faster ay 900MHz than the BCM2835 at 1000MHz.

For Tank et al, from the Pi Forums:
> Would someone who has a Pi Zero please post the Revision number from /proc/cpuinfo?
It’s in the specs on my blog
http://raspi.tv/2015/raspberry-pi-zero- … i-magazine
but if you’re feeling lazy…
900092

Pi2 is quicker clock for clock due to the predictive branching improvements and other optimisations, not to mention the larger and seperate CPU/GPU L2 caches.

I had to do a little shopping this morning – so I popped into a few places on the remote chance that there might still be a copy (or two) available. Unfortunately not.

If I’m called out at all today I’ll pop in anywhere I pass, but I’m not holding out much hope.

I’ll just have to wait until the Zero becomes more generally available.

Edit: This is one I won’t be buying (spotted it mentioned on Twitter earlier. There are others, some not quite so, er, ‘ambitious’.)

The big Tesco stores seem to be the best place, a few friends have contacted me having bought multiple copies at them.

Your friends must live near me then. The local tesco superstore had run out.

I popped into a large Tesco yesterday evening (Leicester South Wigston) and there were none left :-( Also visited W.H. Smugs, Asda and Sainsburys on Fosse Park Leicester yesterday lunchtime but all gone :-( But apart from the low price and the ‘newness’, these new Pi Zeros do not really give you anything that you can not do already on an existing RPi. Like most people. I can wait a couple of weeks until they become widely available.

Although it would be interesting to see if they could be shoe-horned inside of a LapDock case ;-)

Intesesting to consider that the original Acorn A310 was around GBP 899.00 list price at 8Mhz. Whereas you can now run RISC OS at 1000GHz for a fiver (if you’ve got a house to run it in).

Ralph

There are various versions of the AX88772 (I’m not sure that the original AX88772 is made any more), not all work (most of the non working units we have, report as AX88772 family) also I’m told some assemblers scrimp and only use one crystal when two should be used. Also most listings do not tell you the chip set:-(

I am fairly sure that the later AX88772B variants are not Wii compatible. So if you stay with adapters that are guaranteed to work with the Wii, everything should be fine. Cheapest at Amazon is 9.99€ at the moment. Hopefully that is not considered “exepnsive” nowadays.

The Delock 61147 should also work, AFAIK the MCS7830 has only one variant.

MagPi – seems they’re so annoyed with the ebay scalpers, they’re doing another print run :)

seems they’re so annoyed with the ebay scalpers, they’re doing another print run :)

That’s good to hear. I was about to sign up with their forums to vent about supply and demand and capitalism. Maybe I’m getting to be a cynical old git (oi! git orf my lawn!), but this doesn’t surprise me at all. Not even slightly. Okay, just a little bit – I didn’t think somebody would have the audacity to list them at eighty quid this soon.

But, yes, this <beep> doesn’t help anybody. I’m sure some <beep>s saw this and thought Kerching! and bought as many as they could. Doesn’t help us though! these people only see it as a simple way to turn coin! they could care less about any of the geeky stuff.

Unfortunately the Pi guys have not figured out the supply/demand issue, the most I can understand from their site is that they will be making a new print run for new subscribers (while stocks last).

God, would it kill them to take pre-orders on the magazine alone, and then just make as many as people want/have paid for? That will maybe help the overseas problem (I’m very much not alone), plus it will kill the scalpers stone dead – anybody who genuinely wants one or two pays and it’ll turn up. What’s not to like about that plan?

Oh, and given they’ve firmly nailed the Britishness of the outfit by doing this, could they please dispense with this crap about giving the prices in dollars?

</rant> ;-)

But with the $5 price and a little “drift”, it’ll soon be £π for a Pi Zero ;)

Assuming they don’t use that magical tech exchange rate where:
$ = £($<<1)

Thing is… this, an OLED, RISC OS Pico, and some custom GPIO and it could be what is necessary to revive that old dead washing machine with some smarts that could rival these all-singing all-dancing models.

Yes, ideal for those sort of applications – except for those that require a real-time clock. With no network, that Central Heating Controller would need a real-time reference!

Will someone be adapting the CJE RTC to fit? If and when they get their hands on one, that is!

This may be a very silly idea, but here goes:

At present many people using RISC OS on a Pi will use a second machine running, say, Linux for banking and other tasks for which RISC OS is presently unsuitable.

I do this with my NetBook, which I access by VNC over the network so that I can have my RISC OS spreadsheet displayed alongside the bank’s statement.

It’s very convenient to have them side-by-side on the same screen.

Now the Pi Zero doesn’t have networking, but if one that was bolted onto the back of a Pi running RISC OS was able to use some other method to “share” the networking on the RO Pi and display a window in a similar manner to VNC, this would be a superb use for this new inexpensive machine.

Think second processor in a window, like the old PCEmulator but running natively a real OS, Linux. A real Linux machine in a window!

Now, as I said, this may well be a very silly idea, but if it gives someone else cleverer than me a glimmer of an idea it will have been worth exposing my general ignorance once again!

At present many people using RISC OS on a Pi will use a second machine running, say, Linux for banking and other tasks for which RISC OS is presently unsuitable.

Halifax and Natwest online banking mostly work ok with Otter browser on RISC OS.

Will someone be adapting the CJE RTC to fit? If and when they get their hands on one, that is!

It fits and works with no changes!
More pics Here

Photo above (…91a), 92a & 93a show RTC fitted with standard length pins, protruding the minimum practical underneath.
…93a shows clearly the different layers of the Solder balls, BCM2835, solder balls and the RAM chip!
…94a onwards shows a clock fitted with minimum length pins i.e. the socket on our RTC is almost touching the Pi0’s PCB

We are looking at doing a special version that would fit in the same plane as the Pi0 PCB and include audio out! It would significantly increase the footprint but keep the low profile (We’ve already confirmed that you can reassign the PWM audio output to the 40 pin GPIO using a B+)

Any suggestions welcome.

Think second processor in a window, like the old PCEmulator but running natively a real OS, Linux. A real Linux machine in a window!

I do this now, using a Pi inside a PC running Windows. I use a specially adapted PCI bracket to bring the HDMI and 2 USB ports to the back of the PC and connect up. Using a USB header to power the Pi internally, it’s all neatly tucked away insiders the PC chassis. Then, when I turn the PC on, the Pi displays on screen and I use Andrew Sellors’ RDPClient to connect into the PC. With good use of UniServer I can launch Chrome in Windows in a window on my Pi desktop.

I even considered cannibalising a cheap Gigabyte Brix to put it inside the chassis of my ARMx6 to work the same way!

I do this now, using a Pi inside a PC running Windows. I use a specially adapted PCI bracket to bring the HDMI and 2 USB ports to the back of the PC and connect up. Using a USB header to power the Pi internally, it’s all neatly tucked away insiders the PC chassis. Then, when I turn the PC on, the Pi displays on screen and I use Andrew Sellors’ RDPClient to connect into the PC. With good use of UniServer I can launch Chrome in Windows in a window on my Pi desktop.

As do I using Linux on my NetBook, as I wrote, but wouldn’t it be elegant to only need a Pi B and a Zero working together to have it all! Ditch the PC altogether!

but wouldn’t it be elegant to only need a Pi B and a Zero working together to have it all

Ah right, I see what you mean! You could be onto something there! Especially with RDP instead of VNC.

I think you may have just found my Christmas Project!

I wrote:

Now the Pi Zero doesn’t have networking, but if one that was bolted onto the back of a Pi running RISC OS was able to use some other method to “share” the networking on the RO Pi and display a window in a similar manner to VNC, this would be a superb use for this new inexpensive machine.

Think second processor in a window, like the old PCEmulator but running natively a real OS, Linux.

Having reflected, perhaps I have it the wrong way round: Perhaps the Zero should be running RISC OS, piggy-backing some how on the RPi B which manages the network connection under Linux. I say this because the Linux tasks are intrinsically (perhaps) more network speed dependent – more complex page rendering, video/sound streaming, the sorts of things RISC OS can’t do/isn’t good at.

Just a further thing for the melting pot!