Little $9 USD pc, plus cheap case... promising as calculator?

[eried]

Little demo (in Spanish): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qaOJSoW6yaA

Official store: http://www.getchip.com

[Graan]

Nice! Did you 3D print the case?
"How can I get PockulusC.H.I.P.? Good news! You already almost have one. All you need to do is 3D print the file at here or find a friend to do it for you."

[Maximilian Hohmann]

That thing in the video is the "Pocket C.H.I.P" with screen, keyboard and case. It costs 69$. Still quite cheap, but not as cheap as the thread title suggests... Those 9 dollars only buy you the naked processor board.

[eried]

(09-29-2016 06:06 AM)Graan Wrote:  Nice! Did you 3D print the case?
"How can I get PockulusC.H.I.P.? Good news! You already almost have one. All you need to do is 3D print the file at here or find a friend to do it for you."

Not yet but I want!

The little game editor that is included with the C.H.I.P. it is so fun that other ideas are delaying a bit

[NetMage]

(09-29-2016 06:06 AM)Graan Wrote:  Nice! Did you 3D print the case?
"How can I get PockulusC.H.I.P.? Good news! You already almost have one. All you need to do is 3D print the file at here or find a friend to do it for you."

That's for the 3D / VR application, not the basic unit.

[StephenG1CMZ]

(09-29-2016 01:18 PM)Maximilian Hohmann Wrote:  That thing in the video is the "Pocket C.H.I.P" with screen, keyboard and case. It costs 69$. Still quite cheap, but not as cheap as the thread title suggests... Those 9 dollars only buy you the naked processor board.

Or how about the raspberry Pi? Less than 35 for the processor board, with free Mathematica. Just need to add a battery pack and screen (but no HP Prime emulation yet).

[Tinue]

(10-03-2016 07:08 AM)StephenG1CMZ Wrote:  Or how about the raspberry Pi? Less than 35 for the processor board, with free Mathematica. Just need to add a battery pack and screen (but no HP Prime emulation yet).

The 5$ Raspberry Pi Zero would be enough. However: All of these single board computers run Linux. Who wants a calculator that first needs to boot up? After use, you have to shut down again properly, otherwise it will no longer boot up. For my taste, even the HP Prime is on the high end of boot-up time. A calculator has to switch on instantly, I think.

IMO, for DIY calculators, you therefore need a microprocessor, not a single board computer.

[Dave Britten]

I've got one of these. I jumped on board the first couple of days they were on Kickstarter back around spring 2015, so I got my kit early this summer. It's a cool little machine; I like the CHIP a lot more than the Pi Zero (I still haven't come up with anything interesting to do with my Zero). It's got built-in wireless (including Bluetooth), pre-installed headers, a full-size USB port, and a power management chip that actually handles a battery natively, including charging. The PocketCHIP chassis is quite nice, and uses no screws, so it's ripe for hacking. Everything fits together very well, and you can access the USB port, micro USB charging port, and headphone jack on top of the CHIP while it's inserted.

I believe the on-board storage is an 8 GB MLC NAND flash, but the bootloader that's being used doesn't support MLC, so only 4 GB is usable currently. Something like that, anyway. There's no on-board SD card slot, but you can connect flash drives to the full-size USB port.

With all that said, the software still needs a bit of work. Last I checked, there were two separate OS images: one for the PocketCHIP, and one for running the board standalone with the HDMI or VGA adapters. I hear they're working to unify everything. Also, there aren't any proper GPU drivers yet, so no hardware acceleration.

[EdS2]

(10-03-2016 12:12 PM)Tinue Wrote:  The 5$ Raspberry Pi Zero would be enough. However: All of these single board computers run Linux. Who wants a calculator that first needs to boot up? After use, you have to shut down again properly, otherwise it will no longer boot up.

It's much better than that! The Pi can run Linux, but you can also program it in bare metal. We have it emulating a second processor, connected to an Acorn BBC Micro's Tube port. It's a real time system, interfacing to a 2MHz bus and emulating a variety of systems up to 140MHz.
https://github.com/hoglet67/PiTubeDirect