On-Stick Game Console with Dual Raspberry Pi Chips
Pimoroni produces various thrilling shows, boards and kits primarily based on the Raspberry Pi’s Pico controller or the RP2040 chip that powers it. The Sheffield-based electronics firm’s subsequent huge mission is a sport console with the stick-like kind issue of the Chromecast, two completely different RP2040 chips, and the power besides straight into the Python REPL command line.
Pimoroni Founders Jon Williamson and Paul Beech unveiled the upcoming product, which they are saying shall be known as the DV, or “Digital Video” Stick, on final week’s episode. Tom’s Hardware Pi Cast (opens in new tab)Our weekly present on all issues Raspberry Pi.
“This stick product, this HDMI factor is probably the most enjoyable factor we’re doing proper now,” Williamson mentioned.
The stick can have a USB port that you should utilize to attach a wired peripheral, in addition to a built-in HDMI port that enables it to be plugged straight right into a TV or monitor. However it would even have Bluetooth connectivity so you may pair a wi-fi controller or keyboard with it.
For those who use it as a sport console, the DV Stick will be capable to play the identical video games that run on Pimoroni’s PicoSystem handheld. Launched in 2021, PicoSystem already has a number of community-created video games, nevertheless it additionally supplies instruments so you may develop your personal sport in C++, MicroPython, or CircuitPython. PicoSystem makes use of a single RP2040 for processing and outputs to a 240 x 240, 1.54 inch display. Pimoroni hasn’t set a most decision for the DV Stick, however because it’s designed to be hooked as much as a TV, we count on it to succeed in at the least 1080p.
Pimoroni can be engaged on a manner so that you can run the MicroPython REPL straight on the DV stick, so you may boot to a immediate (with no working system apart from the system firmware) and begin writing and executing code straight from the command immediate. One of these expertise is harking back to the person interface of many Eighties computer systems, such because the ZX Spectrum, Atari 400, and Commodore 64. On these computer systems, the system boots up with a immediate the place you may enter BASIC packages.
The corporate additionally mentioned that individuals can use the DV Stick for signage. For instance, if you wish to put a program on a display that everybody can see, you may write a easy program utilizing the corporate’s Picographics Micropython library and join the system to a display.
The twin RP2040 chips within the DV Stick will permit it to have one CPU that handles the software program rendering and one other that solely drives the show. Every of the chips has its personal PS RAM chip, which implies there shall be extra reminiscence than the 264K that comes normal with the RP2040 chips / Raspberry Pi Picos.
“The chips every have a PS RAM chip for the body buffer they usually swap in VSync,” Williamson mentioned. “So we mainly have an analog multiplexer that swaps chips between the 2, so the applying processor writes to the body buffer on a RAM chip, then when VSync happens on the display, it fingers the RAM chip again to the show processor. The RAM chip goes again to the applying processor so the display comes out on the display.”
Williams famous that utilizing an HDMI show with just one RP2040 processor will deprive you of tons of software efficiency as a result of encoding video requires loads of CPU cycles.
There is no such thing as a agency launch date or pricing for the DV Stick, which could possibly be known as one thing else when it launches. The product works on a breadboard however would not have a working prototype but, so we have no pictures in our article. However Williamson and Beech mentioned the product ought to be prepared in a number of weeks. They hope that at any time when it comes out, the makers will discover new and thrilling methods to make use of it.
“It is type of bizarre, however we beloved the idea a lot that we did not care a lot for what it did,” Williams mentioned. “We put no matter sounded enjoyable on it and thought we might see what occurs.”
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