C.H.I.P $9 (actually $16) computer

When I saw the news about the $9 CHIP computer project, I put in $16 anyway just for fun anyway. It arrived a few days ago. I am pretty happy about it. It runs pretty fast. The Sysbench benchmark shows it is about a few times faster than Pogo v4. It has wifi built in. Flashing is very straightforward. It is hardware based so the chance of brick is very low. The only issue I found was that the ping response is slow. Not sure if it is because the wifi or not. I think it is a nice toy to play with. It is much better than the "$5" Rpi zero, which you cannot buy for "$5" anyway.

It is pretty cool low cost board! Im moving this here since it is a Allwinner chip.

-bodhi
===========================
Wiki
latest Kirkwood kernel builds and rootfs
latest u-boot-kirkwood builds
latest Oxnas kernel builds and rootfs
latest u-boot-oxnas builds
latest MVEBU Armada kernel builds and rootfs
U-Boot & Kernel Booting process
bodhi's u-boot GitHub
bodhi's corner

twinclouds Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> When I saw the news about the $9 CHIP computer
> project, I put in $16 anyway just for fun anyway.
> It arrived a few days ago. I am pretty happy
> about it. It runs pretty fast. The Sysbench
> benchmark shows it is about a few times faster
> than Pogo v4. It has wifi built in. Flashing is
> very straightforward. It is hardware based so the
> chance of brick is very low. The only issue I
> found was that the ping response is slow. Not
> sure if it is because the wifi or not. I think it
> is a nice toy to play with. It is much better
> than the "$5" Rpi zero, which you cannot buy for
> "$5" anyway.

Twinclouds,

How about power supply? You can use some old phone chager or need to buy one?

-bodhi
===========================
Wiki
latest Kirkwood kernel builds and rootfs
latest u-boot-kirkwood builds
latest Oxnas kernel builds and rootfs
latest u-boot-oxnas builds
latest MVEBU Armada kernel builds and rootfs
U-Boot & Kernel Booting process
bodhi's u-boot GitHub
bodhi's corner

Sure captures the imagination, that we're so close to alternative thin client guts you can tape to the back of a monitor.
I just can't understand, if the RAM is that low (high for headless, but somewhat low for video requirements), why use (edited) Video and instead why not an Ethernet port in its place. Then again a Bluetooth adapter alone at Menards is $14, so just thinking out loud, yes, this could be a swiss army knife of sorts. Great diagnostic tool certainly, neo digital picture frame but probably not the also-important play a video power.

When it's $20, quadcore, 1-2G RAM, ethernet I'll pounce like a panther, like a ninja... a cheeta... waaaah!

-edited out reference to HDMI when I meant Video - apologies for confusing things-

=========
-=Cloud 9=-
* I'm (as doctors say) experiencing slight discomfort LOL
I'll be back within a few days and better prepared anyway, so it's win/win..



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/05/2016 04:09PM by JoeyPogoPlugE02.

Hi, Bodhi:
Yes, you can use a 5v USB cell charger. I tried it without problem with a 1A charger. It consumes about 1.5w idle. 2A will probably be more robust but may not be necessary.

I agree it is best for headless. That is I am going to use anyway. Probably not enough power for Video. If comes with wifi and bluetooth so it is convenient.
It does not come with HDMI. At "$9" it comes with composite RCA to save cost. (There's a license fee for HDMI.)

Thanks for the correction twinclouds, I edited.

By chance do any of those pins have another way for wired networking?

Wow, I just had one of those moments... but if this takes up so little wattage, is it possible to use the 5v to plug this into a USB port of something else (a RAM-starved Pv4 or something)? If there's a pinout available I'd take a look, not saying I can figure it out...

=========
-=Cloud 9=-
* I'm (as doctors say) experiencing slight discomfort LOL
I'll be back within a few days and better prepared anyway, so it's win/win..

The following links may have the information that you need:
https://github.com/NextThingCo/CHIP-SDK,
which as a pin out, and
http://docs.getchip.com/#usb-storage

Also you may find there are interesting information in this bulletin board: https://bbs.nextthing.co/
Enjoy!

twinclouds Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Hi, Bodhi:
> Yes, you can use a 5v USB cell charger. I tried
> it without problem with a 1A charger. It consumes
> about 1.5w idle. 2A will probably be more robust
> but may not be necessary.

Thanks Twinclouds. I think either this board or the piZero will be stacked up in a 5-10 layer tower in my kernel compilation farm :) this is much less expensive than the Zero because the only additional cost would be a multi-port USB power hub and cables. Or I could try to piggy-back one per Pogoplug or multiple per Zyxel NAS.

-bodhi
===========================
Wiki
latest Kirkwood kernel builds and rootfs
latest u-boot-kirkwood builds
latest Oxnas kernel builds and rootfs
latest u-boot-oxnas builds
latest MVEBU Armada kernel builds and rootfs
U-Boot & Kernel Booting process
bodhi's u-boot GitHub
bodhi's corner

If that isn't a revelation. Hey bodhi, no skin off our teeth if we were to suggest to the crowd-funders to make a little SOC which are stackable like legos. At first I was brainstorming a harness where you could plug one into the other, like one harness piece for every board to extend. And that's valid. But a little board with males and females. Of course that would be a pain if one blew out and you had to troubleshoot.

In fact like you're saying, a USB 3 stick computer that can be stacked into a hub might have the qualifications, and crazy enough, switch to USB 2 for power savings. Maybe I'm cray... can't stop brainstorming though...

=========
-=Cloud 9=-
* I'm (as doctors say) experiencing slight discomfort LOL
I'll be back within a few days and better prepared anyway, so it's win/win..



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/06/2016 05:22PM by JoeyPogoPlugE02.

TBH, I would rather get this Orange Pi PC ($18.83).

Its reviews were not so good. Maybe you can share you hands-on experience once you get it.

I'm shocked SanDisk isn't sponsoring SOCs. Seems like they'd win more than anyone if it's popular.

=========
-=Cloud 9=-
* I'm (as doctors say) experiencing slight discomfort LOL
I'll be back within a few days and better prepared anyway, so it's win/win..

Pretty good writeup:

http://www.cnx-software.com/2016/01/03/raspberry-pi-zero-c-h-i-p-and-orange-pi-one-features-and-price-comparisons/

-bodhi
===========================
Wiki
latest Kirkwood kernel builds and rootfs
latest u-boot-kirkwood builds
latest Oxnas kernel builds and rootfs
latest u-boot-oxnas builds
latest MVEBU Armada kernel builds and rootfs
U-Boot & Kernel Booting process
bodhi's u-boot GitHub
bodhi's corner

Thanks Budhi.
Its interesting. Among the three. I don't think RPi Zero is a good contender. CHIP is convenient if you need WIFI. I also like its flashing procedure. The only issue I found is that its USB port current supply is pretty weak. I had problem to use it with USB hub and USB drive. For the latter, it would have problem if you write a large file to it or try to do a backup by using rsync or tar. I will try more to see if it is related to the Debian implementation.
Orange Pi has the best spec. It will be fine if you use the internal flash only. The reviews were not so good. I probably just order one to try out for fun. Its only about $18 anyway. The best price that I can find is this one. Somehow, I cannot find it by searching the Ali website.

Looking into buy a CHIP. Can I get the composite cable else where for less than $5? Or should I go with a HDMI add-on board?

Not sure what do you mean. The composite cable should come with the board. If you use mostly headless, you don't need HDMI board. I don't know how much it cost.

The composite cable comes with the CHIP? It is not clear to me if that is the case.The cable and adapters are listed at
http://getchip.com/pages/things

You should ask them. Mine did. It came with the $2 case also.

Thanks. I emailed them after seeing your post.


ETA: It is confirmed cable and case are extra.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/11/2016 05:09PM by funtoy1001.

CHIP + composite cable is just over $21 when shipping charge is added to ship to Calif. The "case" is $2 more

In that case, it is not as attractive as I first thought. I got all these extras for free probably because I am one of the early adopters.

Maybe I will get an Orange Pi. Seems to have more activities than CHIP.

I wouldn't oppose that. The only thing I don't like OPi is it doesn't have 1G Ethernet. Not sure about its reliability either. Maybe you can let us know once you get it.

Will not get the Orange PI. Signed up to the orange forum (orangepi.org) more than a day ago but no activation email. Email to web admin bounced.

This is my experience also. No reply from the Forum of OPi.
However, considering the chip charges for all of the extras, I decided to give Orange Pi PC a try. ($18 is almost trivial for a hobby or a toy anyway :-)
The device arrived in a record time from China, in about a week! My first try using the Orange Pi images was unsuccessful. Then the seller told me that it should use Orange Pi PC images rather than plain Orange Pi images. I tried and it worked fine. Then I tried to get plain Debian images from here but that didn't work at first either. After reading the webpage carefully, I found that it is necessary to put the right uImage and script.bin files into the boot directory according the instructions given. It was then works fine.
The lesson learned is that for $18 you bought an Orange Pi PC, not any other varieties of Orange Pi and there are quite a few of them. In order to make it work, you must use the right firmware.
All in all, the customer support of the OPi is quite lacking but the product is powerful. It is at least 6 times faster than Dockstar and Pogomobile according to sysbench. It is also about 2-3 times faster than the CHIP. Long term reliability is not known yet but I think it should be o.k.
This is what I found out for the $18 that I paid.

Congratulations twinclouds! You've got the coolest toy in the neighborhood. Looks sold out last I checked.
I bet there IS a lot of pilot error that goes into bad reviews. I can only relate to routers, how common it is for them to look up a conflicting IP at the modem. And you check reviews for most routers, there are always extremely irate people who say "four in a row didn't work! This is the worst..."

=========
-=Cloud 9=-
* I'm (as doctors say) experiencing slight discomfort LOL
I'll be back within a few days and better prepared anyway, so it's win/win..



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/27/2016 07:35PM by JoeyPogoPlugE02.

Thanks. It was fun anyway. I have too many of these boards/boxes lying around already. Just couldn't resist.
Too bad they are no longer available for now. However, the company suppose to come out two even cheaper once. Hope you can get one when and if they become available.

Yeah me too. I'm missing out on the best deals right now because of that "confirmed address" stipulation the lowest price dealers require. I've lived at the same address 25 years. Couple years ago I had a Credit Union account and they'd call every other day "did you order something from England" "Yes" "Germany?" "Yes" But they'd halt my payment until I told them I really did order. All this overdrven fraud protection and I'm trying to explain "lady, I only have like ten bucks in my account, go away", and at the very end calling her answering machine "lady I need to yell at you, not your answering machine - could you call me back?" Mean, yes, but they had the last laugh when I went into heart failure shortly thereafter LOL (not).

Maybe this is a sad place to ask, but if anyone knows of PayPal options to get past confirmed address, do tell. It's a crying shame a person like me who has more time on his hands than money can't get the deals like that. No NewEgg, no AliExpress. Booo, hiss. I mean, when I load up a PayPal card and place an order, isn't the money right there for the seller when I commit? I can't understand how a person could commit fraud if the money transaction is between PayPal and the seller once you click that button.

Enjoy that Orange Pi though, i'm still super glad to see trends are going that direction and it's an exciting time really.
I'd still like to know about Tablets said to have Allwinner A10s.

=========
-=Cloud 9=-
* I'm (as doctors say) experiencing slight discomfort LOL
I'll be back within a few days and better prepared anyway, so it's win/win..



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/27/2016 10:05PM by JoeyPogoPlugE02.

There is even an cheaper one available and it is still on sale.