
VoCore: A coin-sized Linux computer with wifi - noonespecial
http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/vocore-a-coin-sized-linux-computer-with-wifi
======
inoop
A 4MB flash, 16MB ram version of this (same chipset) is already freely
available for $15 as module (1), or $26 with a break-out board (2). You get
2xserial, a bunch of free GPIO's, 2xethernet, i2c, usb. OpenWRT has already
been ported to this module, although you need to really strip it down to make
it work reliably given the small amount of ram.

1) [http://www.dx.com/p/hi-link-hlk-rm04-serial-port-ethernet-
wi...](http://www.dx.com/p/hi-link-hlk-rm04-serial-port-ethernet-wi-fi-
adapter-module-blue-black-214540)

2) [http://www.dx.com/p/hlk-vrm04-multifunction-uart-serial-
port...](http://www.dx.com/p/hlk-vrm04-multifunction-uart-serial-port-to-
ethernet-wi-fi-converting-adapter-module-w-antenna-310407)

3) [http://wiki.openwrt.org/toh/hilink/hlk-
rm04](http://wiki.openwrt.org/toh/hilink/hlk-rm04)

~~~
lnteveryday
I was looking at the product picture for the module with the breakout board
(2). It looks like the only available GPIO come from the 10-pin header at the
top of the board. From what I could see it looked like there were only 6 free
GPIO. Am I missing something? I did not see any datasheets or PCB layout files
on their site.

~~~
inoop
[http://www.hlktech.net/product_detail.php?ProId=39](http://www.hlktech.net/product_detail.php?ProId=39)

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noonespecial
Poor guy. He played the "secret chord" of maker crowdfunding: Linux, Network,
GPIO, <=$20.

Looks like he was planning on making about 300 units by hand. Now he has to
make nearly 700 and it hasn't even been a week. 8 weeks left to go.

Good luck. May the maker gods smile upon you.

~~~
pjc50
I think he was always planning on getting them properly made by machine,
that's what the kickstarter is for (the upfront cost).

His other advantage is being Chinese, and therefore not having to bother with
any of the expensive wireless approval process that's normally required for
this sort of thing.

~~~
stephengillie
Chinese people get FCC exemptions?

~~~
scotty79
Why would they bother?

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marvin
I really want a computer that you can run on a potato battery or two. Does
such a board exist? What is the lowest-power general-purpose Linux computer in
existence that's somewhat convenient to use?

~~~
rwmj
If my maths is right, based on this Wikipedia article[1] a typical lemon or
potato battery will deliver about 1mW.

That's not enough to drive even the smallest 32 bit CPU (eg the Cortex M0). Or
to be more accurate, you could drive the CPU at ~ 100 Hz from your potato,
assuming you had no other hardware.

If you want to play with a tiny, cheap 32 bit board that _does not_ run Linux,
but is a lot of fun anyway, I recommend the Freescale Freedom board FRDM-KL26Z
(under £13/$20 each -- they're so cheap that one unit didn't reach the minimum
order value of the reseller so I had to buy two of them :-).

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lemon_battery](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lemon_battery)

~~~
jacquesm
Pic chips would work just fine on such a power budget. Especially if you let
them go dormant for a bit between work to charge up a capacitor.

~~~
Narishma
Does Linux run on PIC?

~~~
Gracana
I don't know, but it does run on an AVR. Sort of.

[http://dmitry.gr/index.php?r=05.Projects&proj=07.%20Linux%20...](http://dmitry.gr/index.php?r=05.Projects&proj=07.%20Linux%20on%208bit)

~~~
darkmighty
Great link, this guy has a ton of other cool projects too.

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yuvadam
With 64MB RAM, this could have been a superior alternative to the TL-WR703n
[1]. Still even with 32MB it's nice to see more devices and boards in this
area.

[1] - [http://wiki.openwrt.org/toh/tp-link/tl-
wr703n](http://wiki.openwrt.org/toh/tp-link/tl-wr703n)

------
Gracana
Backed at the $40 level. I'm a big fan of CPU modules like this, they solve
the difficult problems and I can solder them onto a simple two-layer PCB that
has whatever I need for my application.

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bottled_poe
Anyone know how much power this thing would draw? In my experience wifi is one
of the more power-consuming components of a lightweight computer.

~~~
zokier
Carambola2 linked by user revelation above specs .5W power consumption. I'd
assume this device would be in the same ballpark.

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natch
It's unfortunate that of all the options, only one is a dock + board option
(and that one is, of course, sold out).

Am I missing something? Clearly I could buy the board and dock separately but
it's odd that the higher priced options don't include an option with docks.

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deckiedan
Seems too good to be true - but I'm not a hardware guy. Something like this
looks like a Godsend for wearable computing, drones/copters, smart toys,
household automation, etc. Can anyone with more clue comment?

~~~
jrockway
It's basically an eval board for a Ralink SoC. I believe this particular chip
is for lowish-end WiFi routers.

~~~
turnip1979
I like the dock concept. Haven't seen it before. He (she?, they?) isn't
claiming originality on the dock but it seems to fit his board form factor
perfectly. Any precedence on that?

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Aardwolf
If you get the 50-pack, is it possible to make a Beowulf cluster out of them,
using Wifi for the network connections?

~~~
VLM
From the linked article "It contains 32MB SDRAM" which would have been pretty
awesome in 1994 or so. In other words you could do what I did with linux in
'94, which was quite a bit.

Unfortunately given what I do with linux in '14 I checked and per ps on one
box and the VSZ of /usr/sbin/sshd is 43792K aka about 44 megs, so you'd be
about 12 megs into the swap just to log in. Not that vanilla sshd is the
lightest memory process out there.

Of course people did run Beowulf clusters before 2014, you'll have to run some
90s era software given 90s era specs.

~~~
icebraining
I don't get it; VSZ is just the virtual memory, i.e., address space, not
actually used space (at least, not in Linux). You shouldn't need any swap for
it.

My laptop doesn't have swap and only has 2GB of RAM, but it has no problem
"allocating" the 3GB+ of virtual memory that the processes are using.

~~~
VLM
Fair enough, but the general point of mere utility processes consuming all of
the available resources leaving nothing to the overall app remains an issue.

I looked for a "big" RSS/RSZ and found my puppet using 53 megs. On a 6 gig
machine thats not a big deal, and the elimination of "by hand" administration
makes it a fair trade, but on a 32 meg machine that 53 megs would be an issue.

~~~
zokier
OpenWRT has been running quite successfully on that class of devices for some
time now. Sure it is using busybox, some lightweight libc, dropbear instead of
openssh for ssh etc, but in the end there is still some RAM left for
applications.

