
$35 Atomic Pi Cherry Trail Linux SBC - watchdogtimer
https://www.cnx-software.com/2019/04/26/buy-atomic-pi-cherry-trail-sbc/
======
SmellyGeekBoy
I've never been keen on SBCs using "Pi" in the name to ride on the Raspberry
Pi's coattails. I'm surprised the Raspberry Pi foundation aren't more
protective of it, if I'm honest.

At least in the case of the Banana Pi etc the board is the same form factor
and fits into existing RPi cases, and even runs on the same architecture. This
thing has literally nothing in common with the RPi apart from being another
SBC.

~~~
Zenst
Totally agree, though reminiscent of the early days of PC's with IBM (the OS
and PC name..) and again naming conventions with Intel (they wanted to
trademark 386 etc and was told they could not do that with numbers - hence
they started using the Pentium brand they could trademark along with a massive
campaign of Intel Inside...).

Lucky the more savvy consumer see's right thru this tailgating and more so in
the realms of arm SBC's.

But equally, Raspberry could not trademark "Pi" or indeed "Raspberry", though
they could trademark "Raspberry Pi" \- [https://www.raspberrypi.org/trademark-
rules/](https://www.raspberrypi.org/trademark-rules/)

Though, as they wanted to recreate the early fun days of computing, this whole
`plagiarism` angle sure does rekindle some nostalgia.

~~~
gmiller123456
_> But equally, Raspberry could not trademark "Pi" or indeed "Raspberry"_

One very close counter example would be "Blackberry". You absolutely can
trademark common words for use in specific markets. Another infamous example
is "Apple" as both a computer company and a music label. Had there been other
computers already using "Raspberry" or "Pi", they likely would have run into
issues using "Raspberry Pi".

~~~
Zenst
Yes, though in Apples case they fell foul of Apple records and eventually
settled that they would not do anything music related. That changed, though
they financially better placed to handle and settle that issue than the
initial conflict.

Just checked for a wiki entry and good to see my memory of that era not that
bad:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Corps_v_Apple_Computer](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Corps_v_Apple_Computer)

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steve19
The price to performance is crazy. If this had an extra ethernet port it would
be the go-to router.

What is really lacks is a easy power supply option. No barrel jack and it
needs up to 20w so more than regular usb can supply. The breakout board, which
I assume as a barrel jack, is not for sale on amazon yet.

I don't think antennas are included, and I don't know if they are absolutely
required.

Edit: I don't see any sata or pci interfaces which is disappointing. Also the
power breakout board has screw terminals not a barrel jack.

~~~
Tepix
It's an attractive offer. The Pine64 RockPro64 (RK3399 based) may offer even
more bang for the buck if you're ok with spending $60.

~~~
nreilly
Keep in mind that all the Pine64 hardware has a 3 month warranty [1] that
requires shipping the faulty device back. This made me very hesitant to buy
any of their stuff.

[1] [https://www.pine64.org/?page_id=443](https://www.pine64.org/?page_id=443)

~~~
Already__Taken
Not sure if this applies as the country it's purchased from or purchased in. I
thought if they take a payment from a european and ship to europe then this
law applies
[https://europa.eu/youreurope/citizens/consumers/shopping/gua...](https://europa.eu/youreurope/citizens/consumers/shopping/guarantees-
returns/index_en.htm)

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ChrisRR
The consensus in the comments seems to be that these boards were designed for
another product that was scrapped and now being sold off as a SBC. So stock is
likely to be extremely limited.

~~~
zeckalpha
Wasn’t that true of the SoC on the original Raspberry Pi, too? There is a
pattern of “offcuts” becoming productized if they stumble into a niche.

~~~
kingosticks
Videocore 4 processors were also used in a bunch of phones and media boxes.
The fact the Raspberry Pi was built on it was more because Eben Upton had
worked on it.

But it is fair to say they wouldn't have fabbed anywhere near as many had it
not been for the Raspberry Pi.

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/VideoCore](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/VideoCore)

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EamonnMR
I got one of these as an emulation box because a retropi couldn't handle the
N64 games I wanted to run, and for that purpose it's worked brilliantly. It's
pretty cool that it's x86-I plan to try and do some WINE gaming on it as well
which isn't possible on, say, a retropi. I haven't tried the official images,
but it runs fine with the standard Ubuntu image.

Setup notes: [http://blog.eamonnmr.com/2019/04/atomic-pi-emulation-
setup-n...](http://blog.eamonnmr.com/2019/04/atomic-pi-emulation-setup-notes/)

~~~
laumars
WINE will run on the Pi albeit you need to run it on top of x86 emulator. I've
seen examples using qemu but there are guides online using other tools too.
I've not tried it myself but from what I've read it's still fast enough to run
some Windows games.

Obviously if you have an x86 box then that would be better suited. But the
above is worth mentioning just in case anyone else should read your comment
who doesn't have any besides a Raspberry Pi but still wants access to retro
games for IBM-compatible machines.

~~~
mkesper
Performance should totally suck when doing that, doesn't it?

~~~
laumars
You would expect so but I haven't tried it personally because I had a spare
NUK laying around anyway.

I think the real question is how old or recent are the games you're wanting to
play? Games consoles would have to be emulated too and the Pi can still pull
of some N64 and PS1 games.

~~~
EamonnMR
Some N64 games are too much for the Pi, which is why I got one of these
things. I imagine other games from the 90s/very early 00s should run on it.
Will probably update the post if/when I do.

~~~
laumars
> _Some N64 games are too much for the Pi_

This is why I said "some" in previous post :)

> _Will probably update the post if /when I do._

Please do. I'd be interested to know

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ujuj
What about power consumption? I have a RPI 3B+ at house that runs Docker
containers, these would be a major step up in terms of image compatibility,
but I'm worried about a major step up in terms of electricity cost too.

~~~
jokowueu
Reading the comments . It seems almost half the power requirement is needed to
power the amps for the audio . So if ur not using it u won't reach that power
use

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joecool1029
... and it's gone already from Amazon lol.

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gmiller123456
Just a fair warning to anyone thinking about backing anything on Kickstarter:
_You have absolutely no legal recourse to against a company that doesn 't
deliver your goods_. You pay Kickstarter, Kickstarter pays the company.
Kickstarter is the only one who can enforce their terms against the company,
and they're notoriously famous for refusing to do so. There is a long list of
Kickstarter campaigns where the founders just took the money and ran. Even
ones where the founder appears to have all of the best intentions fall apart.

Not saying to never back any croudfunding, but know what you're getting in to.
From what I've seen, you get better odds at a casino.

~~~
abrugsch
I wouldn't put kickstarter odds THAT low... I've backed dozens of campaigns
now and so far had exactly one that has totally failed to deliver (the company
went flat out bust after getting royally screwed by all of their supply chain
- Next Thing Co, the people that made the C.H.I.P and pocketCHIP - in
themselves successful KS projects) and one that is in forever development -
Star Citizen, but at least they drop regular alpha versions... For everything
else I have alt least gotten my product eventually. though I do pick my backs
very carefully. I admit there is a lot of obvous vapourware though, but it's
easily balanced out by genuine people trying to get a product off the ground,
and are usually smaller in scope with much more realistic targets. They don't
usually make headlines though ;)

~~~
gmiller123456
I actually got my CHIP, though I ordered it on their website and not
Kickstarter. I got screwed on the Peachy Printer. While I technically didn't
get screwed on the M3D Printer, it was delayed so long, cheaper and better
printers where available by the time I got mine. The closest I came to backing
another was the "ABC of Connection" book. It was supposedly a book that was
already done, and just had to be printed, so how could that fail? He never
delivered the printed material, but eventually delivered a PDF. The PDF showed
it was far from complete, and the dates in it showed he hadn't done any real
work on it since taking the money. The whole time he was claiming issues with
the printer, when it was no where near ready for printing.

~~~
abrugsch
It wasn't the actual CHIP... I got my CHIP and a pocketCHIP. I had a great
e-mail relationship with one of the founders prior to pCHIP release, and the
community was excellent. I was actually talking about voder though which was
mid development when the financial rug was pulled out and NTC just quietly
vanished with all the cries of "where's my CHIP?" in the forum... That's
unfortunate about your printer and book. I've backed book (Bitmap books visual
commpendium series) and music projects (Chris Huelsbeck Turrican anthology and
SIDologie - Sidology took a while to complete but the end result has been
stellar) and to date they have all been excellent.

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senectus1
Would these things be grunty enough to play x265 10bit encoded video?

~~~
tyingq
Not x86, and no idea how the driver support is, but the Jetson Nano has a
pretty "grunty" GPU for a $99 board:
[https://developer.nvidia.com/embedded/buy/jetson-nano-
devkit](https://developer.nvidia.com/embedded/buy/jetson-nano-devkit)

~~~
devereaux
The jetson nano is an interesting device: with Windows 10 on ARM and Parsec,
it could provide a great terminal server.

I'm not aware of any remote desktop supporting H265 or VP9 encoding on Linux,
and offering a matching low latency (cf [https://flickstiq.com/2018/05/nvidia-
gpus-outperform-amd-for...](https://flickstiq.com/2018/05/nvidia-gpus-
outperform-amd-for-game-streaming/) )

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iamcreasy
I've always been curious - having a x86 chip in a this form factor - is this a
big deal? Hasn't ARM already saturated this segment of the market?

~~~
Splognosticus
I've got a tablet[1] that uses almost the same CPU. When I got it they were
$80 and it's better than it has any right to be at that price, but it performs
about like a 2002-ish Pentium except with hardware video acceleration. If I
wanted maximum performance for the dollar I wouldn't go with an Atom.

[1]
[https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01MYZEPGP/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b...](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01MYZEPGP/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o06_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1)

~~~
yegle
The Atom C3000 series is a beast with 10G Ethernet, up to 16C and support for
ECC DDR4.

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jdc
Official product page: [https://digital-loggers.com/api.html](https://digital-
loggers.com/api.html)

~~~
Integrape
Thank you! The Amazon listing is gone.

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rubyn00bie
Hell yes. This is a cheaper looking latte panda... though the panda you can
get 4GB RAM (~$149)... I’m really hoping to see more x86 based single board
computers. The ARM manufacturers I think have gotten a bit lazy and could use
some competition... plus running x86 chips does make life a lot easier for
more complex applications.

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lrem
Is there a similar thing, but with more RAM? 4GB seems to be the minimum for
what I'm thinking about :/

~~~
tyingq
There are, like the UDOO x86 or LattePanda, but they get fairly expensive.

A used Asus Chromebox is often a better route. You can flash the bios and run
regular Linux. Then you get a nice case, power supply, and regular dimm slots.

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rwmj
I've never seen a real Raspberry Pi with such an enormous heat sink.

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johnchristopher
6000 units max apparently.

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zaarn
I have an itch to cram as many as possible into a 2U or 3U rack case just to
get a massive cluster of compute going. It would certainly be an interesting
project.

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altmind
have somebody found a PSU that can power this board? 5v 4amp is not something
available cheap. also, custom power connector?

~~~
thesmok
Mean Well RS-25-5 is $10 and it's a good quality manufacturer
[https://octopart.com/rs-25-5-mean+well-3991989?r=sp&s=rB_LI6...](https://octopart.com/rs-25-5-mean+well-3991989?r=sp&s=rB_LI6HhS5Gaxds2FNaimg)

