radxa

3 Articles

A Look At The Intel N100 Radxa X4 SBC

July 29, 2024 by 19 Comments

Recently Radxa released the X4, which is an SBC containing not only an N100 x86_64 SoC but also an RP2040  MCU connected to a Raspberry Pi-style double pin header. The Intel N100 is one of a range of Alder Lake-N SoCs which are based on a highly optimized version of the Skylake core, first released in 2015. These cores are also used as ‘efficiency’ cores in Intel’s desktop CPUs. Being x86-based, this means that the Radxa X4 can run any Linux, Windows and other OS from either NVMe (PCIe 3.0 x4) or eMMC storage. After getting his hands on one of these SBCs, [Bret] couldn’t wait to take a gander at what it can do.

Installing Windows 11 and Debian 12 on a 500 GB NVMe (2230) SSD installed on the X4 board worked pretty much as expected on an x86 system, with just some missing drivers for the onboard Intel 2.5 Gbit Ethernet and WiFi, depending on the OS, but these were easily obtained via the Intel site and installed. The board comes with an installed RTC battery and a full-featured AMI BIOS, as well as up to 16 GB of LPPDR5 RAM.

Using the system with the Radxa PoE+ HAT via the 2.5 Gbit Ethernet port also worked a treat once using a quality PoE switch, even with the N100’s power level set to 15 Watt from the default 6. The RP2040 MCU on the mainboard is connected to the SoC using both USB 2.0 and UART, according to the board schematic. This means that from the N100 all of the Raspberry Pi-style pins can be accessed, making it in many ways a more functional SBC than the Raspberry Pi 5, with a similar power envelope and cost picture.

At $80 USD before shipping for the 8 GB (no eMMC) version that [Bret] looked at one might ask whether an N100-based MiniPC could be competitive, albeit that features like PoE+  and integrated RPi-compatible header are definite selling points.

TRS-80 Model 100 Inspires Cool Cyberdeck Build, 40 Years Down The Line

March 4, 2023 by 19 Comments

The TRS-80 Model 100 was a strange beast. When it debuted in 1983, it resembled nothing that was available at the time, and filled a gap between desktop computers and the mostly-not-invented-yet laptop segment of the market. Collectors covet these machines, but they’re getting harder to find four decades later. So, if you want one, you just might have to roll your own.

Honestly, it doesn’t appear [Roberto Alsina]’s purpose here we to recreate the Model 100 per se, but rather to take inspiration from its oddball form factor and experiment with the latest components. The design elements from the original that [Roberto]’s creation most strongly echo are the screen with the extreme landscape aspect ratio and the somewhat compressed keyboard. The latter is based on the cheapest mechanical 65% keyboard available, while the former is a 1920×480 LCD display intended for automotive applications. The display seems like it put up a fight, between its need for a custom HDMI cable to connect it to the Radxa Zero SBC under the hood as well as the custom kernel needed to support it.

Along with a USB hub for IO and some 18650s for power, everything went into a 3D printed case with considerably sleeker lines than the Model 100. It’s worth pointing out that [Roberto] didn’t have much experience with design or 3D printing when he kicked off this project. We love to see people stretching their skills like that, and we think the results are great in this case. We’ve seen a lot of Model 100 retrofits and brain transplants, but this may be the first time we’ve seen a build quite like this.

Petite Package Provides Powerful Robot

March 13, 2016 by 5 Comments

The Robot Operating System (ROS) is typically associated with big robots but [Grassjelly] decided to prove differently by creating Linorobot. This small, differential drive robot is similar in appearance to many small Arduino based robots often used for line following. Linorobot packs a lot more computing power with a Teensy 3.1 connected to a Radxa Rock Pro. The Teensy handles the motors, reading their encoders, and acquisition of IMU data.

The Radxa, new to us here at Hackaday, is a single board computer based on the quad-core ARM Cortex-A9 1.6 GHz CPU. It may not have been seen on our pages but if you’re at Hackaday Belgrade you can attend a session on building a cluster using it. The ability to run Linux is key to using ROS, which is an open source system for controlling robots. With the Radxa running ROS it interfaces directly to the Neato XV-11 Lidar’s dedicated controller board.

Avoiding the hand.
Mapping with lidar.

The Linorobot packs into a small robot the capabilities usually seen in much larger and expensive robots such as the Turtlebot 2. With this diminutive robot hackers can learn about doing SLAM (Simultaneous Localization and Mapping) and autonomous navigation, plus the other capabilities of ROS.

[Grassjelly] has a tutorial on building the robot which is also a good introduce to ROS. He provides the software as open source. It’s an impressive project which provides a small, comparatively affordable robot for learning and working with ROS. A video of Linorobot SLAMing and navigating [Grassjelly’s] lab is after the break.

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