Ah the classic “I planned to make a game, but just ended up writing code that someday will enable me to make a game”. Is there a sort of comment standard machine, like the GP32 of old, that’s ready to go with a good community?
> Game Park planned their system to be powerful and useful, but they also wanted users to be able to create homebrew software. GP32 users could register the unit on the official website and get a free suite of development tools to create their own programs.
Similar to wanting to start a blog, but instead of writing a post, spending significant effort building the platform. First post becomes ‘how I built my blog’.
Nice writeup. Lots of potential in those budget handhelds. Nice to see you were able to access the GPU with python. Waiting to see what sort of games you come up with!
The kernel works and so far no-one has been motivated enough to update it. The Rocknix projects offers an up-to-date kernel for a whole bunch devices including the 30 USD R36S which offers amazing value for the money (but does require an USB WiFi adapter for networking).
AFAIK that's the case with pretty much every ARM SBC, Raspberry Pi being the exception. They still support the original model from 2012 with their latest OS and it's a huge part of their success IMO.
There are a bunch of these little Linux game emulation consoles and they are pretty neat. Each of my kids has a Miyoo Mini. Lots of fun and a bunch of community add-ons and support. Almost got one for myself but the D-Pad and buttons are a bit too cramped for my average adult-sized hands.
The good news: battery life ranges about 3-5 hours; close to an older Switch. However, I wonder how much of that performance is distro-dependent (i.e. scheduler, knobs to turn on/off services), which might affect moddability.
Are there similar devices in different form factors for custom IoT purposes? I would guess that BoM costs would be pretty similar, but I don't know that there's enough demand.
I recall someone mentioned previously that the demand for low-cost, low-power compute was concentrated in smartphones, TV boxes, etc. The high demand drove the prices down on those chips and modules a lot. That was why Raspberry Pi uses a repurposed TV box chip, etc. Along those lines, is there a way to buy a cheap TV box, but programmable?
If you look at the datasheets, the SoCs in the Miyoo handhelds were originally intended for dashcams. I don't know whether these handhelds emerged as a result of excess supply of chips like the RPi or simply it was the cheapest alternative that fit their needs, however.
I don't know for certain, but it does seem to fit the trend of some extremely high-volume, low-margin chip that starts out in one use-case and gets put everywhere else where it meets or exceeds the needed specs.
As a hobbyist, it makes me wonder how I can make use of this for my own needs - without having to make a custom PCB, which I know other hobbyists have succeeded in, but I'd like to keep my initial attempts simple.
I assume the basics are similar. The Miyoo Mini Plus has WiFi, which is great, but no GPU, so I assume you end up with different drivers. But the CPU is the same so everything else should be equivalent.
To clarify why I said the CPU is the same and the other poster says the A30 has a better CPU, both are true! Same architecture (Cortex A7), but the Mini Plus has 2 cores and the A30 has 4 cores.
The A30 has a better CPU, an actual GPU and more RAM. It also runs an older Linux kernel (3.4 iirc) and GCC compatibility is old so running things on it is a challenge.
The million handhelds running Linux on Aliexpress are incredible if you think about the easy amount of available compute. I just can’t get over the software situation enough to take it seriously. They’re all based on ARM SBCs which have frankly archaic software support. I’m not sure it’ll ever get better, as there seems to be little incentive to get these platforms working on anything like modern Linux.
The trick is to only buy ones with ROCKNIX support and ignore the rest, no matter how good they sound on paper or how cool the design is. Pretty similar to getting a phone with LineageOS support or router with OpenWrt support, so I managed to get a good one the first time. I have the Anbernic RG353M and would recommend it. The new Retroid Pocket Mini/5 are probably good options as well if you need more power.
The MiyooCFW project has a full Buildroot-based system with the Linux 5.15.141 kernel running on a number of Miyoo's older F1C100s devices (single-core ARMv5TE, 32MB RAM - from before they were selling anything under their own name): https://github.com/TriForceX/MiyooCFW
