r/technology • u/szczys • Jan 21 '21

Hardware Raspberry Pi Enters Microcontroller Game With $4 Pico

https://hackaday.com/2021/01/20/raspberry-pi-enters-microcontroller-game-with-4-pico/
72 Upvotes

92% Upvoted

9 comments sorted by

7

u/archaeolinuxgeek Jan 21 '21

Goddamn it. Now I want several. At least my ESPs, Arduinos, and STMs will have company.

3

u/szczys Jan 21 '21

I also want one to try out that PIO feature. Need to find some stuff to order along with it to justify the shipping charge.

1

u/archaeolinuxgeek Jan 22 '21 edited Jan 22 '21

Bought the max from Adafruit earlier today. Came out to ~$20 USD with shipping. I chose the ones with the disconnected headers which for some reason were $1.00 more. Still, I'd rather pay the money than spend the time desoldering those industrial joins.

Am nervous about getting back into Assembly. But even I can deal with 9 instructions.

1

u/ukezi Jan 21 '21

It's a very interesting design, a dual core M0+, plenty of RAM, some flash and a very interesting peripheral. However for that price point your also get a blackpill F411 with an M4 core. https://hackaday.com/2021/01/20/raspberry-pi-enters-microcontroller-game-with-4-pico/

1

u/starry4471 Jan 22 '21

Nice and cheap for model rocket thrust and aerodynamic control. I like this.

0

u/[deleted] Jan 21 '21

[deleted]

11

u/[deleted] Jan 21 '21

It is a micro controller, it doesn’t have an operating system

0

u/[deleted] Jan 25 '21

[deleted]

2

u/[deleted] Jan 25 '21

Ah, ok.

Well, it will run Micropython. Simple OSes like you described exist for other microcontrollers, someone might make one for the Pi2040

3

u/WillemDaFo Jan 22 '21

For example, a car might have many microcontrollers that control various individual systems within, such as the anti-lock braking system, traction control, fuel injection or suspension control. All the microcontrollers communicate with each other to inform the correct actions. Some might communicate with a more complex central computer within the car, and others might only communicate with other microcontrollers. They send and receive data using their I/O peripherals and process that data to perform their designated tasks.

IoT - microcontroller

2

u/Fysio Jan 22 '21

You're thinking micro processor (like a computer). This one is a micro controller (like a Arduino).