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People sometimes dismiss the Pico in comparison to an ESP32 or other ESP-based devices (even the newer Pico W, which has wireless capabilities, with Bluetooth L

People sometimes dismiss the Pico in comparison to an ESP32 or other ESP-based devices (even the newer Pico W, which has wireless capabilities, with Bluetooth LE potentially added via software update in the future), but I've seen Picos running as N64 flash carts, logic analyzers, signal generators, etc. in places where formerly only more expensive FPGAs or low power ARM SoCs (not on the microcontroller level) were used before. It's not punching too much above it's weight, but the PIO does seem to be a very useful feature. I know there are still other advantages of the ESP32 (especially in some of the newer revisions, like upcoming Matter/Zigbee support built in), but I think some people are too quick to dismiss the Pico's RP2040 as overpriced compared to the alternatives.

_Microft 4y ago
The mentioned N64 cartridge is most likely this project: https://github.com/kbeckmann/PicoCart64/ https://github.com/kbeckmann/PicoCart64/ The creator tweets about it frequently [0], in particular this thread [1]. [0] https://twitter.com/kbeckmann/ https://twitter.com/kbeckmann/ [1] https://twitter.com/kbeckmann/status/1538634588020424708 https://twitter.com/kbeckmann/status/1538634588020424708
- fnordpiglet 4y ago
  That’s literally super cool.
- derefr 4y ago
  And on a similar note is the PicoBoot, a Pico-based modchip for the Gamecube (https://www.tomshardware.com/news/raspberry-pi-pico-gamecube-modchip https://www.tomshardware.com/news/raspberry-pi-pico-gamecube...).
fpgaminer 4y ago
> but the PIO does seem to be a very useful feature. Back in the early days of RasPi there was a competitor, the BeagleBone Black. It was similar to the Pi in many ways, but included embedded MCUs that were meant in much the same ways as the Pico's PIO. You could use them to bitbang protocols that would be difficult/impossible/unreliable to run on the SoC itself. I thought it was a brilliant idea, but the BeagleBones never got the same level of support that the Pi did. The few times I tried using my Black, I ran into numerous deal breaking bugs. It's great to see the spirit of this idea is still alive and well. I've got my fingers crossed that they somehow convince Broadcom to build PIO into their SoCs.
- geerlingguy 4y ago
  I remember a lot of fanfare around the BeagleBone models, that was in the time in my career I was focused mainly on software / webdev. I remember there was even a $10 model, but IIRC there were some fulfillment issues?
  - petre 4y ago
    Yes, there are still fulfillment issues, the Octavo SoC is nowhere to be found. As a product, the PocketBeagle is better and lower energy consumption than the Pi Zero. You could both power it and access it from USB, it has two CAN bus ports and 4 UARTs. I couldn't ethernet + power over a single USB cable to work on the Pi Zero, yes on the PocketBeagle it works out of the box. But then the Pi Zero added WiFi, the mode powerful and energy hungry Pi Zero 2 W, while the PocketBeagle continued to have fullfillment issues and it has probably gone past $50.
- meatmanek 4y ago
  The PRUs were really hard to use. I think if they had invested in dev tools with a shallow learning curve, like Arduino support for the PRUs, they might have gained critical mass. The Beaglebone Black was pretty nice compared to contemporary Pi's for embedded work: way more GPIO pins, with female headers rather than male (lower chance of accidental short circuits; easier to just jam components or wires in there like it's a breadboard.)
- AceJohnny2 4y ago
  Indeed. Ken Shirriff wrote about using the Beaglebone's PRUs: https://www.righto.com/2016/08/pru-tips-understanding-beaglebones.html https://www.righto.com/2016/08/pru-tips-understanding-beagle...
  - l8rlump 4y ago
    This is great. Is there some tutorial of this caliber for Pico's PIOs?
    - 4y ago
stavros 4y ago
Oooh, built-in Zigbee support would be amazing, especially if the core could properly sleep to get minimal power usage. I'd love to create my own Zigbee devices easily.
fest 4y ago
Since the start of chip shortage I have been defaulting to RP2040 for my hobby/learning projects. The PIO has been useful for some applications: * 13 bit 8M baud UART receiver for Digipan x-ray sensor. Alternative would have been a small FPGA, but then I would have to deal with several systems. Still had to reduce bit depth of output data, as I couldn't reliably stream data out over USB1.1. * Sequence and read out the data from EPC901 line sensor for a crude spectrometer- while it might have been done with SPI, bitbanging the control lines and bit-twiddling the read data, I felt that the PIO solution was much more elegant- just launch the statemachine and wait for DMA transfer to finish. On the other hand, I tried but couldn't really figure out a way to implement stepper motor control with speed ramping in PIO and resorted to porting AccelStepper to RP2040 (which worked out great in the end).
rkagerer 4y ago
How is the Pico W & lwIP stack in terms of security and robustness?

_Microft 4y ago

The mentioned N64 cartridge is most likely this project: https://github.com/kbeckmann/PicoCart64/ https://github.com/kbeckmann/PicoCart64/ The creator tweets about it frequently [0], in particular this thread [1]. [0] https://twitter.com/kbeckmann/ https://twitter.com/kbeckmann/ [1] https://twitter.com/kbeckmann/status/1538634588020424708 https://twitter.com/kbeckmann/status/1538634588020424708

fnordpiglet 4y ago
That’s literally super cool.
derefr 4y ago
And on a similar note is the PicoBoot, a Pico-based modchip for the Gamecube (https://www.tomshardware.com/news/raspberry-pi-pico-gamecube-modchip https://www.tomshardware.com/news/raspberry-pi-pico-gamecube...).

fpgaminer 4y ago

> but the PIO does seem to be a very useful feature. Back in the early days of RasPi there was a competitor, the BeagleBone Black. It was similar to the Pi in many ways, but included embedded MCUs that were meant in much the same ways as the Pico's PIO. You could use them to bitbang protocols that would be difficult/impossible/unreliable to run on the SoC itself. I thought it was a brilliant idea, but the BeagleBones never got the same level of support that the Pi did. The few times I tried using my Black, I ran into numerous deal breaking bugs. It's great to see the spirit of this idea is still alive and well. I've got my fingers crossed that they somehow convince Broadcom to build PIO into their SoCs.

geerlingguy 4y ago
I remember a lot of fanfare around the BeagleBone models, that was in the time in my career I was focused mainly on software / webdev. I remember there was even a $10 model, but IIRC there were some fulfillment issues?
- petre 4y ago
  Yes, there are still fulfillment issues, the Octavo SoC is nowhere to be found. As a product, the PocketBeagle is better and lower energy consumption than the Pi Zero. You could both power it and access it from USB, it has two CAN bus ports and 4 UARTs. I couldn't ethernet + power over a single USB cable to work on the Pi Zero, yes on the PocketBeagle it works out of the box. But then the Pi Zero added WiFi, the mode powerful and energy hungry Pi Zero 2 W, while the PocketBeagle continued to have fullfillment issues and it has probably gone past $50.
meatmanek 4y ago
The PRUs were really hard to use. I think if they had invested in dev tools with a shallow learning curve, like Arduino support for the PRUs, they might have gained critical mass. The Beaglebone Black was pretty nice compared to contemporary Pi's for embedded work: way more GPIO pins, with female headers rather than male (lower chance of accidental short circuits; easier to just jam components or wires in there like it's a breadboard.)
AceJohnny2 4y ago
Indeed. Ken Shirriff wrote about using the Beaglebone's PRUs: https://www.righto.com/2016/08/pru-tips-understanding-beaglebones.html https://www.righto.com/2016/08/pru-tips-understanding-beagle...
- l8rlump 4y ago
  This is great. Is there some tutorial of this caliber for Pico's PIOs?
  - 4y ago

stavros 4y ago

Oooh, built-in Zigbee support would be amazing, especially if the core could properly sleep to get minimal power usage. I'd love to create my own Zigbee devices easily.

fest 4y ago

Since the start of chip shortage I have been defaulting to RP2040 for my hobby/learning projects. The PIO has been useful for some applications: * 13 bit 8M baud UART receiver for Digipan x-ray sensor. Alternative would have been a small FPGA, but then I would have to deal with several systems. Still had to reduce bit depth of output data, as I couldn't reliably stream data out over USB1.1. * Sequence and read out the data from EPC901 line sensor for a crude spectrometer- while it might have been done with SPI, bitbanging the control lines and bit-twiddling the read data, I felt that the PIO solution was much more elegant- just launch the statemachine and wait for DMA transfer to finish. On the other hand, I tried but couldn't really figure out a way to implement stepper motor control with speed ramping in PIO and resorted to porting AccelStepper to RP2040 (which worked out great in the end).

rkagerer 4y ago

How is the Pico W & lwIP stack in terms of security and robustness?