Odroid Go

[ible]

$32 ESP32 with 320x240 pixel screen, speaker, and buttons in a slim gameboy form factor...

https://liliputing.com/2018/06/odro...sole-programmable-and-arduino-compatible.html

want to buy, but not enough time in the world to work on it...

(my gamebuino meta is languishing somewhere... )

 

[WizardStan]

Cute. As a kit I'm intrigued, but I had a lot of problems with the ESP8266 and I discovered that espressif's tech support just doesn't exist so I'm hesitant to try anything new from them.

 

[pmprog]

Looks quite nice. Are the emulators written in Arduino? or can you program C on the device too? Are they all accessible at the same time, or do you have to flash your program?

 

[WizardStan]

I believe they've got an Arduino exporter for it but you can write in C. Ostensibly you need to reflash it if you want to change the program but I think all the included emulators are a single program, and you could, in theory, write a bootloader that lets you select from multiple applications stored in flash.
hmmm... at $32 it's not a terrible expense. But I've already got so many cheap toys I don't play with.

 

[HelenF]

Nice chunky GPIO on the top edge. I wonder how good the real-time performance is.

Any thoughts about likely popularity and long-term availablity?

 

[pmprog]

write a bootloader that lets you select from multiple applications stored in flash

It's weird, they don't really explain how the Arduino stuff works with the device. They refer to accessing the emulators by turning on the device, but the Arduino stuff only seems to be via uploading from the desktop. That implies to me that you can't take Arduino stuff out and about, but that seems odd.

That said, I frequently think I should just look into developing for something like the NES or Master System, then your game is already available on so many devices it's unreal, but I'd have to learn something brand new as well as give up some features that I like having access to (like network support)

 

[WizardStan]

That implies to me that you can't take Arduino stuff out and about, but that seems odd.

What do you mean "Arduino stuff"? It looks like you use the Arduino IDE to develop and flash it, but it doesn't have a 1:1 hardware interface for Arduino shields; you can probably use most of them if you manually wire pins together properly though.

 

[___]

this thing looks very cool indeed. I held back on so many *boy designs that were nice, but this might be one I'll actually order.

 

[HelenF]

I've ordered one.

I held back on so many *boy designs that were nice, but this might be one I'll actually order.

This one looks the most useful for the sorts of things I'd like to do with it. I backed the original Gamebuino and hardly used it, and didn't order any more since, but maybe I'll get around to making something cool with this one

 

[pmprog]

What do you mean "Arduino stuff"? It looks like you use the Arduino IDE to develop and flash it, but it doesn't have a 1:1 hardware interface for Arduino shields; you can probably use most of them if you manually wire pins together properly though.

I was referring to any application you make using the Arduino IDE.

The way I read it was that when you turned the unit on, it went into the emulator (menu), but then you upload your Arduino sketches via the USB cable. In their first tutorial (https://wiki.odroid.com/odroid_go/arduino/02_hello_world), you see this:

If the procedure goes well, you can see “Hello, ODROID-GO” on your device.

To me, this means you can only run your arduino sketches at the time you upload them - which means wiring up the device to your pc.

That said, I've just looked at a different tutorial (https://wiki.odroid.com/odroid_go/arduino/30_weather_station), and it says this

After the upload completes, ODROID-GO reboots automatically.
The screen showing each data measurement appears on the ODROID-GO, and after few seconds, the blue LED in the middle of the board turns on.

So questions to me are - will it forever run the weather station on each boot after doing that? or will it revert back to the emulator? If it reverts back to the emulator, is the weather station still accessible on the device?

I appreciate each of their text are trying to stick to the task at hand, but if I wrote a game/app for it, and uploaded via the Arduino IDE, I'd want to know if that means I have access to the emulator and my game/app without having to take it back to a pc for re-flashing. Then what about multiple Arduino sketches? (Obviously within their space limit).

It might be entirely obvious when you have the device, and even though it's cheap, I'd get frustrated if I had to keep reflashing from a pc every time I wanted to do something different on it.
[doublepost=1529611539,1529584266][/doublepost]Oh, look what just popped up in my YouTube feed. Not watched it yet, about to...

 

[WizardStan]

To me, this means you can only run your arduino sketches at the time you upload them - which means wiring up the device to your pc.

Ah, I understand the confusion.
I am 99.999% certain that it's just simplifying it. When you upload to the ESP32 via the Arduino IDE it replaces the old application: if you want to get back to emulator I'm almost certain you'll need to reflash the emulator firmware. You're not going to be able to flip between weather station and emulator on the fly.

edit: hmmm, maybe not? I'm not certain anymore. There doesn't seem to be any way to download the firmware and it'd be a terrible design to advertise a mini emulation machine you could program and then not be able to get back to the emulators.

 

[HelenF]

In the video above, it looks like the emulator firmware is partially/mostly on the SD card. That doesn't really answer the question, but it would leave more space on the ESP32 if the emulators and the user program are supposed to be on there at the same time.

Actually no, while the skeleton file zip for the SD card contains a folder "odroid/firmware", it's empty?

I think WizardStan was right the first time: programming the device with Arduino replaces the emulators, and you have to reflash to get them back.
The main wiki page links to this page calling it "Firmware update | Go back to Emulator":
https://wiki.odroid.com/odroid_go/emulator/firmware_update

 

[HelenF]

I've received mine. I paid $32 plus $16 shipping. They waited a few days and then sent it from Korea by FedEx Express. That must cost more than $16 surely?

I assembled the kit and it seems to power on OK.

I'd like to have a good go with the default firmware before trying the Arduino side, but I'm having mysterious SD card issues (before the cards have touched the new gadget) so will need to try again another day.

 

[pmprog]

I'd like to have a good go with the default firmware before trying the Arduino side, but I'm having mysterious SD card issues (before the cards have touched the new gadget) so will need to try again another day.

Look forward to your feedback on the emulators as well as the arduino stuff

 

[Xcl4m4t10n]

Quick question: The supported systes, Runs @60fps? OFC, totally stables. And, is there any way to add some other classic platform like PCEngine?

 

[HelenF]

First impression: I opened up a few things on NES and GBC, and the sound quality is unbearably bad.

I played Zelda Link's Awakening DX up to the end of the first dungeon (with the sound off). The controls are OK. My character didn't die. It's maybe a tiny bit laggy, and there's a small amount of flicker (some tiles not drawing in time or something). The screen resolution is noticeably too low, with visible scaling artifacts. Anyway, by that point in the game, my eyes hurt too.

So I'll say thumbs down for emulation. But that's not really what I wanted it for, so I don't mind. I'll report on the Arduino stuff after I get around to trying that.

Quick question: The supported systes, Runs @60fps? OFC, totally stables. And, is there any way to add some other classic platform like PCEngine?

I don't know what FPS it has. Looks like you can get source code for the default firmware here, so in theory you can add anything you want.
https://github.com/OtherCrashOverride/go-play

 

[Xcl4m4t10n]

Thank you, another handheld that I don't want.

 

[WizardStan]

the sound quality is unbearably bad.

Interesting. While it's by no means a great speaker I wouldn't qualify it as unbearable. Actually I found it reasonably good for its size and shape: no clipping, no hissing, no tinniness. It can get very loud, so I've just been playing on the lowest volume setting.

edit to add: agree with everything else though. It's a small screen at the wrong resolution for proper scaling so you do have some issues there; as an emulation machine it's kind of fun and clever for a while but there are far better devices that i'd recommend. That's really just the hook, it's built to be a toy for hacking around with the Arduino IDE. My ideal goal would be as a wifi scanner/troubleshooter: I've been using my phone for that but I think it'd be infinitely cooler to whip out my "gameboy" in order to diagnose a clients wifi issue
[doublepost=1530619221,1530614853][/doublepost]Also can confirm that the writing your own Arduino stuff overwrites the emulator firmware, you can't have both at the same time. Since the firmware is open source you could write your own C/C++ code as an "emulator" and build your own custom firmware: that could be an interesting take as well, learning about FreeRTOS.
[doublepost=1530619536][/doublepost]Oh hey, just tried the latest firmware. There's been a lot of improvements already. You can turn off scaling with a button combo. It makes the image a little smaller but it's definitely improved visually.
[doublepost=1530619635][/doublepost]And by latest firmware I mean the 20180702 from here: https://github.com/OtherCrashOverride/go-play/releases
Not the 20180602 which is available on the wiki.
Ok, that's it for now.

 

[HelenF]

I don't think the speaker is the problem - it sounds more like the chip is seriously cutting some corners to get the sound out. Interesting that it sounds better for you.

Right, if you can turn off scaling in the latest firmware, that might help. There are probably also more improvements to come.

 

[kamui_kun]

@HelenF: Actually I found that the sound quality depends on the volume. There are 3 volume levels : In level 1 the quality is really bad, starting from level 2 the sound is good enough - but really loud.