eSIM Studios
The PicoCalc is a new handheld with a retro design. At first glance it looks more like a graphing calculator than a modern handheld device. But it sports a QWERTY keyboard, a 4 inch display, and a mainboard designed to accommodate a Raspberry Pi Pico.
Available for $75 from the Clockwork Pi store, it's also the latest in a line of retro-inspired, modular, and open source products from the makers of the uConsole, DevTerm, and Gameshell.
Since the PicoCalc has a microcontroller for brains rather than a higher-performance processor, it's also not as powerful as the company's other products. But it's the cheapest Clockwork Pi product to date, and it's still a pretty versatile system.
The $75 kit ships with a ClockworkPi v2.0 mainboard and a Raspberry Pi Pico 1 H core module with an RP2040 ARM Cortex-M0+ microcontroller and 264KB of SRAM, but it's also compatible with other Raspberry Pi Pico modules including the Pico 1 WH (with WiFi 4 and Bluetooth 5.2) and the Pico 2 or 2W with an ARM Cortex-M33 microcontroller, Hazard 3 RISC-V processor, and 520 KB of SRM (plus optional WiFi 4 and Bluetooth 5.2).
The Raspberry Pi Pico fits into a 167 x 97mm (6.6″ x 3.8″) mainboard with an SD card reader, 3.5mm audio jack, USB Type-C charging and debug port, battery holder for two 18650 batteries, and other odds and ends.
While the system supports two batteries, Clockwork Pi notes that the handheld will actually run off a single battery, which makes it easy to swap batteries on the fly… although the company does recommend powering down the PicoCalc before changing batteries as doing that "may cause system instability."
Another thing to keep in mind is that the batteries are not included, so you'll need to source your own.
The handheld has a 4 inch, 320 x 320 pixel IPS LCD display with a tempered glass cover. It connects to an SPI interface on the board. Below the display is a backlit 67-key keyboard with QWERTY keys, number and function keys, plus a four-way D-pad, among other things. It connects to the core module via an I2C interface, and the firmware can be customized using the Arduino IDE or STM32 dev tools. It comes with a 32GB SD card featuring BASIC firmware.
Like other Clockwork Pi products, the PicoCalc is designed to be a DIY device that's easy to repair, upgrade, or modify. The company plans to make schematics and design files available on its GitHub page under a GPL v3 license, and the only tool you need to assemble the device or take it apart is a 2.5mm hex key, which is included in the package.
via Hackster and LinuxGizmos
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