I partnered up with Mirek (of Mirkotronics / @Mirko_DIY on Twitter) to build the Pi4GPU (or 'PiG' for short):
This journey started almost three years ago: almost immediately after the Raspberry Pi Compute Module 4 was launched, I started testing graphics cards on it.
This is the BliKVM PCIe, a full computer on a PCI Express card. This is an IP KVM (Internet Protocol Keyboard-Video-Mouse) that can be put inside another computer or server.
Most server motherboards already have remote 'lights-out' management functionality built in. Most frequently this is referred to as IPMI (Intelligent Platform Management Interface, but Dell calls it iDRAC, and HPE calls it ILO.
I've been following the issue CM4 is missing IEEE1588-2008 support through BCM54210PE since I heard about IEEE1588-2008 support on the Compute Module 4 last year.
Apparently the little NIC included on every Compute Module 4—the BCM54210PE, which is different than the NIC on the Pi 4 model B (a BCM54213PE)—includes support for a feature called PTP, or Precision Time Protocol.
In today's video, I highlighted industrial Raspberry Pi computers. Specifically, the Lincoln-Binns CM4-Box Pro, the Onlogic Factor 201, and fieldcloud's Milü-X Industrial IoT Gateway.
And I asked Lincoln-Binns, Onlogic, and fieldcloud what makes an 'Industrial' Pi any different than a Pi and an enclosure like you could buy from a normal Pi retailer.
Last week this Tweet crossed my timeline:
Just taken delivery of a shiny @wallboxchargers EV charger and spotted the super shiny new @Raspberry_Pi CM3E in there with its super swanky combined CPU/RAM package 😎 pic.twitter.com/oEUqKPMwTK
— Pi 0 in your Pocket (@Pi0CKET) June 9, 2022
If you look closely, that's a "Raspberry Pi Compute Module 3E"—which is so far not listed on Raspberry Pi's website.
The NEC UHD Professional Display M551 pictured here is not a TV—it's a display. And it's powered by a Raspberry Pi.
Specifically, it's powered by a Raspberry Pi Compute Module 4, and that is done using Sharp NEC's new MPI4E carrier board:
I haven't had time to write up the details yet, but I wanted to share a project that's been many months in the making: The Petabyte Pi Project on YouTube.
I'm still doing follow-up testing based on feedback from Broadcom storage engineers, and will put out a much more in-depth blog post later, but the gist is:
Can a single Raspberry Pi cosplay as an 'enterprise' storage server, directly addressing 1 PB of storage?
Now... caveats abound here. What does 'enterprise' mean? And what does 'directly addressing' mean? Those things are all answered in the video linked above.
But to give a tl;dr: The Pi does not perform swimmingly. But... I did get a single array of 60 hard drives—20TB Exos HDDs to be exact—working in a 45Drives Storinator XL60 chassis, controlled only through a single Raspberry Pi Compute Module 4. Of course I had to rip out the Xeon guts and replace them with said Pi:
It's been a busy start to the year on my Raspberry Pi PCIe Devices website. Not only have we finally made some significant progress learning about the BCM2711's PCIe bus (both good and bad), I've also added a few dozen new Raspberry Pi CM4-based boards to the site.
In my YouTube video today, I go through four of them in depth, showing how they're built and what they're used for.
The four projects I cover in depth are:
And there are some other projects I'm watching closely as they journey down the road towards production:
A couple months ago, Axzez reached out and asked if I'd like to test out the Interceptor—an ATX-style mini motherboard for the Raspberry Pi Compute Module 4, complete with 5 SATA ports.
The board is meant to be used as an NVR (Network Video Recorder): You pop a Raspberry Pi Compute Module 4 on top, you plug in up to 5 SATA hard drives for storage, and then you plug IP cameras into the 3 extra LAN ports (via an RTL8367RB switch) on the back, and you can store IP camera footage on the drives, and access it over the network.
The Raspberry Pi 4 and Pi 400 share the same Broadcom BCM2711 SoC with the Compute Module 4. All three devices also share an SPI EEPROM flash chip, which stores the Raspberry Pi's bootloader.
But the Compute Module 4 differs in how you update the bootloader. With the Pi 4 or Pi 400, you can use Raspberry Pi imager to write a utility image to a microSD card to update the bootloader. You put in the card, power on the Pi, and the bootloader is updated.
On the Compute Module 4, because it may be used in remote or embedded environments, its bootloader can actually be hardware write-protected!