I picked up an Orange Pi Zero recently. It’s an interesting Single Board Computer (SBC) with a quad core Allwinner H2.
You can see the full specs here: http://www.orangepi.org/orangepizero/
I found a very nice pinout diagram on the Orange Pi forums:
The best part is that this is a $7 system. $3 for shipping.
It has 26 pins for GPIO, 9 of which are Ground and 3.3/5v power. That leaves 17 for fun and games.
It also has a dedicated audio in/out, USB header, IR in, and TV out. All bundled to a quad core 1080P chip with wired and wireless ethernet.
It still needs a microSD card, but an 8GB unit can be had for $3.50 from AliExpress. You also need a micro-usb power source. no big deal.
The OS can be downloaded from Armbian.org here https://www.armbian.com/orange-pi-zero/
default user/pass root/1234
The Armbian image is based on Debian Jessie and needs about 1.2G of storage.
I was unable to get the video out to work, but I think it’s a driver issue.
Would you Really trust Ali-Express??? a webSite/Portal over in China – I wouldn,t do any Credit Transactions via them — I settled for the “big bucks” American Raspberry P! sites-I Ordered mine thru a Unicorn Electronics – Vestal ,NY & other pieces(usb Keyboard – 40 pin header extension -on /off switch) thru MCM -Electronics .
I tried my Pi set — Had a Difficult tyme installing the NOOBS software — always seems to go into some sort of Self ~looping Cycle!!!! Could not get to
I also had an issue where as when I installed an USB drive ( I seemed to have lost Data on it –WHY!!!!!??????? . Also I could not get to a static shell prompt to login or add passwd .
a seeming tough little gadjet to get set up -Raspbeery Pi .
I have had good luck with AliExpress. It’s certainly no worse than eBay. I’m glad you are happy with your purchases and support from a small business in the US.
I did not use NOOBS. I prefer a Debian based Linux environment as I have many years of experience in it.
Sometimes the memory cards and USB drives go bad, don’t rule that out. There is a useful tool for testing them.
Lastly, if you aren’t very technical the Raspberry Pi is a great platform to play on. I’m much more technical as I design hardware and have some more scaleable projects so the Orange Pi is a better fit for my needs. It’s inexpensive, small and doesn’t have as many bells and whistles that I do not need.
The Orange Pi One is a pretty easy to use platform and you can pick one up on Amazon from LuvRPi (A US Seller). I order them from China because cost is important to me and I do not need as much support.
Lastly, check out Armbian. They have forums, a Facebook group, and lots of documentation. They also have images that you can download and run.
thanks for taking the time to reply and read my info.