PIMORONI Plasma Stick 2040 W

 

PIMORONI Plasma Stick 2040 W or Wireless Plasma Kit is an LED controller for 5V WS2812/Neopixel/SK6812 LED strips.

It is part of PIMORONI's "Pico W Aboard" range which has a Raspberry Pi Pico W soldered to the board. The board includes a RESET button (saving wear and tear as you do not have to keep unplugging and plugging the USB), a three socket screw terminal for the LED strip and a Qwiic/STEMMA QT connector to add various sensors.

Pimoroni have a quick start guide plus Micropython and C++ libraries.

Raspberry Pi Pico W

 

In June 2022 Raspberry Pi released a version of their Pico microcontroller with WiFi (and theoretucakky Bluetooth) capability.

The main pinout is identical, but the placement of the aerial required the debug pins be moved.

Psion Organiser 2

The Psion Organiser was a range of British designed and built Personal Digital Assistants.

This is my Psion Organiser 2 LZ. After 33 years it is fully working and is in semi-retirement as an alarm clock - still waking me up every work day morning.

The lower case slides down to reveal a alphabetic keyboard.

There are two Datapak slots on the back. This one has the Pocket Spreadsheet 

For scale, the Psion with a Raspberry Pi Zero 2 in an official case.

More technical descriptions to follow.

I also own a second hand (retired) LZ 64, however it makes a buzzing noise when switched on.

Apple iPod (Third Gen)

 This is my Apple iPod, I have had it since 2007.

It normally lives in a silicon skin, hence it looks a bit dusty.

It is still in working order and I still use it.

Grab Bag Computer

This is my Raspberry Pi Zero 2 Grab Bag. Add a television with an HDMI socket and either a Ethernet socket or WiFi and you have a highly portable computer system.

The bag is an Oceanic Dive Gloves bag.

Inside is a Raspberry Pi Zero 2 in an official case; an HDMI cable; a Three Port USB Hub with Ethernet, a BB Q20 micro-keyboard; a micro USB cable (red)  for power; a USB-C data cable for the keyboard; a CAT 6 ethernet cable.

Booting using a USB

Modern computers disable booting from USB or optical drives to prevent inadvertent booting from media left in the machine.

In theory this can be switched back on by restarting the machine and hitting F2/F10 repeatedly to get into the Boot Menu.

Except Windows has an interesting trick up its electronic sleeves to make your life difficult, Fast Start.

This makes getting to the boot menu impossible (it should make the machines start faster – but only for Windows values of faster).

However, the Fast Start can be turned off.

Either search for Power Options in the task bar or Start Settings and Power Management.

Select Choose what the power buttons do.

Under the Shutdown settings section, uncheck the box next to Turn on fast Startup (recommended).

Restart the machine and hit the F2/F10 key to get to the boot menu.

There is often a Boot order option, ensure that you have the USB device before the hard drive.

Once this is set, you may think you do not have to worry about this ever again. Microsoft has other ideas – if you boot to Windows and do an update, it will switch the Fast Startup back on again and once again you will not be able to boot from USB. Just follow the instructions again.

CircuitPython and MicroPython - – start file differences

CircuitPython and MicroPython have many similarities, but there are some major differences.

One of the most fundamental are the names of the files executed when the board is powered up.

Start up sequence

MIcroPython 

MIcroPython looks for two files in a set order in the root of its filesystem.

• boot.py – this file is run when power is first applied to the board or when the board is reset. Probably not of interest in general unless you are modifying MicroPython.
• main.py – this is the file that is either your program or starts your program. If it is present, it is run after the code in the boot.py file.

CircuitPython

CircuitPython looks for the following files in this order:

• •code.txt
• •code.py
• •main.txt
• •main.py.

References

https://learn.adafruit.com/getting-started-with-raspberry-pi-pico-circuitpython/micropython-or-circuitpython

https://github.com/adafruit/circuitpython#differences-from-micropython

https://docs.circuitpython.org/en/latest/README.html#differences-from-micropython