maybe still early question.
what do you rhink about the cooling block and the gpio header?
The GPIO header doesn’t change, so it’s perfectly OK for us. The cooling block has to be totally redesigned. We will be working on it as soon as we get a RPI5 unit or a step (3D) model.
Regards,
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In TomHardware’s post there is this statement from Gordon Hollingworth, Raspberry Pi CTO:
However, there are a significant number of HATs with software that rely on non-portable interfaces, such as RPi.GPIO, which get broken every time we release a new hardware device.
A quick search in zynthian’s repos show its only needed form pwm fan control. So it should be Ok.
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There’ll be a new heatsink involved at the very least, and I’m not impressed by the marketing basically saying “yah don’t expect to actually use that speed too much btw.” As a heavy CPU user, big big BIG thumbs down on this iteration of the franchise from me.
I don’t have the optics to really say, but possibly this is a good moment to consider some of the other [fruit]Pi devices for future revisions - as I recall the Orange Pi has an 8-core version that (if I’m remembering correctly) smokes the Raspberry in terms of raw performance.
The other platforms lack the Pi’s support of course, and the fact that so many hardware platforms have based themselves on it makes it a safe bet to base any new platforms on, performance be damned.
Or maybe it’s time to consider just engineering a single-board device with the brain on the same PCB. It would be a departure from the hobbyist aspect of this project, but I plan to basically shove my v5 in the face of every single keyboard player I see and do the raw math of comparing this to a similarly-capable device from Roland/Korg/Yamaha vs the cost of a v5 - I think I’m gonna sell one or two in the next year.
Now imagine if v6 was even smaller and twice as powerful and half the price, which is 110% doable on a single-board integrated device. @jofemodo seems like the man to do the job. I would put some money into that kickstarter, if you decided to go that way. I’d help out if I could, I’m getting better at C and getting a handle on kernel modules is high on my todo list.
Ok early morning and I’m letting my imagination go. When it finds something it believes in it starts running scenarios on how to make that happen morebetter. I’m less and less enthused with the non-open Raspberry every year, quite honestly, but it’s looking like another case of market lock-in. A Zynthian that breaks away from that platform could be a 100% open source device. It would be a happy day for me. :>
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Maybe a Zynthian based on a Pi4 CM? Or a Pi5 CM if one is suitable?
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This is a reasonable option. Indeed, we strongly considered this (i still have some CM4 modules and CM4 development board) when conceiving the new main board, but we decided to use the “standard” Pi4 because the CM4 doesn’t have USB3 ports and only an USB-2 port, what complicates design quit a bit, specially if you want USB-3. Keeping a foot in the tinkering and DIY world was in our minds too, of course.
When CM5 is released, we will reconsider this question. Very probably, USB-3 will be integrated in the CM this time.
Regarding the development of a computing circuitry for zynthian, i don’t consider this in the near-medium term. It’s too complex and the required financial muscle is huge. And really, from a strictly zynthianic POV, i think there is little reward on it. In spain we just to say: “zapatero a tus zapatos” 
All the best,
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I know you don’t like non-bootstrapped projects from previous conversations, but you would probably need to use some form of funding device if you ever did consider it. I’m considering it myself actually, I don’t have the hardware skills - yet - but if I did, I would not use any platform but this one and it would, as previously stated, be a 100% open source device, rather than the sorta-kinda-but-not-really open Pi.
I do think the Orange is worth a look too though.
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New Pi, yeah!
More power is good news for sampling frequency and latency, but also bad news considering the thermal output this will bring with it.
I’m looking forward to see the specs of the Pi500 and CM5.
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And maybe we could run the DPS56300 emulation? A Virus synthesizer inside Zynthian? This would be huge!
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Hey, this would be and astounding feature for the Zynthian platform 
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Well, needs more power (1 amp more than RPi4) - is this inside of the spec of the onboard regulator?
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Yes. No problem with it. V5 main board power source is perfectly capable.
Regarding the heat dissipation, i’m not really worried about it. The Pi5 is more efficient than the Pi4, so it will generate less heat for the same amount of load. When zynthian is really busy, the thermal block should be capable of managing 5 extra watts. When this happens, if the ambient is hot, the alucase can get really hot (although probably not so hot to cause the Pi to throtle). In such a case, an external fan should be the best solution to keep the case at a lower temperature.
Regards
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And I can vouch for the efficacy of the zynthian-pwm-fan module…
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Could you explain-expand that? Perhaps a pointer if required…
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Ahhh, thank you, very interesting indeed, and the correction of the Motorola number also made a search of this forum pop up: Access Virus emulator on Zynthian?
So I can see what I think is the point - the increased performance of RPi5 might allow this DSP56300 to run on Zynthian, and of course @jofemodo 's work on Bookworm-64bit might yield enough performance as well. With both - Wow!
I’ll have a look at what my Alesis Micron-Ion are running, I remember it was some kind of Motorola-NXP Coldfire processor. I would certainly like to have those in Zynthian.
The Alesis Ion and Micron (and Akai Miniak) all use the same Alesis-designed AL3101 DSP chip, one per voice. (See for instance MATRIXSYNTH: Inside the Alesis Micron). The Coldfire seems to be used as a control processor.
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Oh, very interesting. It did seem incredible that they got all that sound from what was basically a souped up 68000! Although it does have some sort of DSP enhancement(s), like a ‘Multiply and Add’ instruction. I wonder if it even used any of them. Thanks for the pointer.
The RPi5 does not have 3.5mm audio jack so we would lose the ability to build a Zynthian with no extra hardware. This is something that we suggest to nervous investors… those who want to see how wonderful Zynthian is without the commitment. It’s also the output we planned to use for accessibility enhancement so we would need to rethink some of this.
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True, but I think we, as in royal ‘we’, might be able to substitute the ability to route output via Bluetooth to a speaker or earbuds. I think most people have some kind of ability to listen via a Bluetooth device.
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