Rockchip RK3229

Hawk

Just a query, is it possible to compile BASIC Engine for the Rockchip RK3229. They appear to have very similar specs. I guess there would be some port remapping.
I’m not sure if there are any advantages in that though.

MC10Guru

Ahoy,
I have a RK3229 1G/8G Android TV box I got cheap. After investigating it I'd figure the port of Engine BASIC to it would be MAJOR. Even booting anything else on it is a major effort. The boot process is very different than the H3 boot process.

It is almost impossible to brick an H3 computer. The hard-wired bare metal process ALWAYS tries from an SD card first on the H3. I've booted EB NG, 3 versions of Linux and RetrOrangePi on all my H3 boards even if it has bootable flash storage.

A RK322X computer CAN be bricked which requires a Rockchip recovery program and a lot of work to recover. If any non-sd boot media (eMMC/NAND/USB) doesn't have a UBoot bootloader then the RK322X will usually boot from an sd card with the proper bootloader. If anything else is bootable it MIGHT try sd card 1st, or probably not...or?? It is much complicated over the simple Allwinner process.
HTH,
daveyb

Hawk

MC10Guru In installing Armbian onto my RK3229 board I had to use a purpose built Multitool that booted straight from SD. It then allowed the flashing of other images (as well as backing up of the existing image) onto the eMMC of the smart TV. I know that Multitool is running on a Linux Kernal, but it shows that it is possible to run custom code directly from SD card. Getting the serial port connected to the SBC has been very informative about the boot process.
I tried installing the basic_sd.img image to the eMMC, but of course that didn't boot at all. I also didn't get any serial output, so it failed before that stage was active.
Anyway, it's all new learning, sometimes a bit frustrating, but satisfying when you get something working.

Hawk

Thanks for the very detailed explanation Davey, you are clearly more knowledgeable in this area than I am. When it comes to these SoCs, I am very much a noob. But as you mentioned in you’re other post, the cheaper we can get the hardware, the more people may choose to give BASIC Engine NG a go.
Do the booting issues you described extend to the newer versions of the Allwinner SoCs, like the H616?