We need a troubleshooting guide with common issues that typically a help desk would carry as to help individuals with whatever symptoms they are encountering, like device powers on but doesn't show up in lsusb, or device shows in usb-devices but not lsusb, or device has one led when power up but only one, or device works only when using screen via other device but only power cycles when installed in the pocketchip enclosure, etc. I have 5 individual chips and its an assortment of this one works/this one only powers on for whatever time/this one is total fucked. Because sometimes one of us may know instantly that we virtual-nuked it, or by having the wrong sources for /etc/apt/sources.list, or physical issues like the micro-usb connection may have had the ground terminal weaken and be disconnected from yanking the cord in or out, etc., and others may know other scenarios but there is no collaborative to go to with problems that arise, or any other source, except here or forums, but a guide is needed. I wonder how hard it is to be in contact with some of the people still producing them? The original high-ups hopefully will be in hell being constantly chased by loyal fans holding seering hot soldering irons near their buttholes,while only visually able to see only a white screen as they flee eternally for not leaving any info like this to such an ardently loyal group of nut-jobs like us. Speaking for a friend. u/AssholesOfTheCenturyWinnerByLandslide

*side-note on this day 3-20-2024, CHIP's are again showing available to purchase on their website for $34.95 I believe (which I bought one like a year back and got it no issue).

Just pulled my pocket chip out after seeing an interesting YouTube video about how the history of next thing co and popcorn computer. It's crazy, I was in an early wave, got mine, and never heard about any of this. I had no idea other people didn't get their orders, and the company went under :C

Trying to charge it, but I can't seem to get it to turn on. Both the LED's blink on for a moment when I plug a charger in, but they immediately go out and it's not clear that it's charging.

Does it sound like it's dead, or is there something I can do to bring it back to life?

I read the firmware version is supposed to be listed in the menu where you can shut down. Mines is blank. Is there another way to check?

****UPDATE****

From Terminal, type uname -r and press enter to see the firmware version.

Thanks to everyone's work here I finally got my PocketCHIP up and running, and ssh working, all that jazz. I was even able to get the minivmac emulator from https://github.com/zzxzzk115/Pocketchip-MacOS-Emulator running on it, but I just get the floppy with a ? in it, even if I use the command pointing it to the right image with ./minivmac diskname.dsk

I have the *.dsk file in the same folder, but I've also seen it in a subfolder named /disks, which is right? Is there a known good disk image anyone can point me to?

I also saw that with the floppy and ? screen you should be able to go to the upper left of the screen, tap it, and locate the disk image, but that doesn't seem to work with the PocketCHIP.

I am lightly linux savvy, and not at all Mac savvy, so I'm sure I've done something wrong in this process.

Hey all,
So like many people in this space, I knew of the PocketCHIP's existence and wanted one for years but didn't have a reason to own one. Fast forward to today and I'm working on a project involving the ESP32 and the Arduino IDE and it 've played with some Raspberry Pi's and it made me genuinely curious about the Linux and embedded computing space, so I finally bought a PocketCHIP and a spare CHIP board to mess around with. I want to use this thing as a learning tool to get a better understanding of Linux and maybe do some on the go coding when I'm on a business trip or something. Now I want to start off by saying this: I am pretty much a novice with electrical components and Linux, but I'm open to learn. I've built some RPi cyberdecks, my aforementioned ESP32 projects, and I've been a software developer for years before transitioning into a more Windows-centric role with cloud computing, so I'm no stranger to learning new things and Linux isn't daunting or off-putting, just something I don't use much. On the hardware and electrical side though, things are pretty rough for me. I've soldered some wires together and a basic cyberdeck is the extent of my knowledge there. So with that context out of the way, here are my questions:

1. What are the first things I should do once receiving my CHIPs? I'm assuming I'll have to run updates and such, or reflash it if it's dead? I've seen several guides and was wondering which is the best one/most up to date guide to follow. This one perhaps?
2. If everything is working right out of the box, do I even need to flash anything or can I just run updates to Linux via apt or something? I'm assuming if I want to get to Debian Bullseye, I'll have to flash it, won't I? Also once flashed and setup how I want it, is there a way to capture an image to save as a backup in the event I ever need to reflash?
3. How unreliable is the NAND and is there much of a downside to performing the SD card mod as shown in this blog/Reddit post? From what I read, the CHIP still uses the NAND to boot, so I'd basically be doing it for more storage, but I would very much enjoy that. I just keep hearing horror stories of people's CHIP NANDs going out and I'm assuming you have to reflash everything

Right off the bat, those are my main questions I think. I just want to make sure I start off on the right foot and can preserve this hardware as long as possible while also still playing around with it and experimenting. Thanks everyone!

https://preview.redd.it/s14ncrfimkkc1.jpg?width=1272&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=ff5eb431fb7c0a81473c730eb0d79a25cec229fa

https://preview.redd.it/39z53kednkkc1.jpg?width=1272&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=c0b60140b17578d6968c4f6c93759c0315b10d1c

https://preview.redd.it/rberfmgfnkkc1.jpg?width=1272&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=508e60f9e368e48a8b8deed8b4270b27a217a3ce

https://preview.redd.it/vcnocoxfnkkc1.jpg?width=1272&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=800436416e7246e0a955f8d23f9a5390e689ba0b

i left my pocketchip unused for many months and recently left it to charge overnight. while it was charging it powered on and during that entire time the screen displayed absolutely fine. when i went to shut it down, the screen where the chip logo progress bar appears suddenly went distorted like the pictures show, and any subsequent boot still shows distorted. the panel appears to be fine and i suspect this is due to some strange voltage on the lcd driving circuit. has anyone experienced anything similar? any ideas of a fix?

I came across an old project someone was creating revolving around the pocket chip and configuring it to work as a hackers hand held device with a proxmark3, multiple cybersecurity/hacker software, blue hydra, etc.

I’m interested in trying to replicate this and maybe take it further. I was wondering if anyone has ever been able to get Kali Linux on the pocket chip. I believe the chipOS is based off Debian and Kali is also based of Debian so I wasn’t sure if that would be able to work or if I’d kill my chip. I’m new to programming/projects so please don’t be harsh.

anyone have resources for us who know nothing about programming but want to flash their pocket chip?

Does anyone know the current repositories or to have an update on Chip as current as possible, I am currently in the next thing co writing environment. I would appreciate the help since there are many that no longer work or show a 404 error

Wow, it is too good to see the Pocket Chip still exists, I used to be BigBadHodad on the old NTC forum, I hope there are some other old timers around.

so here is a question, is there a downloadable flasher? I flashed my chips before the flasher went offline and then took the batteries out and put them aside, I know there was always the promise of a Standaolone flasher and the guy who bought the rights to it promised to make it at one point but I never saw anything,

Hello,

I tried to bring my old PocketCHIP to life, replaced the broken LCD with this
https://www.olimex.com/Products/OLinuXino/LCD/LCD-OLinuXino-4.3TS/open-source-hardware
as someone here suggested.
It works, even the touch screen, but it is too dark, even on max brightness set in OS options.

Does anyone know what could be the cause for this ?

Thanks.

[SOLD]I found my Pocket Chip handheld for possible sale. No box, but in excellent condition one. Is there still interest in these? If so I have pictures etc.

*** I did sell off my pocket chip sadly. I wish the company never went under and the chip was still supported.

Would anyone be able to share the desktop wallpaper, or the boot image of the pocketchip with me?

I've been searching online but haven't been able to find it

As the title says. I had borked mine trying to get it to a newer version of Debian. But when trying to reflash I came across the problem with the newer sunxi-tools failing and I couldn't figure out how to downgrade it. Having tried on a physical machine, a virtual machine running Stretch, I finally found an old laptop, installed Debian Stretch on it and it worked first try, no work arounds just used the Thore-Krug script on github, happy :)

Hi everyone!

I recently discovered the PocketCHIP after discovering the clockwork DevTerm and the uConsole. Honestly, those look more appealing specially the uConsole but for that price I'm not sure about getting them. The pocketCHIP on the other hand is cheap, I can find one for 60 euros.

I'm very interested in coding, currently I'm learning Java and C# so I'm always looking to learn new things because It's fun. I see the PocketCHIP could be great for coding on the go, from time to time I have to take 2 hour train rides and appart from studying code-related stuff I have not much more to do. So it would be great to have a little gadget to do some very light coding.

I wanted to know how is the coding experience in this little device? Can you develop small applications and stuff for the own PocketCHIP or it's memory size cannot let that happen? I'm thinking about very small stuff like Console Apps, small choose your adventure games, etc.

​

​

I have a brand new, out of the box, Pocket CHIP. Battery is charged, pads on board have the correct voltage. Turns on and off (hold power button for two seconds, lights come on. Hold power button for about eight seconds, lights go off). But... No display on the Pocket CHIP. This happens with and without USB connected.

I have an HDMI adapter, same thing. power on and off, battery charged, with and without USB, no display. Both batteries (on Pocket CHIP and loose for the additional CHIP) show fully charged.

So... flash? Just seems weird that both CHIPs act the same, I can't get a display, it's as if it was never flashed. Maybe that was the point (were they supposed to be flashed on arrival? Seems... wrong).

Glad to find this group, hopefully someone can help :-)

I want to update my Pocket Chhip. All sources are down for Debian Jessie:

chip@chip:~$ sudo apt update
[sudo] password for chip:
Ign http://security.debian.org jessie/updates InRelease
Ign http://security.debian.org jessie/updates Release.gpg
Ign http://security.debian.org jessie/updates Release
Ign http://http.debian.net jessie-backports InRelease
Ign http://security.debian.org jessie/updates/main Sources/DiffIndex
Ign http://ftp.us.debian.org jessie InRelease
Ign http://security.debian.org jessie/updates/contrib Sources/DiffIndex
Ign http://security.debian.org jessie/updates/non-free Sources/DiffIndex
Ign http://http.debian.net jessie-backports Release.gpg
Ign http://ftp.us.debian.org jessie Release.gpg
Ign http://security.debian.org jessie/updates/main armhf Packages/DiffIndex
Ign http://security.debian.org jessie/updates/contrib armhf Packages/DiffIndex
Ign http://ftp.us.debian.org jessie Release
Ign http://security.debian.org jessie/updates/non-free armhf Packages/DiffIndex
Ign http://http.debian.net jessie-backports Release
Ign http://ftp.us.debian.org jessie/main Sources/DiffIndex
Ign http://opensource.nextthing.co jessie InRelease
Ign http://ftp.us.debian.org jessie/contrib Sources/DiffIndex
Ign http://ftp.us.debian.org jessie/non-free Sources/DiffIndex
Ign http://ftp.us.debian.org jessie/main armhf Packages/DiffIndex
Ign http://ftp.us.debian.org jessie/contrib armhf Packages/DiffIndex
Ign http://ftp.us.debian.org jessie/non-free armhf Packages/DiffIndex
Ign http://opensource.nextthing.co jessie Release.gpg
Ign http://opensource.nextthing.co jessie Release
Err http://opensource.nextthing.co jessie/main armhf Packages
Ign http://security.debian.org jessie/updates/contrib Translation-en
Ign http://security.debian.org jessie/updates/main Translation-en
Ign http://security.debian.org jessie/updates/non-free Translation-en
Err http://security.debian.org jessie/updates/main Sources
404 Not Found [IP: 151.101.130.132 80]
Err http://security.debian.org jessie/updates/contrib Sources
404 Not Found [IP: 151.101.130.132 80]
Err http://security.debian.org jessie/updates/non-free Sources
404 Not Found [IP: 151.101.130.132 80]
Err http://security.debian.org jessie/updates/main armhf Packages
404 Not Found [IP: 151.101.130.132 80]
Err http://security.debian.org jessie/updates/contrib armhf Packages
404 Not Found [IP: 151.101.130.132 80]
Err http://security.debian.org jessie/updates/non-free armhf Packages
404 Not Found [IP: 151.101.130.132 80]
Err http://opensource.nextthing.co jessie/main armhf Packages
Err http://http.debian.net jessie-backports/main Sources
404 Not Found [IP: 146.75.122.132 80]
Err http://http.debian.net jessie-backports/contrib Sources
404 Not Found [IP: 146.75.122.132 80]
Err http://http.debian.net jessie-backports/non-free Sources
404 Not Found [IP: 146.75.122.132 80]
Err http://http.debian.net jessie-backports/main armhf Packages
404 Not Found [IP: 146.75.122.132 80]
Err http://http.debian.net jessie-backports/contrib armhf Packages
404 Not Found [IP: 146.75.122.132 80]
Err http://opensource.nextthing.co jessie/main armhf Packages
Err http://http.debian.net jessie-backports/non-free armhf Packages
404 Not Found [IP: 146.75.122.132 80]
Ign http://http.debian.net jessie-backports/contrib Translation-en
Ign http://http.debian.net jessie-backports/main Translation-en
Ign http://http.debian.net jessie-backports/non-free Translation-en
Err http://opensource.nextthing.co jessie/main armhf Packages
Ign http://ftp.us.debian.org jessie/contrib Translation-en
Ign http://ftp.us.debian.org jessie/main Translation-en
Ign http://ftp.us.debian.org jessie/non-free Translation-en
Err http://ftp.us.debian.org jessie/main Sources
404 Not Found [IP: 64.50.233.100 80]
Err http://ftp.us.debian.org jessie/contrib Sources
404 Not Found [IP: 64.50.233.100 80]
Err http://ftp.us.debian.org jessie/non-free Sources
404 Not Found [IP: 64.50.233.100 80]
Err http://opensource.nextthing.co jessie/main armhf Packages
Undetermined Error
Err http://ftp.us.debian.org jessie/main armhf Packages
404 Not Found [IP: 64.50.233.100 80]
Err http://ftp.us.debian.org jessie/contrib armhf Packages
404 Not Found [IP: 64.50.233.100 80]
Ign http://opensource.nextthing.co jessie/main Translation-en
Err http://ftp.us.debian.org jessie/non-free armhf Packages
404 Not Found [IP: 64.50.233.100 80]
W: Failed to fetch http://security.debian.org/dists/jessie/updates/main/source/Sources  404 Not Found [IP: 151.101.130.132 80]

W: Failed to fetch http://security.debian.org/dists/jessie/updates/contrib/source/Sources  404 Not Found [IP: 151.101.130.132 80]

W: Failed to fetch http://security.debian.org/dists/jessie/updates/non-free/source/Sources  404 Not Found [IP: 151.101.130.132 80]

W: Failed to fetch http://security.debian.org/dists/jessie/updates/main/binary-armhf/Packages  404 Not Found [IP: 151.101.130.132 80]

W: Failed to fetch http://security.debian.org/dists/jessie/updates/contrib/binary-armhf/Packages  404 Not Found [IP: 151.101.130.132 80]

W: Failed to fetch http://security.debian.org/dists/jessie/updates/non-free/binary-armhf/Packages  404 Not Found [IP: 151.101.130.132 80]

W: Failed to fetch http://http.debian.net/debian/dists/jessie-backports/main/source/Sources  404 Not Found [IP: 146.75.122.132 80]

W: Failed to fetch http://http.debian.net/debian/dists/jessie-backports/contrib/source/Sources  404 Not Found [IP: 146.75.122.132 80]

W: Failed to fetch http://http.debian.net/debian/dists/jessie-backports/non-free/source/Sources  404 Not Found [IP: 146.75.122.132 80]

W: Failed to fetch http://http.debian.net/debian/dists/jessie-backports/main/binary-armhf/Packages  404 Not Found [IP: 146.75.122.132 80]

W: Failed to fetch http://http.debian.net/debian/dists/jessie-backports/contrib/binary-armhf/Packages  404 Not Found [IP: 146.75.122.132 80]

W: Failed to fetch http://http.debian.net/debian/dists/jessie-backports/non-free/binary-armhf/Packages  404 Not Found [IP: 146.75.122.132 80]

W: Failed to fetch http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian/dists/jessie/main/source/Sources  404 Not Found [IP: 64.50.233.100 80]

W: Failed to fetch http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian/dists/jessie/contrib/source/Sources  404 Not Found [IP: 64.50.233.100 80]

W: Failed to fetch http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian/dists/jessie/non-free/source/Sources  404 Not Found [IP: 64.50.233.100 80]

W: Failed to fetch http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian/dists/jessie/main/binary-armhf/Packages  404 Not Found [IP: 64.50.233.100 80]

W: Failed to fetch http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian/dists/jessie/contrib/binary-armhf/Packages  404 Not Found [IP: 64.50.233.100 80]

W: Failed to fetch http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian/dists/jessie/non-free/binary-armhf/Packages  404 Not Found [IP: 64.50.233.100 80]

W: Failed to fetch http://opensource.nextthing.co/chip/debian/repo/dists/jessie/main/binary-armhf/Packages  Undetermined Error

E: Some index files failed to download. They have been ignored, or old ones used instead.
chip@chip:~$
Which sources i must use yet to make an update?

​

​

I have tried several links through searching here, all of the links say they are invalid.
can someone please share the current invite link?

I'm wondering is it still worth it? And here in Finland it's really hard to get one anyways, and I don't wan't to wait 200 years for some shady Indonesian company to deliver it. Is there a place where I could get it for a sensible price, but also not have to wait for an eternity to get?

Recently reflashed my chip. Still hesitant to update it to bookworm. I kinda want to figure out how to load more applications before upgrading, and get myself familiar with Jessie. But I think I need a package management tool, to be able to do this. Does such a thing exist? Any help or guidance would be greatly appreciated. :)

Hello everyone!

I have a stock CHIP (with a clone Snes pad) sitting in a drawer. I bought it just before I moved house about 7 years ago... and then I never actually touched it beyond turning it on one time. I'd like to do something with it like make it into a retro machine (possibly MAME, if that's possible?) but I have no idea how to even get started doing that, and most searches online take me to old, dead forum posts.

Any advice greatly appreciated!

Thanks,

Joe

I know there's the flash collection, but in every attempt I've made to get the VM working with the "CHIP-SDK" file, nothing works. (In all fairness, I'm not terribly experienced with that sort of thing.) There's also the .bin files that exist in the collection, but I have no idea how to merge all those files into one disk image.

(For the record, I'm not trying to flash my C.H.I.P. I'm simply wanting to have a VM of the C.H.I.P's OS for the fun of it. As such, .iso or .img files are easiest to work with when building a VM.)

Any thoughts or ideas?