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History of video games/Platforms/Pimoroni PicoSystem

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History[edit | edit source]

A 2020 photograph of the industrious city of Sheffield in Yorkshire. The PicoSystem is manufactured in this city.

Background[edit | edit source]

Pimoroni (An acronym standing for Pirate, Monkey, Robot, Ninja) was founded in 2012 as an electronics manufacturer.[1]

Development[edit | edit source]

Tom's Hardware noted a possible influence from Piromoni's older 32Blit platform.[2]

Announcement[edit | edit source]

The PicoSystem was announced on January 21st, 2021 at a cost of 58.50 British Pounds, VAT inclusive.[3]

Launch[edit | edit source]

By October 5th, 2021 systems were being shipped.[4] By October 6th, 2021 systems had been received by customers.[5]

The system was favorably reviewed following launch,[6] though a Tom's Hardware review noted the MakeCode Arcade IDE had yet to support the device at launch.[7]

Technology[edit | edit source]

Compute[edit | edit source]

The PicoSystem is derived from the Pimoroni Tiny 2040 developer board, and is thus based around the same RP2040 microcontroller.[3] The RP2040 was announced around the same time as the PicoSystem in 2021 by the Raspberry Pi foundation and is made on a 40nm fabrication process,[8] which was not cutting edge for 2021, but was a mature and reliable process size by this point. It is also important to note that this chip was released amidst a shortage of capacity among chipmakers,[9] which may have limited which foundries were available.

The microcontroller sports a dual core ARM Cortex M0+ CPU clocked at 133 megahertz, with 264 kilobytes of RAM on board.[10] This chip lacks a graphics processing unit (GPU),[11] so the console must use software rendering for games. However the microcontroller does have very powerful input and output support functions which reduce CPU load.[3]

Hardware[edit | edit source]

The system uses a square 1:1 ratio IPS display with a resolution of 240 pixels by 240 pixels.[3]

A piezo speaker is used for audio.[12]

A rechargeable lipo battery powers the system, with a USB type C port for charging.[3]

Casing[edit | edit source]

The console casing is adorned with abstract art.[3] The console has a model number of PIM559.[3]

Manufacturing[edit | edit source]

The system notably used two PCBs, with the 3.2 millimeters (0.13 in) PCB being depth-routed to also hold in buttons.[13]

Pimoroni products are manufactured at a factory located in Sheffield, a city in the United Kingdom.[1] When the Pimoroni PicoSystem was announced, the company was located at 2 Manton Street.[1]

The packaging of the device was notably higher end,[14] as many similar systems were shipped with more spartan packaging.

External Resources[edit | edit source]

Wikipedia has related information at Pimoroni

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Pimoroni

  • Pimoroni - Official product page for the PicoSystem.

References[edit | edit source]

  1. ↑ a b c "About Us – Pimoroni". shop.pimoroni.com. Retrieved 22 January 2021.
  2. ↑ Mott, Nathaniel (14 July 2021). "Pimoroni Teases RP2040-Powered PicoSystem Gaming Device" (in en). Tom's Hardware. https://www.tomshardware.com/news/pimoroni-teases-rp2040-powered-picosystem-gaming-device. 
  3. ↑ a b c d e f g "PicoSystem – Pimoroni". shop.pimoroni.com. Retrieved 22 January 2021.
  4. ↑ "https://twitter.com/pimoroni/status/1445366504774569989". Twitter. Retrieved 22 October 2021. {{cite web}}: External link in |title= (help)
  5. ↑ "https://twitter.com/andypiper/status/1445809630240665608". Twitter. Retrieved 22 October 2021. {{cite web}}: External link in |title= (help)
  6. ↑ A New Handheld Powered By The Same Raspberry Pi Pico Chip!, retrieved 2021-10-22
  7. ↑ Pounder, Les (23 October 2021). "Pimoroni PicoSystem Review: Tiny Console for Big Ideas" (in en). Tom's Hardware. https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/pimoroni-picosystem-review-tiny-console-for-big-ideas. 
  8. ↑ "Meet Raspberry Silicon: Raspberry Pi Pico now on sale at $4". Raspberry Pi. 21 January 2021. https://www.raspberrypi.org/blog/raspberry-pi-silicon-pico-now-on-sale/. 
  9. ↑ "A Year of Poor Planning Led to Carmakers’ Massive Chip Shortage" (in en). Bloomberg.com. 19 January 2021. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-01-19/a-year-of-poor-planning-led-to-carmakers-massive-chip-shortage. 
  10. ↑ Campbell, Ian Carlos (21 January 2021). "The Raspberry Pi Pico is a tiny $4 microcontroller running off the company’s very own chip" (in en). The Verge. https://www.theverge.com/circuitbreaker/2021/1/21/22242619/raspberry-pi-pico-microcontroller-tiny-computer-diy-projects. 
  11. ↑ "RP2040 Datasheet" (PDF). Retrieved 12 February 2021.
  12. ↑ "First look: Pimoroni’s PicoSystem hackable handheld games console" (in en). smittytone messes with micros. 16 October 2021. https://blog.smittytone.net/2021/10/16/first-look-pimoroni-picosystem-hackable-handheld-games-console/. 
  13. ↑ "https://twitter.com/arturo182/status/1450431979342733321" (in en). Twitter. https://twitter.com/arturo182/status/1450431979342733321. 
  14. ↑ "https://twitter.com/andypiper/status/1445809630240665608" (in en). Twitter. https://twitter.com/andypiper/status/1445809630240665608. 


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