Olimex Blog

olimex.wordpress.com · Company blog · on HN since 2012

Olimex, a Bulgarian maker of open source hardware, blogs about its boards, laptops, FPGA designs and views on open hardware.

What HN saysHN commenters praise its boards' mainline Linux support, and link it for open hardware projects like FPGA boards, a Turbo Pascal port and its Mastodon account news.
50HN people shared it
21linked it in comments
41stories submitted
1.4Kstory points
5 months agolast shared
2012people per year2026

Most-shared posts

  1. 1
  2. 2
  3. 3
  4. 4
    Olimex TERES-I Do It Yourself Open Source Laptop
    3 people · 11 points · first shared 2017 · discussion on HN
  5. 5
    Hand solderable 1GHz ARM Cortex A8 in TQFP package
    2 people · 55 points · first shared 2012 · 23 comments on HN
  6. 6
  7. 7
  8. 8
    Chinese clones attack STM32 microcontrollers
    2 people · 1 points · first shared 2015 · 1 comments on HN
  9. 9
    Homepage
    2 people · first shared 2012
  10. 10
  11. 11
    DIY Laptop 64 bit ARM
    1 people · 202 points · first shared 2015 · 78 comments on HN
  12. 12
    RP2350pc Open Source Hardware all in one computer
    1 people · 56 points · first shared 2025 · 21 comments on HN
  13. 13
    RVPC: The 1-Euro RISC-V computer with VGA and PS/2
    1 people · 33 points · first shared 2024 · 12 comments on HN
  14. 14
  15. 15
    What is the cost to make Smartphone in USA? $4
    1 people · 14 points · first shared 2013 · 7 comments on HN

What HN people wrote when they linked it

sam_lowry_ · 2022-01-18
I have rsync cron jobs that backup to an Olimex NAS [1]. Their mainline support is great and the box has been running find for a few years already. The only problem is, it only supports 2.5" HDDs, so you are limited to 4TB. Power consumption is less than that of my dish washer on standby. From then on, I backup to Google Archive Cloud Storage over restic [2] [1] https://olimex.wordpress.com/2020/03/13/bay-hdd-sdd-is-easy-way-to-add… [2] https://cloud.google.com/storage/docs/storage-classes
philpem · 2020-03-11
Needs to be read alongside the follow-up post: https://olimex.wordpress.com/2020/03/11/we-got-a-new-mastodon-account-… They have a new account on another instance.
pfalcon · 2016-05-17
Come on, it's a middle of 2016, everyone gotta know about projects like http://icoboard.org/ , https://olimex.wordpress.com/2016/05/06/ice40hx1k-evb-open-source-hard… , etc. projects. They allow to have completely open-source process to bring up RISC-V CPUs on a reverse-engineered FPGA. When they collect enough funds (if people of the world will give it to them), they will make ASIC silicon too. The only risk is that big corporations won't give up their prerogative of being the only parties who make the world better, subsume RISC-V and shove out closed-down RISC-V chips like they did before. But how it should work is that there should be competition between classical NDA-ridden and close-down stuff and open RISC-V, to let customers decide what they want in a particular case.
neurotech1 · 2012-09-05
Olimex is working on an A10 design, and is already shipping A13 based board. This would be quite doable for another small team. http://olimex.wordpress.com/ or http://goo.gl/5v26a to the post. Allwinner will reduce minimum shipping quantities for open hardware projects. Closed development OEMs have a 100k minimum order quantity.
nabilt · 2012-03-29
A few notes why this project is interesting * There are NO restrictions to manufacture and sell these boards for your own use or resale * Open source and simple enough modify the hardware by most hardware hackers * Affordable components even in small quantities * Easy to hand assemble with a soldering iron or hot air gun * Arduino shield compatible * Runs Linux It doesn't have the capabilities as the Beaglebone or Raspberry Pie, but that is not the point. It is for people that need an embedded Linux computer that they can modify and incorporate into their own project. Links: Yahoo groups: http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/olinuxino/ Blog: http://olimex.wordpress.com/
conradev · 2025-05-18
It’s a serious problem for their lawyers, primarily: https://olimex.wordpress.com/2015/11/09/chinese-clones-attack-stm32-mi… cheap Chinese clones of US IP is a broader problem that affects more than just STM
homarp · 2024-12-30
very similar in spirit to Olimex Neo6502 https://olimex.wordpress.com/2024/06/25/the-world-fastest-6502-compute… it's a real 6502 assisted by a RP2040 https://github.com/OLIMEX/Neo6502 docs http://www.neo6502.com/
metafex · 2017-02-02
It's just not quite released yet. They still need to sort out the software, but the hardware is finished: https://olimex.wordpress.com/2017/02/01/teres-i-do-it-yourself-open-so…
prutschman · 2016-04-20
If I prototype something with an Arduino, I can easily switch to directly sourcing ATmegas and spin my own boards. The Pi Zero is the next thing over from vaporware. I know some people who have a few, but all of the official vendors linked from https://www.raspberrypi.org/products/pi-zero/ are either out of stock, or have "limit one per household." I'd been having trouble figuring out where to source the BCM 2835 SoC that powers the Zero, and there's (allegedly) a reason for that: https://olimex.wordpress.com/2014/08/28/who-fears-from-the-competition…
tyingq · 2016-03-28
Sorry, yes. The R8M was CHIP's original plan, and that is new. The R8, though, is more costly than the A33, when you ask Allwinner directly. Olimex asked Allwinner directly why, and this was the answer: "R8 is new IC just published especially on IoT, it is not like A33 this one had used on a large scale forTablet PC. So R8 is more expensive as produced in lower quantities than A33 which is selling for tablets in big volumes."[1] [1]https://olimex.wordpress.com/2015/06/05/how-to-get-in-the-news-tell-pe… (bottom of page)
lambda · 2015-11-28
The thing they seem to be missing here is that the CHIP isn't a sub-$10 computer. They did a sub-$10 Kickstarter as a marketing effort, but their BOM on this chip is over $10, so it's apparent that they were doing the Kickstarter at a loss just for publicity. https://olimex.wordpress.com/2015/06/05/how-to-get-in-the-news-tell-pe… The C.H.I.P. manufacturers disagree, and say that it really will be $9 when shipping, but given that it's still vaporware at the moment, it doesn't really make sense to compare to something that has already shipped tens (hundreds?) of thousands of units.
sangnoir · 2015-11-26
Olimex alleged[1] that the '$9' CHIP was being sold at a loss (which I guess is par for the course for a Kickstarter project). >The Pi has not actually been all that cheap lately compared to the competition. I'm not a big fan of the RPi Foundation & it's relationship with BroadCOMM, but which competition are you referring to? I tried searching for RPi-like boards a while back but only came up with HardKernel & the bananaPi, and I don't think either is a proper competitor. 1. https://olimex.wordpress.com/2015/06/05/how-to-get-in-the-news-tell-pe…
IshKebab · 2015-09-24
Please correct the title. It is $39 after the kickstarter. Plus $15 for HDMI output if you want to compare it to the Raspberry Pi. https://olimex.wordpress.com/2015/06/05/how-to-get-in-the-news-tell-pe…
buserror · 2015-07-23
Olimex deconstructed that $9 computer story a while back. https://olimex.wordpress.com/2015/06/05/how-to-get-in-the-news-tell-pe…
noxin · 2015-07-04
Well, unless it actually costs 39 dollars.[0] > After the Kickstarter their computer will sell for 39$. [0] https://olimex.wordpress.com/2015/06/05/how-to-get-in-the-news-tell-pe…
david-given · 2015-02-03
Good news if you're interested in PICs and MIPS --- the PIC32 architecture has a MIPS core! And you can run RetroBSD on it: https://olimex.wordpress.com/2012/04/04/unix-on-pic32-meet-retrobsd-fo…
userbinator · 2015-02-02
I wouldn't be so sure about that - the article hints that they're trying to move away from the BCM2835, and in a few years' time the BCM2836 would probably suffer the same fate. In any case I don't think I've seen anything from them about how long they'll continue making Pis, since they depend on Broadcom to provide the SoC. On the other hand, AllWinner's answer about how long it will produce its SoCs... is surprising: https://olimex.wordpress.com/2014/11/27/how-long-olinuxino-with-allwin…
duskwuff · 2012-09-06
You might be surprised to learn that the A13 is available as QFP: http://olimex.wordpress.com/2012/04/24/cortex-a8-in-tqfp-sure-allwinne…
PaulHoule · 2025-04-28
To go into the wider context, see https://hub.fosstodon.org/fosstodon-kev-and-snowflakes/ https://olimex.wordpress.com/2020/03/05/bye-bye-mastodon-our-account-o… If there is a population on Mastodon that bothers me it is the "anti-resilient" people who think that disabled people are morally better than abled people, who build identities around suffering chronic pain, accuse you of being a "reply guy" simply because you hit "reply", see "marginalization" as a goal or destination [1], etc. I have a good time on Mastodon because I systematically mute and block those sorts of people, mostly don't engage with them. I've yet to have anyone triggered by the "anti-resilient" concept, in fact it is common you can criticize the othering and other fascist-adjacent behaviors of an anti-fascist for days in the abstract in which case they will assume you are talking about an "other" until finally you tell them directly that you're talking about them. I've met quite a few women on line and real life for whom chronic pain is a way of life and something they have in common is that they'll resist any insinuation that anything about their condition is in their mind/brain. People like that believe they are stronger in numbers but actually when they get together they drag each other down. You could be marginalized in the sense of "in the margin", but join an anti-support group and you can now be marginalized and hated rather than simply…

Keyboard shortcuts

/Search
j kNext / previous blog
EnterOpen selected blog
vVisit the blog site
fFollow / unfollow
lSwitch grid / list view
dSwitch dark mode
g hHome
g pTop posts
g tTopics
g fFollowing
g lLiked
g yHistory
g qFAQ
EscBack / close