06-02-2018, 08:56 PM
Yes, the RK805, definitely has the capability to provide a system RTC.
To do this they would have had to add a 32.768kHz crystal and a RTC battery connection header (about 25 cents worth of parts) but it seems that they didn't bother.
This was REALLY DUMB, but not much can be done until they re-spin the board.
For what it's worth, the ASUS Tinker Board did identically the same REALLY DUMB thing, which was even more disappointing (to me at least), because ASUS knows how to build motherboards, but seems to have forgotten EVERYTHING they ever learned in their mad rush to "me too" the Raspberry Pi.
The problem with ALL these SBC makers, is they like to play follow the leader with the Raspberry Pi, which is actually a pretty crappy design, which has NONE of the basic amenities we expect on even the lowest cost small PC motherboards. No power switch header, no power and drive activity LED headers (needed to connect external case switches and LEDs), no capability for a REAL hard drive like a SATA or M.2 drive - and of course NO REAL TIME CLOCK.
Some of the Banana Pis can do SATA, while a couple of the Hardkernel boards do have RTCs on board, but so far as I can tell no one checks all the boxes.
A board the size of the Rock64 with all the standard motherboard connection and control headers I mention above, plus a PC style onboard RTC, and M.2 socket for a high performance SSD, and 4Gigs of onboard RAM would be a killer product, especially with one of the new faster Rockchip or Amlogic CPUs.
Just my 2 cents worth...
To do this they would have had to add a 32.768kHz crystal and a RTC battery connection header (about 25 cents worth of parts) but it seems that they didn't bother.
This was REALLY DUMB, but not much can be done until they re-spin the board.
For what it's worth, the ASUS Tinker Board did identically the same REALLY DUMB thing, which was even more disappointing (to me at least), because ASUS knows how to build motherboards, but seems to have forgotten EVERYTHING they ever learned in their mad rush to "me too" the Raspberry Pi.
The problem with ALL these SBC makers, is they like to play follow the leader with the Raspberry Pi, which is actually a pretty crappy design, which has NONE of the basic amenities we expect on even the lowest cost small PC motherboards. No power switch header, no power and drive activity LED headers (needed to connect external case switches and LEDs), no capability for a REAL hard drive like a SATA or M.2 drive - and of course NO REAL TIME CLOCK.
Some of the Banana Pis can do SATA, while a couple of the Hardkernel boards do have RTCs on board, but so far as I can tell no one checks all the boxes.
A board the size of the Rock64 with all the standard motherboard connection and control headers I mention above, plus a PC style onboard RTC, and M.2 socket for a high performance SSD, and 4Gigs of onboard RAM would be a killer product, especially with one of the new faster Rockchip or Amlogic CPUs.
Just my 2 cents worth...