PowerBlock and ControlBlock are fully compatible with Raspberry Pi 4 now!
Sep
Our popular add-on boards for the Raspberry Pi “PowerBlock” and “ControlBlock” are fully compatible with the Raspberry Pi 4 now.
In a recent post we wrote about the observation that the current ControlBlock and PowerBlock are only working with the recently released Raspberry Pi 4when manually attaching a resistor to them.
We worked on a driver and firmware update to fix that issue as soon as possible. Now, we are glad to announce that all ControlBlocks and PowerBlocks that are ordered from today on (09/04/19) are fully compatible with the Raspberry Pi 4.
With the ControlBlock and the PowerBlock you now have the possibilities to provide a safe power button and retro game controller interface for your Raspberry Pi 4.
To make the compatibility possible it was necessary to not only update the drivers that are running in the operating system on the Raspberry Pi, but also the firmware of the micro controller on the PowerBlock and ControlBlock themselves. This updated firmware will be used from now on by our PCB manufacturer. Already produced PCBs in our stock will get a firmware update accordingly.
PowerBlocks and ControlBlocks that were sold until now still need the fix as described in the recent post that I mentioned above. Sorry! However, if you happen to have an in-service programmer yourself you could flash the micro controller with this firmware binary.
By the way: That new firmware also comes with another new feature that we were often asked for. We will write about this in the next blog post!
