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nickdab
Jul 5, 2008
SOME UPDATES:
Raspberry Pi has made its way from vaporware to being a real, tangible $25 computer. There is still a considerable backlog, but it exists!

All code running on the ARM is now open source!

From The Website:

quote:

The Raspberry Pi is a credit-card sized computer that plugs into your TV and a keyboard. It’s a capable little PC which can be used for many of the things that your desktop PC does, like spreadsheets, word-processing and games. It also plays high-definition video. We want to see it being used by kids all over the world to learn programming.

http://www.raspberrypi.org/about

Specs (click to enlarge):


Best of all, it's just $25!

The OS is stored on an SD card, and while they recommend Fedora, using your favorite distribution is as easy as dd or windd-ing it onto the card. There are going to be 2 models: the more expensive one with more memory, an extra USB slot and an Ethernet port to plug into the Internet.

The idea is that today's computers are so advanced and expensive that kids don't have the chance to learn about them the same way we (or maybe our parents) did, which was just plugging in their ol' Commodore 64 and hitting buttons until they broke something. At $25 or $35, the makers are hoping that parents and schools will give them to kids so that they can start learning about programming and computers the fun way: by playing with them.

Beyond that, this provides a cheap way of practicing your hackzor skillz that won't end in tears! It supports booting bare metal code, so the possibilities are endless.

I think it's a great idea, and I for one am buying one as soon as they will let me, which is supposedly by the end of this month.

What do you all think? Could this actually change the way that computing is taught to our kids? If you have kids, will you get them one? Go CRAZY!

edit:

RaspberryPi.com posted:

Ladies and gentlemen, set your alarms!

The Raspberry Pi Foundation will be making a big (and very positive) announcement that just might interest you at 0600h GMT on Wednesday 29 February 2012. Come to https://www.raspberrypi.org to find out what’s going on.

edit # 2:

Launch was a disappointment to a lot of people. Rasberry Pi chose two companies to manufacture and distribute these: Premier Farnell and RS Components. Their sites pretty much immediately went down with the influx of traffic, as did R-Pi's. By the time a lot of people were able to get back to their sites, all the R-Pi's had already been sold.

On the plus side, the Model A Raspberry Pis--which weren't shipped with this first batch--have been upped to 256MB of memory. Can't say for sure when the next batch come out, but I hope that things have been smoothed over by then so that people will be able to get them. If you or anyone you know did happen to get one of these from the first batch, please post pics and make us all jealous!

edit # 3:

If you're wondering why there seems to be a delay in shipping, here's why:

raspberrypi.org posted:

As you’ll have noticed, there’s been a bit of a delay in shipping the first batch of Raspberry Pis out to people. This is because of a hardware parts substitution that was made in the factory by accident: specifically, where we’d specified jacks with integrated magnetics in the BOM and schematics, the factory soldered in non-magnetic jacks.

Luckily, it sounds like a very minor problem that has already been fixed for the first batch.

edit # 4:

Another delay. Now they need the CE before they can distribute to the EU. CE makes sure the board is compliant with regulations and is safe. I guess that's why this is a developer's release.

raspberrypi.org posted:

Update, 6pm Mar 28: we have spoken with BIS this morning, and they have confirmed that, given the volumes involved and the demographic mix of likely users, any development board exemption is not applicable to us; as a result, even the first uncased developer units of Raspberry Pi will require a CE mark prior to sale in the EU. As we mention below, we are working with RS Components and element14/Premier Farnell to bring Raspberry Pi into a compliant state as soon as is humanly possible.

From what I've heard, Farnell and RS have been nervous about this because of how wide an audience the supposed "developer's release" is going to. I'll try to keep the thread updated as I find out more.

nickdab fucked around with this message at 21:02 on Nov 7, 2012

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text editor
Jan 8, 2007
It looks cool, I want one as a toy, but until they finally start shipping it's nearly vaporware as far as I am concerned.


I also think this is about as likely as the OLPC project to make it into the hands over people for whom a $25 computer is more a learning device than a toy.

text editor fucked around with this message at 10:14 on Feb 22, 2012

angrytech
Jun 26, 2009

text editor posted:

It looks cool, I want w=one as a toy, but until they finally start shipping it's nearly vaporware as far as I am concerned.

Did you by any chance say this last night on #raspberrypi? There was a discussion about just that, so I'm curious.

~Coxy
Dec 9, 2003

R.I.P. Inter-OS Sass - b.2000AD d.2003AD
Since the first shipment is one per person, 10K units only, B models only, and oft-delayed I'm inclined to agree that the product is still very much vapour.

I still very much want two of them to use as XBMC clients though.

kri kri
Jul 18, 2007

~Coxy posted:

Since the first shipment is one per person, 10K units only, B models only, and oft-delayed I'm inclined to agree that the product is still very much vapour.

I still very much want two of them to use as XBMC clients though.
XBMC is what I am most interested in.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4NR57ELY28s

feld
Feb 11, 2008

Out of nowhere its.....

Feldman

kri kri posted:

XBMC is what I am most interested in.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4NR57ELY28s

100% agreed. Cheaper than my Popcorn Hours with the same features? NICE!

GrandMaster
Aug 15, 2004
laidback

feld posted:

100% agreed. Cheaper than my Popcorn Hours with the same features? NICE!

almost - from what I've read they wont be able to decode xvid/divx and some other common codecs in hardware due to licensing conditions so the processor may not have enough grunt for non-choppy playback.
x264 will be supported though, so any newer hi def content should play with no worries.

Mr.Radar
Nov 5, 2005

You guys aren't going to believe this, but that guy is our games teacher.
They've said that in addition to H.264 they have a license for MPEG-4, which presumably means they can support hardware decoding of XviD/DivX as both are based on the MPEG-4 Part 2 Advanced Simple Profile standard. They don't have a license for MPEG-2, however, which sucks for everyone in the US or Canada that wants (or wanted) to use it with a digital TV tuner for HD broadcasts.

Alereon
Feb 6, 2004

Dehumanize yourself and face to Trumpshed
College Slice
I'm pretty sure that MPEG4 support almost always means MPEG4 Simple Profile, so Advanced Simple Profile is right out. This looked pretty cool the first time I saw it, but frankly the ARM11 processor with ARMv6 ISA is ANCIENT, we're finishing up with ARMv7 now and ARMv8 is right on the horizon. Now you obviously don't need the latest and greatest for embedded devices, but at the very least I would expect some Cortex A8-based processor. I guess if you just want a device to play around with some embedded OS on and don't expect it to DO anything it's fine.

SRQ
Nov 9, 2009

Too bad apple doesn't see any money in this form factor. I bet they could do something with their chips.

mediaphage
Mar 22, 2007

Excuse me, pardon me, sheer perfection coming through

SRQ posted:

Too bad apple doesn't see any money in this form factor. I bet they could do something with their chips.

What do you call the Apple TV?

Longinus00
Dec 29, 2005
Ur-Quan

Alereon posted:

I'm pretty sure that MPEG4 support almost always means MPEG4 Simple Profile, so Advanced Simple Profile is right out. This looked pretty cool the first time I saw it, but frankly the ARM11 processor with ARMv6 ISA is ANCIENT, we're finishing up with ARMv7 now and ARMv8 is right on the horizon. Now you obviously don't need the latest and greatest for embedded devices, but at the very least I would expect some Cortex A8-based processor. I guess if you just want a device to play around with some embedded OS on and don't expect it to DO anything it's fine.

Remember this is supposed to be a cheap device. If you want a modern ARM board then you can get a pandboard for less than $200. You can also do lots of computing with these arm chips, just don't expect to run Windows on it or anythings.

b0lt
Apr 29, 2005

mediaphage posted:

What do you call the Apple TV?

"a hobby"

text editor
Jan 8, 2007

angrytech posted:

Did you by any chance say this last night on #raspberrypi? There was a discussion about just that, so I'm curious.

No I've never jumped into #raspberrypi, just have been following the blog every couple weeks whenever something reminds me of it.

Jonny 290
May 5, 2005



[ASK] me about OS/2 Warp

angrytech posted:

Did you by any chance say this last night on #raspberrypi? There was a discussion about just that, so I'm curious.

This is how most people are viewing the project, as far as I can tell. Phantom/WinFS/Optimus keyboard chat, basically.

I will definitely be buying a couple if they ever show up, but I'm not outlining projects based around them or anything.

NOTinuyasha
Oct 17, 2006

 
The Great Twist
Needs onboard wireless.

sleepy gary
Jan 11, 2006

You people saying anything about vaporware are uninformed. The first batch of 10,000 is actually fabricated and complete. They are being tested and freighted to the UK as we speak.

As far as on-board wireless, and any other ideas you have, someone else has already thought of them, and the foundation is considering releasing more versions in the future. The goal was to make them as cheaply as possible to get them into the hands of children. The fact that people like us are interested as well is an unexpected bonus for them.

I think it's pretty crazy that anyone expects more for $25-35. You can put a tiny USB wifi dongle in it if you want to anyways.

~Coxy
Dec 9, 2003

R.I.P. Inter-OS Sass - b.2000AD d.2003AD
They're vapour until you can actually buy one, which will be when the second batch is ready to sell.
I'm sorry to be blunt because I really really want one (two) but I'm not holding my breath for them.

Computer viking
May 30, 2011
Now with less breakage.

~Coxy posted:

They're vapour until you can actually buy one, which will be when the second batch is ready to sell.
I'm sorry to be blunt because I really really want one (two) but I'm not holding my breath for them.

That's not vapourware, though. It might be really-hard-to-find-ware or at worst abandoned-in-a-warehouse-ware, but "vapour" sort of implies the only physical aspect of it are the words out of someone's mouth.

sleepy gary
Jan 11, 2006

~Coxy posted:

They're vapour until you can actually buy one, which will be when the second batch is ready to sell.
I'm sorry to be blunt because I really really want one (two) but I'm not holding my breath for them.

You can buy one in like a week. The entire first batch is being sold to whoever wants them, so I don't understand what you're on about. Granted, the demand is probably far greater than the initial supply but that is still not even close to vaporware.

Pochoclo
Feb 4, 2008

No...
Clapping Larry
So when will they ship to Argentina, and how much can I expect to pay for them? Let's see, adding taxes and shipping... that'll go up to 100 dollars. Which is like paying 500 bucks for us.

That's about as much as a non-liberated Nokia E5 goes for, on which I can play a NES emulator, and I've got a decent camera and stuff and it's actually portable. Is there any other advantage to this Pi thing? Because otherwise it doesn't look like much of a deal, and while 25 bucks sounds like perfect for an expendable little computer to gift to my friend's daughter and stuff, 500 bucks is pushing it. gently caress third world economies.

mediaphage
Mar 22, 2007

Excuse me, pardon me, sheer perfection coming through

b0lt posted:

"a hobby"

I get the joke, but it was a serious question. That's Apple's version of this form factor, running their A* chips.

sleepy gary
Jan 11, 2006

Pochoclo posted:

So when will they ship to Argentina, and how much can I expect to pay for them? Let's see, adding taxes and shipping... that'll go up to 100 dollars. Which is like paying 500 bucks for us.

That's about as much as a non-liberated Nokia E5 goes for, on which I can play a NES emulator, and I've got a decent camera and stuff and it's actually portable. Is there any other advantage to this Pi thing? Because otherwise it doesn't look like much of a deal, and while 25 bucks sounds like perfect for an expendable little computer to gift to my friend's daughter and stuff, 500 bucks is pushing it. gently caress third world economies.

Their shipping is going to be very reasonable (actual cost I think), but I have no idea about shipping to Argentina or what your own country will charge you in taxes. If you have any friends that live in a country with less than loving 300% import duty then maybe you can have one re-shipped to you as a gift?

They will ship to Argentina from the very first board that is sold from the production lot (~1 week from now). Worldwide shipping is and always has been an option right from the start.

edit: It seems that you are interested in the $25 version (Model A), which will not be available at launch.

sleepy gary fucked around with this message at 15:17 on Feb 22, 2012

poemdexter
Feb 18, 2005

Hooray Indie Games!

College Slice
If I can shove this inside of a gutted atari controller, I'll have the coolest media center PC ever.

Kaludan
Jul 2, 2009
Seriously looking forward to this.

I'm still expecting the company to get bought and liquidated by a major manufacturer though.

sleepy gary
Jan 11, 2006

Kaludan posted:

Seriously looking forward to this.

I'm still expecting the company to get bought and liquidated by a major manufacturer though.

What is there to liquidate?

Jeesis
Mar 4, 2010

I am the second illegitimate son of gawd who resides in hoaven.

poemdexter posted:

If I can shove this inside of a gutted atari controller, I'll have the coolest media center PC ever.

I question if it would be possible to stick it into a modified or custom one and use the joystick as the mouse and the button as the mouse click. Of course you would need to have a external cable to connect it to the television/extra power for the controller. But that would be loving awesome if it could work.

kri kri
Jul 18, 2007

DNova posted:

What is there to liquidate?

Yeah isn't the "company" just a foundation that uses quite a few volunteers? I can't imagine they are going to have lots of liquid assets.

movax
Aug 30, 2008

This is going to own. Too much of the lower-level workings of modern systems (x86, etc) are being lost to NDAs and vaults in a handful of company basements.

For of those interested, they also released the reference file system that'll be shipping with the boards.

nickdab
Jul 5, 2008

Kaludan posted:

Seriously looking forward to this.

I'm still expecting the company to get bought and liquidated by a major manufacturer though.

Right now, I don't think we have to worry about that. I was listening to tuxradar and from what they were saying it sounds like everybody on this project has a day job and this is just a thing they've been doing with their free time. I'm sure that if it generates enough interest somebody will try to figure out a way either to make a profit off of it or to destroy it, though.

I hadn't thought about putting XBMC on it and making a media center, but that is a brilliant idea. You could have a really cool HTPC setup for under $100. I'm excited about all the cool things dedicated hobbyist could do with a system this cheap.

Tiger.Bomb
Jan 22, 2012
I'm pumped for it. I actually have XBMC on my Apple TV right now and it's sweet but it has some trouble with HD and can't output more than 720p.

I actually wouldn't want to put xbmc on it -- I would want to use it as a dev platform to learn (just like those damned kids). If I put XBMC on it I would just set it up and never touch it again.

Then again, even if I doubt it will probably just gather dust like my Arduino and pickit2

SpaceAceJase
Nov 8, 2008

and you
have proved
to be...

a real shitty poster,
and a real james
I'm really excited to see what people come up with.

I'm looking to homebrew a cost-effective vehicle tracking solution for the logistics company I work for. Basically, something that polls a GPS chip for data in minute intervals and shoots the data back to server via a 3G modem, or SMS gateway.

frogbert
Jun 2, 2007
At $25 a pop I can't see a reason to not give it a go.

ppp
Feb 13, 2012

by angerbot

SpaceAceJase posted:

I'm really excited to see what people come up with.

I'm looking to homebrew a cost-effective vehicle tracking solution for the logistics company I work for. Basically, something that polls a GPS chip for data in minute intervals and shoots the data back to server via a 3G modem, or SMS gateway.

You should probably look at an arduino then, or something similarly powered.

lllllllllllllllllll
Feb 28, 2010

Now the scene's lighting is perfect!
Something's wrong when they don't have a picture of the finished product anywhere on their site.

Daerc
Sep 23, 2007

Look! A door! This must mean something!

lllllllllllllllllll posted:

Something's wrong when they don't have a picture of the finished product anywhere on their site.

Yeah, it's kind of odd. Fortunately there's a shot on their wiki. Which I also put below.



To clarify, something on there does call this a beta board, so it's not necessarily indicative of what the next run will look like.

sleepy gary
Jan 11, 2006

Daerc posted:

Yeah, it's kind of odd. Fortunately there's a shot on their wiki. Which I also put below.



To clarify, something on there does call this a beta board, so it's not necessarily indicative of what the next run will look like.

It will look the same except the GPIO headers will be absent.

P-Funk
Jan 7, 2001

The $25 figure gets thrown around but really it's the $35 one that most people are actually going to want (and will be able to buy for a while).

bolind
Jun 19, 2005



Pillbug
I get the feeling that most people in this thread don't really get what this is all about. Allow me to make a few points:

Many, many compromises were made to make the target price of $25/$35. That is why it's not faster, has more RAM, has analog VGA etc. (Bonus tidbit, it'll actually drive your old analog TV in addition to digital HDMI/DVI.)

It's a non-profit project whose purpose is to put cheap stuff into the hands of kids and students. That enthusiasts have flocked to the project is just a bonus (the first ten beta boards sold on eBay for massive sums, all of which went back into either a charity or further development, can't remember.)

It's not vapour. Beta boards exist, and production is running on the first shipment. I predict that the first batch will be sold out as fast as the server is able to process the transactions.

Personally I'd like to get a couple, one for myself and few for some kids in the immediate family. I like the fact that there's no case, you're putting things together yourself, and if they screw things up, worst case is we're out $35.

I really hope they take off, and maybe even get cheaper yet, so nerds can just get a couple and use one for a never-touched-again XBMC, one for tinkering, one for datalogging etc.

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SpaceAceJase
Nov 8, 2008

and you
have proved
to be...

a real shitty poster,
and a real james

bolind posted:

I get the feeling that most people in this thread don't really get what this is all about. Allow me to make a few points:

What gives you the impression that anyone here thinks it's anything more than what it is? It's a tiny ARM computer.

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