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The Raspberry Pi store is much cooler than an Apple Store

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Re: The Raspberry Pi store is much cooler than an Apple Store

#121

Post by C1sc0cat »

zimpenfish wrote: post #89
crumpets wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really. Hardware and machines that actually run algorithms are just an implementation detail. :)

Anecdata: Mine did (CS, Manchester, 92-95). First year a certain amount of hardware was mandatory, second and onwards was optional (and I opted out.) (Many people opted in because it gave you a chance to be lectured by Steve Furber and later work with him on 3rd year projects, IIRC.)

Also for years only Oxford, Cambridge, Imperial and UMIST where considered the truly good CS degrees.

Re: The Raspberry Pi store is much cooler than an Apple Store

#123

Post by TickleSteve »

crumpets wrote: post #75
collyw wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

CS must teach at least some hardware, no?

Not really. Hardware and machines that actually run algorithms are just an implementation detail. :)

Manchester Uni CS certainly was partially hardware-based up until '97 or so.

Was doing CS, but plenty of hardware topics were available, such as creating your own processor on an FPGA, etc.

How can you possibly write good software without an appreciation of hardware??

Re: The Raspberry Pi store is much cooler than an Apple Store

#124

Post by lillecarl »

close04 wrote: post #96
kelrien wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The raspberry pi Zero W was never priced at 5€ AFAIK. edit: found the announcement: https://www.raspberrypi.org/blog/raspberry-pi-zero-w-joins-f...

Mea culpa. I was under the impression that every subsequent model is released at the same price point as the old one (similar to the normal RPi at $35). But this means the original Zero was marketed at $5 which was still never the case where I live (10-20E was/is the norm, maybe courtesy of the shortage). This being said I bought them either way. It just felt a bit disappointing when the expectations set by the promo…

Sounds like the reaction to all promotional advertising doesn't it? Cars are advertised the same, but with the advertised versions price is like 0.7 of what they have actual version you'd want to buy because they overcharge for accessories. They might be making a loss on the 5$ version to make it up on more powerful boards sold later on and therefore using the entire device as an ad campaign.

Re: The Raspberry Pi store is much cooler than an Apple Store

#125

Post by jki275 »

collyw wrote: post #72
gambiting wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would a CS course teach you any of this? You want an EE degree to learn this, not CS

CS must teach at least some hardware, no?

Certainly did in my program. Computer Org & Design has been a canonical part of CS for a long time.

Re: The Raspberry Pi store is much cooler than an Apple Store

#126

Post by jki275 »

stan_rogers wrote: post #66
benj111 wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"we never even had RadioShack in the UK" We did kind of . Tandy was basically RadioShack, they even sold RadioShack branded products. I would like to say that it rebranded as RadioShack towards the end, but I cant find any evidence of that. So that's probably just my failing memory.

Tandy and Radio Shack are the same company. On this side of the pond, Tandy was the brand for a leatherworking hobby shop run by the company, while Radio Shack was electronics; you'd usually find a Radio Shack and a Tandy store next door to each other in the sixties and seventies.

And into the 80s! I remember them. I miss Radio Shack -- not the cell phone store they became, but what they were in the 80s.

Re: The Raspberry Pi store is much cooler than an Apple Store

#127

Post by pbhjpbhj »

michaelt wrote: post #102
Spivak wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know any stores that include shipping on their price tags. But you're right, the Zeros are so popular that the MSRP of $5 is difficult to achieve without them being constantly sold out. Hard to blame the market for correcting, they're worth way more than $5.

The Raspberry Pi foundation outsource all their manufacturing, as is normal in the electronics industry. In the absence of component shortages, they could up production of Zeros by 10x or more if they wanted to. And the Zero barely has any components, so a component shortage seems unlikely. If there's such high market demand that the product constantly sells out when offered for the MSRP, why haven't they just told t…

I think this is reasonably analogous:

My kids school has a "chocolate table", at their fair, you pay a pound and win chocolate, it sells out really quickly. Why don't they procure enough chocolate to meet the high demand?

Or, other are asking "why don't they price out the poor kids - there enough to seek only to the rich kids at a higher price?".

Re: The Raspberry Pi store is much cooler than an Apple Store

#128

Post by foldr »

LeoPanthera wrote: post #24
penguinlinux wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Microcenter sells them for 5 dollars. This is the first unit. I happen to have one close to my home so I've been able to buy a few of them, I just buy one each time i go there. I am building retropie machines for my friends so i get them for 5 bucks. you can only buy one pi zero w for 5 dollars. but you can always come back and buy more.

It's 5 dollars for one . If you want 2-5, it's $10 each, and if you want 6+, it's $15 each. This is exactly my point. It's asinine to advertise it at $5. If you don't live near a physical Microcenter, it's not even $5 for one, because they charge shipping too.

> asinine

"Asinine" means "extremely stupid or foolish", and it's a very harsh term. Are you sure it's the word you were looking for?

Re: The Raspberry Pi store is much cooler than an Apple Store

#129

Post by pbhjpbhj »

IshKebab wrote: post #63
Spivak wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know any stores that include shipping on their price tags. But you're right, the Zeros are so popular that the MSRP of $5 is difficult to achieve without them being constantly sold out. Hard to blame the market for correcting, they're worth way more than $5.

That's not how economics works! If they aren't making a loss at $5 then by now they have had plenty of time to ramp up production to meet demand (and save money since more production means lower costs). The fact that they haven't strongly implies that they are selling it at a loss.

That's not how finance works either. Moving up from one level of production to another can mean acquiring new warehousing, creating new distribution channels, etc.. Can mean need to increase head count (and thus risk). Risks being left with excess product - eg if a competitor comes on the scene.

Those risks are worth it, perhaps, to achieve higher profit. But if the risks are merely to satisfy some demand for cheap gadgets, rather than meeting the educational aims of your org, then "there's more to life, let someone else do that".

Re: The Raspberry Pi store is much cooler than an Apple Store

#130

Post by laumars »

NeedMoreTea wrote: post #116
laumars wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> this isn't cooler than Apple, its cooler than RadioShack. Arguably it could be cooler than both. You’re making an arbitrary distinction where one isn’t needed. Plus we never even had RadioShack in the UK (maybe Maplins might have been more apt? But I think the Apple comparison serves the authors point quite fine). > Also, why the couch? Plenty of shops in the UK have seating. It isn’t that weird at all. > Because t…

When Maplins was just a Southampton mail order outfit advertised in the back of electronics magazines, Tandy (Radio Shack) was very much a thing in the UK. The shops were always Tandy, the products always Radio Shack prepacked from the US. They spread pretty wide as even small towns often had a shop. It was the place to buy a pack of 3 resistors, or 2 spade connectors or fuses for your car for 10 to 50 times a reason…

I do remember Tandy. In fact I Nearly included them in my previous post but declined to because of how long ago they closed. However I hadn’t realised they were the same parent company as RadioShack.
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