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$25 PC priced like a textbook, works with old analog TVs

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Re: $25 PC priced like a textbook, works with old analog TVs

#21

Post by joezydeco »

gravitronic wrote: post #20
joezydeco wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not just an employee, but an associate technical director at Broadcom. Others have found that the Raspberry Pi blog posts and etc are coming from Broadcom addresses. They're doing this on company time. Earlier I thought this was a good marketing thing. Other companies like TI are doing this to get chips in the hands of hackers and spread some goodwill towards future commercial users of their chips. But, as others hav…

The obvious guess would be their plan is to limit access to the chip until the pi became the "defacto standard" board, similar to the beagleboard or arduino, but I don't know why they're doing it. They're selling at cost, so it's not to lock in the profit. Whats the benefit of retaining control? Unless they're also going to bring the board to a consumer product and don't want competition, but that's not really their…

When it comes to hobby boards, "Defacto standards" don't mean a thing to chip companies. We might like to think it matters...but Broadcom is selling hundreds of millions of parts a year to companies like Apple. Does 50,000 or even 500,000 Raspberry Pis over it's lifetime mean anything to a company like this?

Re: $25 PC priced like a textbook, works with old analog TVs

#22

Post by fuzzythinker »

andyking wrote: post #11
tsm wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wish. http://www.amazon.com/Artificial-Intelligence-Modern-Approac...

Won't the second-hand price of this particular book be pushed up by the numbers of people after it for the free Stanford AI class that uses it?

The price drop after the class is over may be higher than the increase.

Re: $25 PC priced like a textbook, works with old analog TVs

#23

Post by nitrogen »

qxb wrote: post #12
reemrevnivek wrote: post #4

$25 for a textbook? If only! I spend $50-$300 per class for engineering textbooks. Also, the analog port is, I believe, only available on the $35 version of the Raspberry Pi. It also works with HDMI and DVI (the latter through an adapter), so you don't need to go scrounging for an analog TV.

I think the comparison is supposed to be with high / secondary school textbooks, which are cheaper than university ones. Raspberry Pi is a charity "to promote the study of computer science and related topics, especially at school level" and the device is aimed, in part at least, for use in teaching programming to children.[1] [1] http://www.raspberrypi.org/?page_id=2

If only that were the case... When I was in high school, replacing a lost Calculus textbook would have cost $120.

Re: $25 PC priced like a textbook, works with old analog TVs

#24

Post by gravitronic »

joezydeco wrote: post #21
gravitronic wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The obvious guess would be their plan is to limit access to the chip until the pi became the "defacto standard" board, similar to the beagleboard or arduino, but I don't know why they're doing it. They're selling at cost, so it's not to lock in the profit. Whats the benefit of retaining control? Unless they're also going to bring the board to a consumer product and don't want competition, but that's not really their…

When it comes to hobby boards, "Defacto standards" don't mean a thing to chip companies. We might like to think it matters...but Broadcom is selling hundreds of millions of parts a year to companies like Apple. Does 50,000 or even 500,000 Raspberry Pis over it's lifetime mean anything to a company like this?

I would agree with you but clearly it does mean something to them. The Raspberry Pi is getting a chip that is currently not available to the public

As well, as described by Liz in their comments on the Quake 3 post, "Eben works for Broadcom (and they’re giving us some great support – we wouldn’t be able to have got the project this far without their generous help)" http://www.raspberrypi.org/?p=106#comment-1764

Maybe it is only Eben's employment at Broadcom that is helping them get support and the chip sourcing, because otherwise I agree, Broadcom would not care about this.

Re: $25 PC priced like a textbook, works with old analog TVs

#25

Post by CrazedGeek »

bugsy wrote: post #19

OLPC has a $100 PC, India has a $10 PC, and now these guys have a $25 PC. What do they all have in common? They all have in common that NONE OF THEM EXIST. Yes, that's right. These projects get announced as if they are factual existing devices, with announcements using verb tenses suggesting they are currently in production and available. But then looking for details we find that no one is sure what the form of the d…

The OLPC XO-1 was designed for third-world markets: the only way you could acquire one in the US (and possibly other countries?) was by paying $200, which both got you one and sponsored one for a third-world child. (My cousins actually have one, so I know they exist.) They stopped this deal a year or two ago, though.

The India PC was never $10 outright, IIRC: it was $10 after some rather massive subsidies.

The Raspberry Pi literally went into alpha production a week ago, and software support is in its very early stages. Expecting to be able to buy it right now is a little silly.

Re: $25 PC priced like a textbook, works with old analog TVs

#26

Post by zenijin »

Personally I think this is fantastic. I wish I could've had something to tinker with when I was younger, without fear of getting in trouble for messing it up.

I don't have kids of my own, but I'll probably buy these for my nieces and nephews, hopefully get them into it young.

I'll likely buy a couple of these for myself, too, to use as media PCs.

Re: $25 PC priced like a textbook, works with old analog TVs

#27

Post by dman »

fuzzythinker wrote: post #22
andyking wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Won't the second-hand price of this particular book be pushed up by the numbers of people after it for the free Stanford AI class that uses it?

The price drop after the class is over may be higher than the increase.

Tracking price and availability of used books might be interesting to plot against course difficulty ramp up.

Re: $25 PC priced like a textbook, works with old analog TVs

#28

Post by soapdog »

bugsy wrote: post #19

OLPC has a $100 PC, India has a $10 PC, and now these guys have a $25 PC. What do they all have in common? They all have in common that NONE OF THEM EXIST. Yes, that's right. These projects get announced as if they are factual existing devices, with announcements using verb tenses suggesting they are currently in production and available. But then looking for details we find that no one is sure what the form of the d…

I have an OLPC XO-1, I used it every week. It is my favorite laptop. I have very good net access with it and use this little gem for my server maintenance needs... cool little thing. If OLPC would do another give-1-get-1, I would pick three.

Now, I want do a little bulk order of Raspberry Pis when they are available and see what I can do with them for my community.

About the downvotes, you COULD buy an OLPC for $200 during the give 1 get 1 phase. I got mine, if you were truly interested in these projects, you would knew that. You're just a flamer...

Re: $25 PC priced like a textbook, works with old analog TVs

#30

Post by ebenupton »

joezydeco wrote: post #18
gravitronic wrote: post #9

There's a second story here. Want to build this board yourself? You can't. Try to find information about this Broadcom BCM2835 chip. It only leads back to the Raspberry Pi (and a teardown of the roku 2 media player). Broadcom has not released even a 1-page summary datasheet on this chip. The only specs released are in relation to the Raspberry Pi. I work for a small tech company that would LOVE to be able to use this…

Not just an employee, but an associate technical director at Broadcom. Others have found that the Raspberry Pi blog posts and etc are coming from Broadcom addresses. They're doing this on company time. Earlier I thought this was a good marketing thing. Other companies like TI are doing this to get chips in the hands of hackers and spread some goodwill towards future commercial users of their chips. But, as others hav…

Would you believe me if I told you we're just nice guys, who used to be kids who couldn't afford computers?
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