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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

#41

Post by loup-vaillant »

asolove wrote: post #38
Palomides wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

what sort of "hack real hardware" do you want to do?

I was going to say something else, but I thought, people should just say their dreams, even if they sound crazy, and maybe they'll find someone who can make it happen. So here goes: I have a particular dream to open up an Android tablet; get plan9 running on it so I can share my screen, peripherals, files, and programs across a local network; and hack a keyboard onto the back so I can code while standing on the subwa…

The keyboard on the back is a terrific idea. Just a nitpick: I'm begging you, if you can, straighten those dammed keys.

http://www.loup-vaillant.fr/articles/better-keyboards

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

#42

Post by loup-vaillant »

nitrogen wrote: post #29

What's to stop some consumer electronics manufacturer from buying Raspberry Pis and building them into a device? I'd actually like to do that myself, but if they're selling the boards at cost, that wouldn't be sustainable.

While the 25$ model certainly costs them, the 35$ one may not. Plus, if they have massive commands, they may be able to invoke some economy of scale.

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

#43

Post by loup-vaillant »

bugsy wrote: post #33
soapdog wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

How is it a flame? The $100 OLPC doesn't exist, the $10 India PC doesn't exist and this $25 PC doesn't exist. You confirm this with your post and then claim I am flaming and downvotes warranted. If they exist, where are they? I might as well post about the $75 automobile we have for sale, details on engine and number of wheels not available as we haven't decided, but the one thing we know is it's $75. Completely absu…

The flame is in the tone, not in the facts. But the power of tone is such that many readers will flame in the facts themselves. Tone alone can discredit everything you say, to the point where you can't even say "Okay, I'm sorry, but […]" because nobody will read past "but" anyway.

Believe me, I've been nearly kicked out of 2 online communities for my tone. Anyway the fighting burnt me out, so I left.

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

#44

Post by ebenupton »

gravitronic wrote: post #32
ebenupton wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Hi Eben. Sorry, I don't mean to detract from what you're doing. I think it's great. I'm very very excited for the Raspberry Pi, both personally and to see what it does globally. I'm mostly just curious why the chip isn't publicly available. That's all. I personally hope to be able to use this chip in other designs.

Comparatively few Broadcom chips are available via channel partners. Unfortunately that's just the way our business model works.

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

#46

Post by ebenupton »

digikata wrote: post #39
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 suspect you're right in that the $25 is probably just a BOM cost (and an optimistic one at that). Once you actually try to get it built and delivered into someones hands, especially in small batches, I'm sure that $25 could ballon 2-5x easily.

Nope. BOM cost is well under $25. The price includes a healthy component margin, assembly cost (in the UK), assembly margin, test and OTP programming cost. We are professional electrical engineers; we know how to do this stuff (and in any case, it's not rocket science).

Volume assumption is 10K batches. Anyone think I can't sell 10K of these?

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

#47

Post by bugsy »

a_bad_dream wrote: post #40
bugsy wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is it a flame? The $100 OLPC doesn't exist, the $10 India PC doesn't exist and this $25 PC doesn't exist. You confirm this with your post and then claim I am flaming and downvotes warranted. If they exist, where are they? I might as well post about the $75 automobile we have for sale, details on engine and number of wheels not available as we haven't decided, but the one thing we know is it's $75. Completely absu…

The Raspberry Pi doesn't exist because products take time to develop. However, the progress we have seen indicates that it is on track to be launched in November, exactly when they said it would be.

Fantastic, I look forward to purchasing a complete functioning PC for $25. I hope someone is taking preorders somewhere too.

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

#48

Post by eddie_catflap »

ebenupton wrote: post #46
digikata wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suspect you're right in that the $25 is probably just a BOM cost (and an optimistic one at that). Once you actually try to get it built and delivered into someones hands, especially in small batches, I'm sure that $25 could ballon 2-5x easily.

Nope. BOM cost is well under $25. The price includes a healthy component margin, assembly cost (in the UK), assembly margin, test and OTP programming cost. We are professional electrical engineers; we know how to do this stuff (and in any case, it's not rocket science). Volume assumption is 10K batches. Anyone think I can't sell 10K of these?

I'm personally buying three (one for me, one each for the kids). I manage a team of unix sysadmins, you've got quite a few sales lined up there. 10K should go in about.. 5 minutes?

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

#49

Post by asolove »

loup-vaillant wrote: post #41
asolove wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was going to say something else, but I thought, people should just say their dreams, even if they sound crazy, and maybe they'll find someone who can make it happen. So here goes: I have a particular dream to open up an Android tablet; get plan9 running on it so I can share my screen, peripherals, files, and programs across a local network; and hack a keyboard onto the back so I can code while standing on the subwa…

The keyboard on the back is a terrific idea. Just a nitpick: I'm begging you, if you can, straighten those dammed keys. http://www.loup-vaillant.fr/articles/better-keyboards

This is an excellent point. In the process of doing research I came across these ideas. The difficult part is it's easy to find and disassemble split "ergonomic" keyboards with staggered keys. But I can't find a straight keyboard that uses two separate control boards, and I don't think I'm going to be able to make my own control boards anytime soon...

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

#50

Post by handelaar »

ebenupton wrote: post #30
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…

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

Maybe you have to be an old fart... I was here for this last time, but then I remembered that 'last time' was 1981.

This still looks like the most important thing of any kind for three decades to those of us who came out of the cheap home computer wave of the early 80s. (Me, I'm even closer to the Raspberry Pi heritage since I got my CS O-Level in 1987 with an IRC-alike network chat app for BBC LANs.)

So try not to cock it up, eh? :D

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