Raspberry Pi 400 Desktop PC • Hacker News Board

Re: Raspberry Pi 400 Desktop PC

#331

Post by makomk » Mon, Nov 02, 2020, 3:29 PM UTC

read_if_gay_ wrote: post #182

jon-wood wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m responsible for a fleet of a few hundred Raspberry Pis being used as home monitoring hubs - they use high grade SD cards, and are configured to write as little as possible while still fulfilling their function, yet we still see one or two a month fall of the internet because of SD card corruption. This is absolutely a problem. I believe the compute module is somewhat better in that it uses eMMC rather than SD car…

Correct me if I’m mistaken, but isn’t eMMC literally just an embedded SD card?

Same interface as an SD card, but better firmware and probably higher quality flash. SD cards are really aggressively cost-cut, often coming in than less than the price of raw flash of the same capacity.

Re: Raspberry Pi 400 Desktop PC

#332

Post by blhack » Mon, Nov 02, 2020, 3:32 PM UTC

Edit: I was wrong. This ships with raspian. Very cool :)

(I ended up on this page: https://www.raspberrypi.org/products/raspberry-pi-400-unit/?..., which didn’t list the SD card).

Re: Raspberry Pi 400 Desktop PC

#333

Post by jononor » Mon, Nov 02, 2020, 3:32 PM UTC

ineedasername wrote: post #265

This blows my mind. I know, it's much more incremental than it is revolutionary, but I think the form factor achieves a much greater degree of access for many people than a typical Pi whose bare hardware may be a lot more intimidating. Now, it's "just" a computer, which happens to expose a 40-pin connector for the standard Pi hardware fun. And unlike other options you might find, this has the massive built-in communi…

Very curious to see how the third-party market will build up around this device. For the RPi Single Board Computer there is a lot of products to extend it into all kinds of directions, assuming one is willing to breadboard and maybe solder a bit. With this new PC/keyboard things are opening up even more for casual geeking around, which I think might bring even more people in. If the community picks it up I think it could be very impactful!

Re: Raspberry Pi 400 Desktop PC

#334

Post by sdenton4 » Mon, Nov 02, 2020, 3:35 PM UTC

Holy $4!+, it's a cyberdeck. I understand everything now: 2020 is the gateway to the cyberpunk dystopia.

Re: Raspberry Pi 400 Desktop PC

#335

Post by ThrowawayR2 » Mon, Nov 02, 2020, 3:37 PM UTC

flyinghamster wrote: post #324

itsoktocry wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> One local school here threw away 50+ small dell quad-core i5's in their quest to make sure they spend their money wisely. I think broad computer illiteracy in the general population has convinced people that you "need" a new, powerful computer. In reality, 95% of the population can get away with any decent computer from the last 10 years. Grandma isn't training a neural net, she's checking Facebook. I continue to u…

These days, even a low-end Android phone, taken back forty years, would be a supercomputer beyond anything that existed then. Unfortunately, layer after layer of framework on abstraction on framework on abstraction sometimes means that we need a supercomputer to render a user interface, and still end up with perceptible lag. :) Regarding elsewhere where I mentioned running BOINC on a Pi 4B, I'd also note that (at lea…

microSD cards don't really cut it for a general-purpose desktop in terms of lifespan and reliability and SSD over USB is an awkward workaround at best. Hopefully the RPi 5 will have NVMe or a SATA port at least.

Re: Raspberry Pi 400 Desktop PC

#336

Post by lkxijlewlf » Mon, Nov 02, 2020, 3:37 PM UTC

I love this, but I do have some concern about the keyboard. I am not a true keyboard snob, but I am pretty picky.

Re: Raspberry Pi 400 Desktop PC

#337

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Nov 02, 2020, 3:39 PM UTC

blhack wrote: post #332

Edit: I was wrong. This ships with raspian. Very cool :) (I ended up on this page: https://www.raspberrypi.org/products/raspberry-pi-400-unit/?... , which didn’t list the SD card).

[deleted]

Re: Raspberry Pi 400 Desktop PC

#338

Post by alfonsodev » Mon, Nov 02, 2020, 3:39 PM UTC

I'd love to have a mod kit to convert my ZX Spectrum +2k (the larger one with cassette) enclosure into a pc, with cherry Mx keys.

Re: Raspberry Pi 400 Desktop PC

#339

Post by GordonS » Mon, Nov 02, 2020, 3:39 PM UTC

amq wrote: post #126

Missed opportunities: full-sized HDMI, M.2 storage and a touchpad.

You're spot on - a touch pad integrated into the case would mean you didn't need a separate mouse; there's plenty space for an M.2 module, and SD cards are shit; and mini-HDMI really is such a pointless form factor.

I'd be ordering one of these tomorrow if it had these features - still, I expect it will sell very well as-is, so I'm really hoping they come out with a new version at some point!

Re: Raspberry Pi 400 Desktop PC

#340

Post by ben_w » Mon, Nov 02, 2020, 3:39 PM UTC

blhack wrote: post #332

Edit: I was wrong. This ships with raspian. Very cool :) (I ended up on this page: https://www.raspberrypi.org/products/raspberry-pi-400-unit/?... , which didn’t list the SD card).

Given they’ve sold way more than they expected, so I am confused by your criticism.

Also note that the original use case was close to “The BBC micro for schools helped a generation learn software and hardware, but modern computers are rubbish at enabling that, because the software is not designed for kids and the hardware is expensive - nobody wants to risk kids bricking an expensive computer.”