Someone made this nice comparison over on Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/3uc55k/58_years_on/
Raspberry Pi Zero: the $5 computer
351–360 of 521 posts
Re: Raspberry Pi Zero: the $5 computer
#352Earlier quoted context omitted.
The only other part needed to get this running is a programming cable. The ESP8266 does not have a USB port but a serial one, so you need an adapter to connect and programm it. e.g.: https://www.sparkfun.com/products/12977 Just be careful not to connect the 5V VCC to the ESP8266, it will probably kill it.
That's fantastic, thanks :)
The SparkFun ESP8266 Thing Dev Board [0] has a USB-to-serial so you can use a micro USB cable. They're obviously more expensive but ESP8266 breakout boards like SparkFun's Things and Adafruit's Huzzah are more breadboard-friendly an generally easier to work with.
Re: Raspberry Pi Zero: the $5 computer
#353This is great, but for people who want to "get started in computing", don't they also need a display, a mouse and a keyboard? LCD screens are like, $100, a mouse is $10-$20 new and low-end keyboards are $10-$30. At that combined price, why does it matter if the computer is $25 or $5? And if one is going to outlay the 150 bucks in peripherals, they might as well spend a bit more than $5 on the computer to get a signif…
> This is great, but for people who want to "get started in computing", don't they also need a display, a mouse and a keyboard?
Who are you quoting there? It's not the article.
Is Raspberry Pi being marketed at beginners, or for conventional desktop use? That wasn't my impression.
Re: Raspberry Pi Zero: the $5 computer
#354Still lacking: USB Device Mode support... :(
The Pi Zero is like the Model A, so device mode should be possible. See https://www.raspberrypi.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=98&t=7409...
Interesting.
> The single USB port on the model A is capable of working as a USB slave (OTG mode). The model B cannot do that because of the USB hub/LAN chip being in the way.
Please, please do not tell me that the Pi CPU has only a single USB controller?! facepalm
Re: Raspberry Pi Zero: the $5 computer
#355Raspberry still costs more than 100$ in my country, due the rarity of such tools sometimes we found ourselves obliged to buy it with that price and pay the difference, and even though this is such a great step, i really doubt it would have any effect on 3rd world countries where this is really needed.
Same, in Tunisia a B model (with no SD or anything) will go around 70$. This is mainly due to state imposed taxes on "luxury products". I tried importing one, but customs ended up charging me almost double the unit price just to let it through. The only cheap solution to get one in Tunisia is to have someone buy it for you in europe and then bring it back in his luggage.
Can you send something like this via lettermail to your country?
Re: Raspberry Pi Zero: the $5 computer
#356Earlier quoted context omitted.
So... you will need to buy a power adapter and an Ethernet cable? That will come to, what, another fiver?
There's no ethernet port. So, also an ethernet adapter. But there's only one USB port (µUSB, too, so you most likely need an adapter to regular USB). So if you want more than just ethernet, you'll need an USB hub. But the RasPi's power supply has always been weak, so better get an actively powered one… And soon you're paying four times as much for the accessories than for the RasPi.
Ethernet USB adapters tend to be very flakey. (At least that's my opinion/experience.)
Re: Raspberry Pi Zero: the $5 computer
#357I just bought 2 magpi to get 2 raspiberry pi zero but connecting then to a android charger (without and with sdcard http://director.downloads.raspberrypi.org/raspbian_lite/imag... ) none of then lights the green led to indicate power on. Someone have a different experience or can tell something about this ?
I bought a copy of MagPi, and my Raspberry Pi Zero does not light up when I apply power. But if I connect it to my PC with a USB cable the Broadcom BCM2708 Boot device is detected, so I assume it is working. I haven't tested with SDcard present.
Re: Raspberry Pi Zero: the $5 computer
#358This is great, but for people who want to "get started in computing", don't they also need a display, a mouse and a keyboard? LCD screens are like, $100, a mouse is $10-$20 new and low-end keyboards are $10-$30. At that combined price, why does it matter if the computer is $25 or $5? And if one is going to outlay the 150 bucks in peripherals, they might as well spend a bit more than $5 on the computer to get a signif…
At thrift stores they can barely give away mice and keyboards. Just checked craigslist, keyboards and mice were $5 each and a monitor was $20. So a few hours work at minimum wage and you have a computer.
Re: Raspberry Pi Zero: the $5 computer
#359Earlier quoted context omitted.
Most of this is the case for using one Pi, but not a stack of Pies. Unless you have some sort of micro-AWS which turns off the 99% unused ones. Ten boards drawing 100mW at idle are the same as one board drawing 1W at idle.
Except that when one board fails out of 10, there are 9 others still alive whereas in the other case you are toast.
I would expect the complexities of distributing a workload over 10 boards would result in downtime far exceeding that of a single more powerful machine left doing its thing, for all but a few highly battle tested applications.
A fair accounting includes the fragility of software, not just hardware.
Re: Raspberry Pi Zero: the $5 computer
#360This is great, but for people who want to "get started in computing", don't they also need a display, a mouse and a keyboard? LCD screens are like, $100, a mouse is $10-$20 new and low-end keyboards are $10-$30. At that combined price, why does it matter if the computer is $25 or $5? And if one is going to outlay the 150 bucks in peripherals, they might as well spend a bit more than $5 on the computer to get a signif…
>LCD screens are like, $100 http://www.walmart.com/ip/41177602 >a mouse is $10-$20 new http://www.walmart.com/search/?query=mouse&sort=price_low&ca...
Looks like your link broke walmarts website. Don't expect that from larger companies...