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Raspberry Pi reveals the final PCB design for the $25 PC

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Re: Raspberry Pi reveals the final PCB design for the $25 PC

#71

Post by polshaw »

wzdd wrote: post #38
kvermeer wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The part that's suspicious is the $25 price point (the BeagleBoard is $125, the BeagleBone is $90, the Gumstix is $150-$250 depending on configuration). How many products can you name for under $50 (2x the cost of the Raspberry Pi) that approach its specs and capabilities? Also, they're aiming for user-friendliness to the point where it is supposed to be an educational product for young people. These are both really,…

The tplink wr703n is a 400mhz MIPS computer with a USB port, an Ethernet port, and wireless networking which sells for about $20 (on volumerates.com, which is unfortunately down at the moment). It has a completely functional Linux port and is supported by OpenWRT. Not as fast, and fewer peripherals than the Raspberry Pi, but an indication that the $25 price point on the pi is doable, I think.

Thanks for mentioning that, very interesting. Link for the lazy: http://www.volumerates.com/product/genuine-tp-link-tl-wr703n... The 32MB of ram restricts the applications quite a bit unfortunately.

Amazing to think the impact of these low-cost computers.. goodbye expensive routers, NAS, set top boxes, PVRs, media centres. It can't be too long before they (ARM devices) start eating into the low end laptop market.

Re: Raspberry Pi reveals the final PCB design for the $25 PC

#72

Post by beagle3 »

101000101 wrote: post #14
beagle3 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> For real portability, how about an SD system thumb drive I can plug into any computer, and it boots as my computer. Linux distributions have been doing this very successfully for the past 9 years (knoppix paved the way, but almost every linux distribution today can run live from a CD/SD/DiskOnKey, and store your data on an SD/DiskOnKey (the same one, if properly partitioned). And it's unlikely a hotel or your stude…

A comment like Joe's really surprises me. Time and again I see brilliant coders who for whatever reason cannot see the path to making their own live USB/SD sticks. But there's a better solution than beagle's suggestion. Sell hardware that has no bundled OS. Sell different OS's on removable media (e.g. memsticks). Or users can create their own OS memsticks. Apple is primarily a hardware company, as evidenced by the va…

I've read all of Joe's comments in this thread, and I'm not really surprised. He is either a troll (and not a very successful one if he is), or, more likely, a bigot who believes that the any software worth running costs >$100 (office, photoshop).

Unfortunately, he represents a non-negligible majority of users out there. But I care not discussing anything with him and his like on HN. I've got better use for my time.

Re: Raspberry Pi reveals the final PCB design for the $25 PC

#73

Post by montecarl »

What would be the best way to interface a 2.5" hard drive with one of these? A USB to sata controller? That seems bulky if you want to have it in one case. I'd like to find a compact way to add some storage to the device as I am interested in using it as a media player.

Re: Raspberry Pi reveals the final PCB design for the $25 PC

#74

Post by ctdonath »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #44
ctdonath wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Au contraire, it's perfect for kids. First off (as a parent of two toddlers) it's CHEAP; if a kid manages to destroy it (the little entropy generators kids are), so what - get another. Next, it starts so simple (and CHEAP) that you'll have no qualms about running simple cheap software on it. Then, you'll think nothing of putting money into a computer for any/all TV in the house (I'm waffling about a Mac Mini, but a R…

Sounds idyllic; but what are you going to run? The latest Office suite? Photoshop? Whatever you answer, the cost dwarfs the device, and swamps its processing power. So, we're talking about teaching kids to use some special kid-computer with software/tools they will never encounter ever again. What tools are these? A BASIC interpreter?

In 6th grade I learned programming on a $100 computer with 1/1,000th the speed of this and 1/1,000,000th the memory and, yes, a BASIC interpreter.

Load DSL (Damn Small Linux) on this, get gcc set up with a decent minimal text editor, and yes I'll start them with C++ from the ground up - akin to how I started, but with industry standard tools from square 1 and more introduced as they progress.

Re: Raspberry Pi reveals the final PCB design for the $25 PC

#75

Post by tesseract »

polshaw wrote: post #64
tesseract wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You couldn't build one yourself anyway, because Broadcom won't sell you parts or even talk to you unless you're doing volumes like 100k/quarter. And then you'll probably need to sign an NDA to get the datasheet. I see the Raspberry Pi project as an attempt by Broadcom to build some goodwill - but they seem more interested in doing so among society at large by producing a super-affordable computer for kids, than among…

Rasberry Pi is not a project run by broadcom, just using their SoC (and featuring one of their employees). They are selling the first round to nerds / hardware hackers, and I doubt many others will choose to pay 4x the price to keep using the beagleboard.

I understand the project isn't actually run by Broadcom but I think the fact that Broadcom is selling them chips indicates some level of interest in what they are doing. They aren't exactly 'just another customer'.

Re: Raspberry Pi reveals the final PCB design for the $25 PC

#76

Post by kennywinker »

montecarl wrote: post #73

What would be the best way to interface a 2.5" hard drive with one of these? A USB to sata controller? That seems bulky if you want to have it in one case. I'd like to find a compact way to add some storage to the device as I am interested in using it as a media player.

It's got an SD card slot.

Re: Raspberry Pi reveals the final PCB design for the $25 PC

#77

Post by aidenn0 »

101000101 wrote: post #32
DanBC wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

uh, you can run other OSs on Apple hardware. It's a little bit trickier because of EFI but it's not hard. What you can't do (Apple say) is run Apple OSs on non-Apple hardware.

I don't want the Apple OS. Remove it completely from the hardware, make the firmware more friendly to non-Apple OS, then I'll buy more Apple hardware. Other than NetBSD, I was not aware it's "easy" to run other OS's on Apple hardware. Knowing Apple, I'm still not sure I believe it. But I will investigate. Thanks for the FYI.

It's actually pretty easy to do. I've seen several Windows, several BSDs and linuxes as well as some open-solaris derivative on x86 Macs.

The PowerPC macs are a bit less well supported just because there are fewer distros for PowerPC, but on the other hand, since apple's pretty much abandoned them, going with linux or a BSD has its own advantages

Re: Raspberry Pi reveals the final PCB design for the $25 PC

#78

Post by 101000101 »

beagle3 wrote: post #72
101000101 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A comment like Joe's really surprises me. Time and again I see brilliant coders who for whatever reason cannot see the path to making their own live USB/SD sticks. But there's a better solution than beagle's suggestion. Sell hardware that has no bundled OS. Sell different OS's on removable media (e.g. memsticks). Or users can create their own OS memsticks. Apple is primarily a hardware company, as evidenced by the va…

I've read all of Joe's comments in this thread, and I'm not really surprised. He is either a troll (and not a very successful one if he is), or, more likely, a bigot who believes that the any software worth running costs >$100 (office, photoshop). Unfortunately, he represents a non-negligible majority of users out there. But I care not discussing anything with him and his like on HN. I've got better use for my time.

Maybe he works for a company that sells software priced at over $100?

I have no doubt such companies have employees, or contractors, who not only monitor message boards on behalf of the company, but who post comments on them in a deliberate attempt to influence discussions in ways favorable to the company's interests. Whether they are effective is another question. But they are trying.

Younger readers should be aware of this as they are the ones being targetted.

Perhaps it's not that a majority of users are convinced price equates to quality control so much as a majority are aggressively manipulated in terms of what information about software they are exposed to.

Re: Raspberry Pi reveals the final PCB design for the $25 PC

#79

Post by nobody31415926 »

srl wrote: post #54
101000101 wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't want the Apple OS. Remove it completely from the hardware, make the firmware more friendly to non-Apple OS, then I'll buy more Apple hardware. Other than NetBSD, I was not aware it's "easy" to run other OS's on Apple hardware. Knowing Apple, I'm still not sure I believe it. But I will investigate. Thanks for the FYI.

_I was not aware it's "easy" to run other OS's on Apple hardware. Knowing Apple, I'm still not sure I believe it._ I run linux (arch now, but once ubuntu) on a MacBook5,4. It's somewhat harder to get set up if you want to dual boot (the dual partitioning scheme is finicky, and although linux doesn't need it, OS X forces you to use it if there's a foreign OS, ugh..). See http://wiki.freebsd.org/AppleMacbook and https:…

I installed Windows as dual boot on a friends Mac. It's far easier than installing it on a windows PC. Put in the windows disk and follow the Apple instructions - it includes all the drivers and even gave advice about sharing files .

Re: Raspberry Pi reveals the final PCB design for the $25 PC

#80

Post by kennywinker »

srl wrote: post #54
101000101 wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't want the Apple OS. Remove it completely from the hardware, make the firmware more friendly to non-Apple OS, then I'll buy more Apple hardware. Other than NetBSD, I was not aware it's "easy" to run other OS's on Apple hardware. Knowing Apple, I'm still not sure I believe it. But I will investigate. Thanks for the FYI.

_I was not aware it's "easy" to run other OS's on Apple hardware. Knowing Apple, I'm still not sure I believe it._ I run linux (arch now, but once ubuntu) on a MacBook5,4. It's somewhat harder to get set up if you want to dual boot (the dual partitioning scheme is finicky, and although linux doesn't need it, OS X forces you to use it if there's a foreign OS, ugh..). See http://wiki.freebsd.org/AppleMacbook and https:…

I tossed a ubuntu cd in my MacBook Pro, rebooted holding down option, and it booted up just fine. Could it be easier?
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