Bit late to go buy one then...
Bugger, would have been nice to grab a potential bit of history, not surprised they sold out quickly, but 10,000 in minutes... props!
The first batch of 10,000 ARM-powered Raspberry Pi computers went on sale at 6am GMT on Wednesday - and sold out within minutes. According to distributor Premier Farnell, there were at least 600 orders, visits or pre-orders every SECOND, producing a 300 per cent hike in web traffic. The electronic component sales site was …
Would this be an option? (found on the heise.de forum)
http://rhombus-tech.net/allwinner_a10/
The Allwinner A10 CPU has been developed in, and is sold in, the People's Republic of China. Its mass-volume price is around $7, yet it is a 400-pin highly feature-rich 1.5ghz ARM Cortex A8 with a MALI400 GPU. It has the distinction of having the highest bang-per-buck ratio of any SoC available at the time of writing, by quite a margin. Features of the Allwinner A10 include:
1.5ghz Cortex A8 ARM Core
MALI400MP OpenGL ES 2.0 GPU
2160p Hardware-accelerated Video playback (4x the resolution of 1080p)
up to 1gb of DDR3 (800mhz) RAM
a NAND Flash Controller that is capable of 8-way concurrent DMA (8 NAND ICs) as well as supporting up to 500mhz DDR2 RAM
4 SDIO interfaces (SD 3.0, UHI class)
USB 2.0 Host as well as a 2nd USB-OTG Interface (USB-OTG can be reconfigured as USB 2.0 Host, automatically)
24-pin RGB/TTL as well as simultaneous HDMI out
SATA-II 3gb/sec
10/100 Ethernet (MII compatible)
a 2nd 24-pin RGB/TTL interface that is multiplexed (shared) on the same pins for a standard IDE (PATA) interface.
GPIO, I2C, PWM, Keyboard Matrix (8x8), built-in Resistive Touchscreen Controller, and much more.
Ordered mine at about mid-day after F5ing the Farnell website all morning. The order confirmation came through saying it would be delivered on the week commencing 16th April. Bit disappointed but I had no urgent need for one anyway. Maybe this will give some time for developers to get some decent stuff out there for it.
RS was just showing a form to register interest in it.
Thought I was doing well ordering it through the Irish site, until the delivery note was emailed with an ETA of 16th April.
I wonder how much of these sales are the likes of HUKD-ers buying for the sake of it being a bargain, then a small circuit board arrives and they don't have a clue what to do with it and go back to their laptops and iPads.
My mother-in-law bought an object in an M&S sale for the sole reason that it cost 50p. She had absolutely no idea what it was, but "it was cheap!" and she simply can't walk past a "bargain". (It turned out to be a USB hub, so quite a good deal theoretically if not for the fact I already have two.)
I got to the Farnell (Ireland) site at about 06:01 Thankfully I already had an active account. But unfortunately I had a pile of stuff already in the shopping cart that I was only half thinking of buying. So it was about 06:13 before I got all the crap out of the cart and managed to get an order through. The few items I had left in the cart (some soldering flux and capacitors... don't ask) have now shipped. But the Pi has not. It is in "back order" state with no date given. However this is to be expected as Raspberry-Pi-Liz tweeted that they had not arrived from China yet. So I'm still hopeful I might get one from the first batch. Fingers crossed!!
BTW: A big congrats to the Raspberry people... they deserve a good lie in tomorrow morning! It's a shame that a tiny minority of people gave them hassle. They have been so professional throughout.
Fairly professional. The immediate pre-launch and launch were a balls up though.
No emails sent to subscribers, instead many people found out via HUKD.
Displayed the choice of two distributors to buy from. With option 2 not selling any.
I remember reading this was supposed to be 'available' on 20th Feb, but delivery still looks like 2 months away.
That's the idea of the early geek launch.
By september there will be apps, tutorials,course materials etc all freely available online
It might have been better if they had allowed pre-orders a year ago for people on their mailing lists allowing them to build an initial 100K - but it wouldn't have got the press interest.
Unfortunately being in Cyprus means i'll prob have to wait a little longer than most (although RS Cyprus is just a forwarding address from RS UK technically) for my little beauty!
Registered my interest with RS UK for the moment but it'll give me plenty of time to find a suitable case for it.
Amazing that the site is still (20:00 +2 GMT) on the static webpage to conserve bandwidth!
Well, it's a small low-power computer with some hardware acceleration for media, so maybe they'll use it as a small, low-power computer that can do some hardware-accelerated media stuff.
Or, for example, if your cable box is fucking shite and uses 20W in standby just so you can have fast access to an EPG instead of waiting for an hour after it turns on, instead of paying $15 per year in electricity for the privilege of fast EPG access to find out whether there's anything worth watching on TV, you could have a little low-power media server that could read the information off the internet and display it for you. Maybe it could stream some music from Pandora for you while you check the TV listings at the same time, which your Blu-Ray player can't do.
Well, a lot of keyboard-playing musicians and electronica enthusiasts generally are currently using laptops for their virtual instruments and FX. If you're using VSTs/VSTIs, the standalone-box alternatives are vastly expensive (Muse Research Receptor) or rather unreliable (SMPro V-Machine). I can definitely envisage someone using a Raspberry Pi as the basis for an alternative.
See, I was thinking exactly along those lines. But I don't think it physically has the oomph to handle some of the larger VSTs, such as Guitar Rig (which I use on a regular basis), or some of the Pianos. I think it would be a case of clustering say, 4 of them in a box, assigning a VST to each one, and then having hardware switches on the front join the dots between inputs and outputs.
At least, that's my plan :-D
And odd thing for someone to say when their web site has been down for much of the day.
I pity the poor fools who got up before six this morning to do frenzied 'F5 battle' against the other 100K+ who had expressed their interest and expected it to be any different than it was. Of course it would have lowered load if people had been given direct links from the foundations' announcement site, not told to go to the Farnell or RS and search. Ho hum.
Both RS and Farnell now seem to be treating it as an opportunity to build up their mailing list numbers with just their 'express an interest' pages than any option to actually pre-order. Indications from those who did place orders is mid to late April seems the earliest most people can expect to receive one. Will be interesting to see how many go up on eBay before then.
Feeling smug.
Farnell have given me an EDD of w/c 12th March
Sat there participating in a manual DDOS for nearly to hours - 7:53 order time.
Although I had managed to register interest on the RS site a long time before then. I'll either decline that offer if/when it comes through or get it for a friends 8 y/old who already loves scratch.
Mid-may is my EDD. I'm not bothered; it'll be fun when it gets here. With any luck I'll have figured out what I want to do with it by then. There may be some giants' shoulders I can easily stand on to achieve it by then as well.
I can't be the only dilettante wannabe-hacker who's quite keen to encourage "proper" IT in our curriculum, not just lessons in how to use Microsoft Publisher and Facebook Studies? IF nothing else, I reckon my kid'll get a blast out of seeing a tiny board functioning as a real computer. I still have fond memories of the blinking light on my Dad's ELF II...
"Huge respect for what??"
Huge respect for working incredibly hard and dedicating themselves to a noble and worthy cause, trying to spark an interest and educate younger generations in developing technology. Actually getting off their backsides and doing something to try and continue this countries proud tradition of engineering and looking to secure that reputation in future years to come.
As opposed to you, a nobody, a nothing, who's only contribution is to make snarky, ignorant comments off the back of other peoples best efforts.
For actually creating something - a real something that really ships real things to real users.
Not just a social media site to share links to other social media sites. - That's worth an awesome in itself
Then this is going to enable lots of people to do things with computers that they didn't think of. Yes most of them are going to el'reg readers who already have a dozen PCs making XBMC players - but this just means more units being built to go to schools and kids.
Any government with an ounce (25gm) of foresight would have lent them $20M to make an initial run of a million - for less than it's cost them to print the brochures about the next "key stage achievement target ratio of excellence in ITC teaching".
Surprised to see Farnell still borked over 12hrs later. I was going to register for the next batch, but I guess not. I hope those that have bagged one are active in the community and build some great projects so when I eventually get mine, i'm not limited by my own imagination. Plus 10,000+ units in, hopefully any bugs and manufacturing kinks will be worked out.
Oh, and any bookies running odds on how many will end up on ebay?
I would call that an impressive boast if it's actually true? Anyway - barebone dev kits have been around since, eh, can't remember - I'll guess decades. Is this new thingy really proper special step change stuff in some way or another or should I apologize for imagining I maybe smelled some hype?
> I would call that an impressive boast if it's actually true?
Both sites completely toasted for several hours. Yeah, they noticed[1].
> Anyway - barebone dev kits have been around
This isn't a barebones dev board - you want the STM32F4-discover for that.
The Raspberry Pi is a complete computer. Just add ancillaries (power, keyboard, display) and it runs a full desktop.
> Is this new thingy really proper special step change stuff in some way
That's certainly the plan. I suspect it will be - if they can produce enough of the things (hint hint, James - ten to bloody six I got up this morning, and for nothing).
> should I apologize for imagining I maybe smelled some hype?
Probably, yes.
Vic.
[1] Let's face it, you'd have to be *seriously* incompetent not to. Even Farnell, "special" as they are, aren't that bad...
> Is this .. really proper special step change stuff or ... hype?
Both.
It's remarkably cheap for a single board computer that can give you a Linux GUI (e.g. compare BeagleBoard prices - if you can find a UK supplier). Normally at this price you'd be fiddling around flashing LEDs on a PIC in assembler or some cut-down version of C (C-- ?).
OTOH every time I've heard throughout 2011 how wonderful it is, buried in the press release has also been notice of a further slip in the delivery date. So I'm glad I didn't get up by 6 am to find out that the Big Announcement was merely that you might, if you were lucky, be able to register to pre-order one, with actual product still being a month (months?) away.
(I work at a company which produces electronics, usually more complex boards, with more common chip packages)
After all those 10k just take a day or so to run though the SMT mounter. It doesn't have a lot of parts. It would be trivial to just tell the manufacturer to just build a few times as many, at least if they can get the parts quickly.
Just as a point of reference, SMT mounters can mount about 10-100k parts an hour, depending on the mounter. This board doesn't seem to have a lot of parts,so the 10k batch should be finished in a day. What's more noteworthy is that the setup of an SMT mounter often takes a day, depending on how well it works. Those are machines which heavily rely on mechanics for precision, and handle a lot of tiny little parts. It's not uncommon for a little capacitor or resistor to somehow get into the mechanics and cause the strangest artefacts.
> After all those 10k just take a day or so to run though the SMT mounter
I have a suspicion there was something of a cashflow issue getting more built.
With a bit of luck, the banks might see the demand that has been shown today, and not be such utter dicks in future.
Vic.
yes, it was cashflow.
But banks have nothing to do with ramping it up from here on out, they went with Farnell and RS because Farnell and RS will be funding future batches (from what I have read). This way batches can be made to equal demand, rather then to equal the amount Liz can pull out of equity.
Long term this was definitely the right call, even if both sites where totally incompetant when saying they could deal with load.
> I have a suspicion there was something of a cashflow issue getting more built.
Not quite sure about that. The argument for them not taking pre-orders was that they are, I cite: "adequately funded". That's better than requesting pre-payment for a device that might not be produced at all, but it almost guarantees that you won't meet demand. As someone wrote in a thread about the RPi, Unavailablium-based hardware is still better than vapor-based hardware...
Adequately funded for the first 10k run, the profits from that were to fund the next batch. Once it became clear that demand was going to be pretty high (and its has been much Much MUCH higher than even the wildest expectations),a different model was required - hence the bringing in of RS and Farnell who will now be doing manufacturer and distribution, with the Raspberry Pi foundation taking a fee for each board.
Re Cash Flow: If the RPI Foundation had carried on with the original plan of funding the builds itself then yes cash flow (Working capital) would have been a big problem (need £1M+). Given the massive demand handing over production responsibility to Farnell & RS is the only solution.
RE Ramping production. Sourcing the components couid be the bottleneck. The SoC may be single source and the crystal used whilst readily available in Europe isn't in Asia apparently. With most/all mass production now done alsewhere European distributors hold little stock.
n.b. I have just had in quotes from UK distributors for sockets and pins for the RaspberryPi GPIO port and two distributors are quoting 6 weeks delivery on 1000+ items (We're using them in a RTC module we have developed for the RPi)
That's hopefully the message Farnell and RS will take from this - There is a demand, a huge one, so get building!
I'm surprised it took the Foundation so long to realise they needed partners to meet the demand they'd created and left it so late in the day to bring them on board. If they had planned this sooner they could have had an orderly pre-ordering system with no getting up at the crack of dawn nonsense. Within days the partners would have seen the huge demand and been able to schedule a large first batch and probably meet all demand within a week or two. Everyone would have been happy.
It seems the Foundations issue was it did not want to take money up-front despite people willing to pre-order and companies like RS and Farnell hardly likely to run off with it. That was a poor decision IMO and meant no one could really tell what the interest really was.
The one thing I can't understand is why Broadcom weren't interested in facilitating production as it's their chip in the board. Perhaps because the level of interest could not be demonstrated? It seems Farnell and RS underestimated it; let's hope they can cope now people are looking at them to deliver the goods.
They probably didn't want to take money up front because of the risk if something went wrong. Taking pre-orders and then having to ship kit before it was ready is oddly enough something the UK computer industry was associated with in the early 80's. I suspect they'd want to avoid what happened to Sir Clive!
No seriously, no sarcasm (wow, thats so rare for me). My hats off to them for all the struggle and tears and work they've put into this off their own backs because they believed in it and have actually got some sold.
I bet you many people pooh-poohed them ever reaching market as they read the various blogs and announcements of plans and then eventual delays and issues that crept out. How many projects have you followed that looked so promising but never had the drive to get to that fabled 1.0 version and just disappeared in a whiff of disappoinment.
These guys, on a shoe string, and mostly by goodwill have found a way to get this thing shipped in a way that gives them a breathing space and hopefully lets them concentrate on what they want to do rather than having breakdowns and financial ruin. Every step of their process has been finding the best possible compromises whether it be time scales, or components, to keep to their design goal of price.
We've seen the hit even big companies like PC World/Comet have taken when there is great demand (HP I am looking at you) so congrats on having the same effect at 6 frigging am on two suppliers. Congrats on finding a business model that keeps you going and lets more of these be built going forward without the headache of continually financing it you've had upto now. Congrats on (without a marketing campaign) getting people talking about this and getting it shown prime time and getting people interested enough to decide whether its going to offer them something they want.
Ignore the nay-sayers about the validity of the project (personally I think its a great thing) you have actually done it and whilst it wasn't a 100% smooth launch, you've acted respectably (I love the way you are going after the ebay fleecers...) and done something damn near impossible because you believed in it and should be proud of everything you've done.
Looking around the media I suspect a lot of interest was due to claims that make for good titles but won't be easy to achieve:
"Cheap media server!" - how cheap once you add in a the obligatory case and power supply? Remote control? How many hours to set it up? I paid £30 for my Seagate Theater.
"Cheap computer" - Well, 256Mb RAM won't go very far for today's Javascript engines and large webpages.
"Good to learn the fundamentals of programming" - I'm sorry but wouldn't a normal computer provide a better environment for that? Maybe once you're past the fundamentals it could be interesting.
Some publications were even saying it had Wifi - it doesn't.
The marketing was truly on overdrive on this.
Sure it's good for a few projects - have some in mind myself - but I suspect many of those initial 10,000 will be spending their lives stuck in frustated owners' drawers quite soon.
> "Good to learn the fundamentals of programming" - I'm sorry but wouldn't a normal computer provide a better environment for that?
It would if you have one. However in the school environment it is intended for any PC will be locked down to prevent any unapproved learning so won't be available for hacking code. The pi provides a cheap alternative, and is supposed to be unbrickable (just swap in a re-imaged SD card).
Are you saying that most people don't own a computer so if they want to learn how to program they would have to do it in school? Because (at least in the developed world), that's wrong. Also, what makes the school environment a good place to learn to program? I don't know of any schools that allow you to stay in the classrooms unless it's for an approved after-school activity (which could be some sort of programming club, which would invalidate your hypothesis that it's not available for hacking code). So you're implying that school PCs *should* be available for hacking code during school hours, when you should be learning Math and English. Someone that can't do basic math, read, write, or speak well isn't going to do anyone any good and isn't going to get a job, even if he can program.
"So you're implying that school PCs *should* be available for hacking code during school hours, when you should be learning Math and English. Someone that can't do basic math, read, write, or speak well isn't going to do anyone any good and isn't going to get a job, even if he can program"
___________________
The team clearly criticised the I.T curriculum of UK schools and wanted programing to be available where word and excel were being taught instead of the programing availble in the past (when the team were at school)
Bjorg wrote:
> Are you saying that most people don't own a computer so if they want to learn how to program they would have to do it in school? Because (at least in the developed world), that's wrong.
No, I'm suggesting that school children who have access to computers just know how to use them (for social networking/media consumption at home or introductory MS Office, masquerading as ICT, at school). A few well-motivated children will learn to program by themselves but most children won't know it's even possible unless they are exposed to something like this at school.
> Also, what makes the school environment a good place to learn to program? I don't know of any schools that allow you to stay in the classrooms unless it's for an approved after-school activity (which could be some sort of programming club, which would invalidate your hypothesis that it's not available for hacking code). So you're implying that school PCs *should* be available for hacking code during school hours, when you should be learning Math and English.
Schools ought to be able to teach computing (some form of computer science) rather than just ICT (turning out the next generation of obedient MS office drones). The RPi is a handy platform to do that on. I don't think the school curriculum should be limited to two subjects.
> Someone that can't do basic math, read, write, or speak well isn't going to do anyone any good and isn't going to get a job, even if he can program.
Thank you, Sherlock. Such a student isn't going to get far programming.
Here are MY top 10 ideas for the Raspberry Pi,
1.Python Based Arcade Console
2.Python/PyGame Dev Tool
3.Portable Apps (to the extreme, http://www.portableapps.com)
4.Cheap School Computer Lab
5.Introduction into Linux, for the Windows/Mac users
6.HTPC
7.Messing with Hardware Dev
8.Small Embeded System Tasks (Electric Billboard)
9.Home Webserver
10.VNC Client
So, the Raspberry Pi will spend its life in a drawer will it
11. Car PC - with usb hub linking: gps, 3g dongle, front+rear cameras, ODBC-II connector, scrolling LED status display ... all running off a 12v 7ah sla slave battery .. will suck much less juice than the current netbook version.
12. Central Heating / Water controller ... hardware interfacing using GPIO pins ... wireless usb running web server allowing remote control using iphone/ipad html5 interface .. networked to one-wire weather station to inside/outside temps, baro, wind etc ... keeps history of weather status and manual heating actuations to learn heating habits.
13. House Alarm ... GPIO hardware interfacing to existing alarm zones .. remote monitoring/alerting .. PIR / door monitoring for movements .. runs off same alarm supply with ups.
Haha. Actually I'm less interested in the Alarm element (I live in an area of the UK where there is zero crime anyway .. its spooky but its true) ... I'm more interested in linking the PIR / door activations / Alarm set/unset events to the heating system so it does not heat the house up when no one is in etc.
I shall mostly just be attaching it to the back of the tv, with a small keyboard and mouse hidden away for use with it, connect it up to the router and use it for music & video from the internet.
Its under £25. And as powerful as the old pc i have in the loft that i keep meaning to do something with. That old pc only has a 17gb hard drive. I can put a 32gb sd card in this thing and its already "better".
If it'll play avi files my daughter can use to for watching her movies that i've got ripped onto the computer.
Sun Microsystems estimated that half of all programs written were written for embedded systems. The purpose of the Rasberry PI is to teach people how to write these embedded programs. Writing real time software for a PC is a very difficult proposition. It is far easier to teach embedded software development on a bare bones system such as the PI.
your Seagate media server doesn't do HDMI, so... Fail.
It browses the web just fine thanks... because it doesn't use IE.
Not really, you can trash a R-Pi and be back in business in 2 mins... not like a WinPC...
Well, it can do WiFi with a £2 USB stick...
I suspect the first 10K will be battered by hardware/software hackers...
> your Seagate media server doesn't do HDMI, so... Fail.
Wow really, if you say so I must be imagining the HDMI connection it's connected to.
> It browses the web just fine thanks... because it doesn't use IE.
Good luck running Firefox or Chrome with the V8 Javascript engine on a graphics/Javascript heavy page.
>Not really, you can trash a R-Pi and be back in business in 2 mins... not like a WinPC...
Trash a PC and recover in 2 minutes? Been there, done that. Heard of PXE boot?
>Well, it can do WiFi with a £2 USB stick.
Link to the Raspberry Pi compatible £2 USB Wifi stick please? Hopefully Linux supported?
At the moment I suspect that the uptake is mostly from adult IT people and doesn't reflect the true general demand for the pi within its target market. It isn't supposed to be a media server. There's no SATA so it may all go wrong if you try to read and write a couple of HD video streams over USB. On the other hand, they are cheap enough to buy one per disk drive and cluster them, which might be an interesting project.
Larger computers provide a more complete environment, but at what cost? We aren't at the stage of be able to afford to give all the kids their own laptop. The idea is that these are pocket-money cheap for parents and not worth stealing once the kids get hold of them.
Also the larger computers may not be conducive to learning the fundamentals of programming. Bung in a browser and the kids will hit facebook and youtube in an instant. My own kids use Mathletics from school, but I've noticed that they spend half the time playing with the character at the side of the page. The shiny-shiny of the computer detracts from the learning process. With their own computers I can also lock down the network without having to bother with multiple user accounts or proxy user authentication. They can use their own and stay off mine. If you have a TV with several HDMI inputs you can leave them plugged into that.
A browser runs its own VM for javascript so we have computers within computers already at that point. The Pi will cope fine with programming languages - I had Pascal on my Apple ][+ with just a few kb RAM. I had C running on a 386 with 4Mb RAM. The Pi with 256Mb will do Ruby if you want abstraction but I think the idea is that you learn about assembly, stacks, linked-lists and arrays. C is a good starting point to ease the pain of assembly and helps you learn how a computer actually works. C++ and Ruby give you more object-oriented design facilities.
Perhaps this is Borland's big break! :D
> I suspect many of those initial 10,000 will be spending their lives stuck in frustated owners' drawers quite soon.
I don't know about that. The Beagleboards sell quite well (given the limited maket) and they cost roughly 5 times as much. I personally considered buying some basic beagleboards but I was put off by the price. I will happily buy a few Raspberry Pis when they become available here (I even have the OK from my SO for pre-order, which is newsworthy on it's own). Let me tell you, they won't sit in a drawer.
As for your other aguments, way to miss the point... this thing is a hacker's wet dream. Good for teaching, too, I guess.
It is not supposed to be an end-user-ready device. If I have to solder a WiFi chip on it for specific applications, I will happily do so. These are not expensive (that's if I can't make it happen /via/ USB; an unlikely scenario to begin with).
As for the box, well, anyone with a well-tooled shed will know what to do. Failing that, a pair of scissors, some cardboard and a roll of tape might very well do the job.
As for teaching the fundamentals of programming, a "real" computer may arguably be better. Where can I find one for 35 bucks? Also, anything that may encourage kids to code efficiently and avoid bloat is good.
> a "real" computer may arguably be better. Where can I find one for 35 bucks?
My numerous* free machines notwithstanding, of course. Students can't be expected to be good scavengers from the start.
*seven an counting. Including the Dell workstation I'm posting this from. In my case, "fanless" is more important than "cheap".
35 bucks is for the little board only - add:
Case (with locks so students to steal it)
Power supply
Monitor with at least DVI (and HDMI to DVI adapter if monitor doesn't have HDMI, cheap ones usually don't)
Keyboard
Mouse
USB Hub (since board only has two ports, students need USB storage)
SD Card
How much are we talking now? I suspect closer to the £150 range - depends on the monitor, but really cheap monitors usually are VGA only not DVI as required.
I now present you an All in One PC with Intel Pentium 3Ghz Windows XP - 1GB RAM - 80GB HDD for £169:
http://www.studentcomputers.co.uk/RM_All_in_One_PC_3000-1024_Refurbished_G_1405261.html
Power supply - Use your phone charger, they are all Micro USB these days. Sorry Nokia ;)
SD Card - Come on, you must have a few knocking around. Even so, £10 or under
USB hub/Mouse/Keyboard - Use your own or buy some for cheap. Ebuyer do some for £2-3 each.
Monitor: The whole point is that this can plug into monitors AND TVs. Your thinking is so small; think about the family TV, which has HDMI inputs. The whole point of the RasPi is that it harks back to days of yore when your $old-console plugged into the living room TV.
Case: I'm sure some enterprising people will have something available soon with the ability to loop a Kensington lock around it.
> Your thinking is so small; think about the family TV, which has HDMI inputs.
No, sorry, your attention span is so small - that you're missing the context. The claim was that the Raspberry Pi is a perfect new computer for students.
For that application, either at school or at home, you need a monitor (or a TV, but any TV with HDMI will be more expensive).
Students are not about to hog the family TV with their computer, that may have worked back in Sinclair days but not in the age of the Internet and Facebook. It also doesn't work in schools, where obviously you need a monitor.
Once you add up all those costs you start getting into cheap PC territory.
Still wrong.
Even assuming a monitor or TV needs to be purchased new, you're vastly overestimating cost.
Your assumption on what a family might allow on the family TV is your problem, not a problem everyone else has. I'd be happy for my kids to make use of the TV for something like this.
Most schools already have a bank of PC's and associated peripherals like monitors, you appear to be assuming they are going to bin all the old kit.
I'm not wrong, at the very least I'm as right as you are.
No, I'm not overestimating the cost. Please find out the prices for the equipment (as new) and let me know how far I'm off.
You also making the assumption yourself that a family will not have issues with their kid hogging the TV. It's not my problem, it's a fair assumption given many families like watching TV. Who's assumption is right or wrong? We'll see.
Most school's bank of existing monitor will not have the necessary HDMI/DVI connection. Old, cheap, monitors are schools are usually VGA only.
Again you're assuming that their monitors will be up to scratch - or you simply forgot about this small but relevant detail.
I'm not going to spend any time composing a detailed rebuttal highlighting the multitude of reasons that you are not correct as you are an arse.
The Raspberry Pi is an excellent piece of kit for the money and I'm sure it will become a valuable educational tool.
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Why lock it when the plan is for every student to have their own? The case will (for the educational version) be included in the price. I have knowingly bought a device without a case...
I have a great keyboard with a mini USB hub, that'll deal with the storage - or you could lose the mouse. I mean, who needs them? :)
Personally I have umpteen keyboards/mice lying around, and with networked storage (or even just a second partition on the SD card) I don't need more. An unpowered hub might be useful - maybe £2?
Monitor? I'll be using my telly thank you. A DVI-HDMI convertor might make it's way into a kit if I do buy a second for my friends kid.
Ones that run xbmc and ones that don't. _Every_ media centre I've seen that doesn't has some unconfigurable niggles that annoy me. Besides, I think it comes with a PSU, and seeing as it's that tiny it doesn't need a case; just blu-tac it to the back of the telly (or use the lego design someone's already made).
Plus you can use it to do other 'always on' low power stuff like bit torrent / usenet if that's your kind of thing without consuming lots of power.
I remember getting my Sinclair ZX81 and a few decades later having to break it to my own brain that I am actually a bit of a thick twat that couldn't program himself out of a wet cardboard box. So Kudos to those that can! And who knows this may just open some door some where for somebody. It certainly won't do no harm!
I'm gonna get one coz it's got an audio jack. Try and run some VST shit on it. We'll see.
Congrats to them anyway!
I heard it will have dual floppy disc drives and bundled with a copy of Elite. ;-)
Seriously though, the Pi is cool and can't wait to see what people are doing with it. The GPU looks very impressive. Shame it can't be made in the UK for the same price though. That would have been the icing on the cake.
There is a demand for small cheap computers... The raspberry pi might only be a board, but adding a tiny plastic case, psu and cheap usb keyboard/mouse won't cost a huge amount... Such devices could have great mass market appeal, and could be used with your TV since they have HDMI by default.
Kind of why the first netbooks were successful, small and cheap... The netbook market got screwed however as modern netbooks generally are neither small nor cheap. They are just smaller and lower spec than regular laptops, come bundled with the same software (but run it very slowly, making them look bad in comparison) and aren't much cheaper.
I read a tweet by an employee of JPL a few month ago in which he stated that he wanted a Rasberry PI. The PI has also been mentioned in CNET podcasts. Every geek in the World wants one. Even if people are just curious, the PI costs so little that they will buy one to see what the fuss is all about.
I ordered 2 from Farnell at 5pm. The web site suggested at the time that I should expect my PIs in 30 days. I have no idea when they will actually arrive. This is almost as exciting as when I ordered a ZX80 for £99 in 1980.
I predict that within 6 months sales of the PI will exceed total sales to date of the iPad. Given the certainty that there will be sales at this level, my recommendation is that computer game writers who want to make a little money start porting their games to OpenGL on the PI.
RP Knew the launch was going to be big and followed advice given to them and acted upon it, so that at least there would be a site to show. Given the demand for information upon launch it would have been very silly to either risk getting swamped and having no page or taking their homepage down for a short time (and having no page to show) which would have been laughable. This was the best of options given that all updates were to be given over Twitter anyway.
The retailers were also advised about what would happen so they too could plan for it. They didn't listen, and their sites played peek-a-boo for most of the morning.
Anonymous coward for me as I have a better idea of what happened than most.
I thought this would be the last place to find posters calling the RaspberryPi 'computer' "just a board" and that people wont know what to do with it, collect dust etc.
It has RAM
It has bootable onboard removable storage
It has a CPU and GPU
It has HDMI
It has 3.5mm Audio out
It has USB 2
It has Ethernet
It is more populated than a barebones PC at ebuyer, but low power and a tiny form factor, giving it even more possibilities.
The distributors are selling kits to let you have it up and running as a fully functional computer on delivery day.
If you still think its just a board for devs and geeks, you need a history lesson.
Our IBM compatible PCs started life as a business machine with green screens and no sound.
Yep - When I get a chance to buy one I might try connecting up some batteries and see if I can find a really small hdmi monitor (like this one: http://www.lilliputuk.com/monitors/hdmi/5D-ii/ ) and see how portable it can be - though a 12v battery might be interesting, so maybe not that specific monitor...
ttfn
The rapid sell out reminds me of the same with Glastonbury in previous years. However, unlike that festival, they can make some more... and more... so hopefully no-one is disappointed, eventually. I'm so pleased for them for the well deserved popularity. I look forward to the next batch so that I can buy mine.
Those are exactly the kind of inflated figures I was talking about!
1M hits but none getting through. People were simply reloading like mad.
I was one of them!
Why not just say how many actual sales were made?
Just went to have a look at uk.farnell.com. Midnight 1st march.
Their front page throws up a box saying "Are you looking for the Raspberry Pi? Click here". I suspect their search engine was getting rather bogged down and they had to divert the load away from it. First time I've ever seen that on the front page of Farnell.
Well done to the Raspberry team, hope you enjoyed the beer.
I don't expect it to happen. Linux and GNU C (and even Python) are fundamentally different than the BBC and BBC BASIC.
When I was a boy, we owned a truck which could be crank started. My first motorcycle had one cylinder, and the carburetor could be disassembled without tools.
The Pi is more like my current vehicle. It takes at least an hour to remove and replace the inlet manifold if you want to check the spark plugs. Small city cars are easier to park, but not a lot easier to service.
This is the nut. It wasn't the BBC Model B that lit up students imagination, it was the BASIC ROM that came with it. All of sudden, within 30 seconds of typing you could run a program that actually did something.
For the Pi to provide the same instant gratification, you first have to install a Linux distro, configure it, install source libraries for your chosen language (none of which are as easy to learn as BASIC), and then jump through several more hoops to input your program and run it.
For example, on the BBC:
10 PRINT "HELLO WORLD"
RUN
On the Pi:
(1. Open a text editor)
sub main () {
printf("hello world");
}
(2. save file)
(3. open console)
(4. navigate to file location)
(5. run a compiler, if you even know what one of those is).
(6. run your program)
Steps 2 to 6 assume you already know the basics of how Linux works.
Because of this, I see the Pi failing to make an impact in schools. Also, students don't want a 'Hello World' program, they want 'Angry Birds 2012' and don't understand that it takes WAY more time than a typical ICT school lesson to create even the most basic of games.
> it was the BASIC ROM that came with it.
If it's Basic you want, you could always run it on the Pi...
> you first have to install a Linux distro, configure it, install source libraries
If there is demand, someone will pre-configure a distro for that. The images will be available for download, and the SD cards will be available for purchase. Anyone can do this.
The only thing to prevent it happening is if no-one really wants it to.
Vic.
Except, the education release will come with everything preinstalled, and could, if required, boot to a Python prompt. Or if you really want, a Basic prompt.
Interestingly, a recent school trial where the students were helped to write a 'snake' program (Python I think) was extremely popular - they didn't want to go for lunch! Not sure if that a reflection on the quality of the teaching or the quality of lunch. It didn't even use the educational release.
Please give the children of today some credit. They may want angry birds, but they also know you have to learn to crawl before you can walk.
I wasn't aware that the EDU version would ship fully configured from a software point of view thank you for enlightening me. :) This of course mitigates much of what I said.
I saw in an earlier thread that you are part of the Pi team?
My wife showed me a tweet from someone wondering what the fuss was about. "I mean it's not a real computer like an iPhone or an iPad. You can't just use it" Not sure what's worse - her assumption that now "media consumption devices" are computers or that real computers aren't useful.
I fail to see how this device will help many school kids get to real grips with microprocessor technologies. In the late '60s-early '80s we bought chips, obtained the support manuals, learned the device architectures and instruction sets and built ourselves (admittedly idiosyncratic and limited) microsystems from scratch, and we learned to do all this without formal instruction by trial and error. We could do this solely because the devices were simple and transparently documented.
This device, neat as it is, is extremely complex and non-transparent in terms of hardware and, by virtue of using a high level OS, presents to the user such an abstracted view of the machine that very little more can be learned than would be possible using a conventional PC running linux.
A much better starting point for imparting fundamental principles to school kids would be based on a simple device such as mid-range PIC (for which many affordable demonstrators are already available), coupled with programming in C and assembler. The essential task is not to take the current "hacker kids" to a higher level (they're already self-motivated enough) but to bring a basic understanding of systems principles to as wide a sector of the population as possible - so we must start simple. This offering sits half way home, rather than at the starting line.
If kids want the real low-level stuff then they or you could buy a FIGnition (http://sites.google.com/site/libby8dev/fignition/buy-it) @ £20, solder it together and program it in Forth. You will even get the 80's style 'joy' of extreme direct typing in of programs on an 8-button keyboard and trying to write the shortest lunar lander.
However, people are missing the point when they glibly say... "you can use any available PC to learn programming on" or "linux is too high level to learn how computers work".
The RasPi offers a lot of things...
+ An EXTREMELY cheap (~£30 delivered in the UK for Model B) standalone 'PC' which can be used for almost any type of home computing out of the box and programmed on directly (no AVR/PIC programming PC required). So it will allow kids to 'own' their own PC that they can plug in to their TV in bedrooms and get beyond just playing games if they want to. So exposure to personal computing outside of a rigid and somewhat limited school ICT curriculum with the ability to learn by breaking/hacking things.
+ The RasPi has GPIO pins available for direct hardware level hacking and there is a 'Gertboard' on its way which expands the low-level I/O capabilities (and you have to solder it together). Other 'add-on' boards are planned as well (including an on-board camera).
Personally, I'm just happy to get a very cheap, very small, very low-power, Unix-based single board PC that I can use to create any number of low-level home/car-automation projects with .. but with full support for high-level scripting and programming languages .. to create your own "Internet of Things".
The fact that the profit made from the hundreds of thousands of RasPi's being sold will be ploughed back in to creating teaching materials, hardware add-ons and supporting the development of computer science courses within schools is a rather nice side-effect.
Great seeing all the people here comparing this to Sinclair and platforms like them.
Guess what: Kids have better things these days. No one >needs< to build their own computer now.
ARMv6? This is bullshit. Bet Broadcom is laughing all the way to the bank after finding a way of shifting chips no one else wanted.
AC because there's some truly fucked up Raspberry fanbois/employees out there.
Personally , I think you are the one who is fucked up - mainly because of the lack of most facts in your post. Broadcom make very little profit on these chips, and will have to make *more* chips to fulfil the demand of this device. The chip is already used in loads of Roku2 devices, so there is someone else who want the chip. They are not the only ones.
Armv6. That fact is right, but so what? It works. It's fast enough for the target market.
AC, because you are a tosser. If you don't want one, don't buy it. But don't slag off those who do want it.
Ah Raspberry employees calling people tossers, what's new...
Come on Jimmy old boy, we both know that's not the whole story on the 2835...
And the Roku 2 ? Isn't that being quickly replaced by the Roku Streaming Stick, which uses a completely different chipset? Oh, yes it is. Guess they won't be wanting your chip anymore.
Ouch.
FYI, Raspberry Pi doesn't have any employees. Just volunteers. And generally we only call people tossers who start off that way.
I don;t know about the streaming stick - since it requires a MHL equipped telly (got one of those? Unlikely) it's not likely to sell well yet. And fear not, the 2835's are selling fine just as they are.
Just out of interest, what IS the whole story on the 2835? Or at least your version of it.
Oh, and it you want a proper discussion, stop posting AC. I don't need to, you obviously feel the need to. Why?
2.5 Million Roku 2s? Wow, that sounds like such a large number. I get it you're good at marketing.
But I'll tell you another large number.
Cost of lithographic mask set - alone - to produce those CPUs: > $3 million
No one else outside of Roku was using the chips in the market and they're about - or already have - dropped off. Sounds like you need to ship a few more to break even.
First I'll say this is a wonderful thing - a few years ago I realised that so many computer parts just hooked up via USB that the actual computer itself could be tiny, just plug in the bits you need. And here it is.
But I can't imagine what this provides that can't already be done with existing computers. Most parents can afford to buy their kids a cheap lappy, and programming languages are available, so what's new? Just the fact that it's so much cheaper, you might get one for your kid to muck around on, put some educational games on it, before you trust them with a full-fat laptop?
I suspect the main allure is people wanting cheap media players, or other uses. If I could load up my son's favourite movies (Cars, etc) on a USB stick and plug one into his telly, that would keep him happy now that his cheapo DVD player has seized up.
Back in the 80s games were unsophisticated 2D character based affairs, and we really could write games ourselves that weren't too far off the commercial fare. Good luck getting kids motivated to write a 3D FPS blast-fest on ANY device, let alone this one. I think you'd have more luck setting up a well supported Open Source community around an Android games kit for the kids' mobile phones. Mobile is where it's at, they are all glued to their phones and tablets these days.
10/10 for trying, and I'm sure it will be a success in many ways, but not so much for the educational angle intended.
Maybe not, but new kids will be doing something they've not done before and, assuming their school has standard PCs/MACs, can't really do without emulators etc.
It seems a bit like saying student nurses don't learn anything new, that is not a reason to stop training more or trying to find cheaper ways of doing so (without degrading quality).
It is ideal for schools as while parents may in many cases have bought their offspring a laptop, here's an inexpensive unit that is identical across a class and easy to re-format if corrupted (so no loss of precious songs, photos, homework etc).
I'm buying one for the IT teacher to evaluate, just as soon as I can get the order processed.
Look at what happened to the very humble Linksys NSLU2 (designed as a simple NAS device) - got quite a large community of users using it as a media server, web server, print server or more advanced NAS, some even used it as an audio player. Same is true of various other hacked NAS devices / wireless routers.
The Pi is much better mainly due to the HDMI and audio ports and the fact that it is actually designed to be hacked, so you don't have to follow "interesting" processes to first of all "root" them. It might not sell in millions, but expect a considerable following. This is a nice piece of kit. I can use it immediately to directly replace both of my NSLU2s... and do quite a lot more, for example.
On the RPI forums: I predicted that the servers would fall over (I gave it a 10-1 chance)
I also predicted they will sell 500,000 this year, I'm now revising that up! (As I thought production would be the limiting factor)
I now predict it will be a game changer in more ways than I can think of!
There wasn't a problem in manufacturing them in the UK, but the cost of importing the individual components incurred extra tax or import duty (cannot remember which), whereas importing the whole completed board didn't!
Since there are no component manufacturers for SMD (that I'm aware of) in the UK, it would simply be assembled here, as opposed to totally manufactured in UK PLC. However, even that would have meant a much higher price, which wouldn't have come down anytime soon since it is a government tax issue that is putting the price up.
It was only a matter of import duty, tax is always only VAT at 20% on final sale.
However AFAIK UK import duty on microprocessors is 0%, and I expect that to be the biggest cost in the Raspberry Pi. Not sure what components their team had problems with duty. They were never very straightforward about it - I'd have preferred some actual numbers...
Even then any import duty doesn't apply in other European countries, it's country specific.
A competitor? They've stated numerous times they're not worried about - and actually encourage - competition. Raspberry Pi is a foundation, not a for-profit corporation.
Also note I didn't say they needed to publish every detail of every component. A simple statement saying how much total import duty they were looking at to build it in the UK would be a good start.
Always got to be someone whining, seems to be the default for any new electronic product launched these days, when you see the things that have been done in the past with machines like the Sega Dreamcast, I think this has a place.
At these kind of prices this device has numerous possibilities, ok it won't replace a fully specced top of the range server or workstation, and is not designed to, but there are lots of projects for which this device will do quite nicely.
As something which will fit in the pocket quite easily and use TV output together with a flexible or small scale keyboard it would have been handy a few years ago when I was contracting and spending a lot of time in B&B's rather than carting a laptop everywhere, not too bad if it gets nicked or damaged either.
I started learning about computers with an Atari 400 initially with no storage and 16k Ram, the basic principles I learned were applicable on nearly every computer system I have used since from mainframes down to mobiles, I think it's short sighted to dismiss the effect this could have on education if we can get kids as enthused with using IT creatively as people were in the 80's, rather than just using whats plonked in front of them from the likes of Microsoft or Apple
How would you connect this to a B&B TV? Most of those don't have any connections, let alone HDMI. Even if you found a TV with RCA socket would you really be able to use any modern system properly on a 525 line PAL screen?
The justifications some people tell themselves are truly mind boggling. Well done RPI marketing team.
> The justifications some people tell themselves are truly mind boggling. Well done RPI marketing team.
Yet no one has claimed one could build a TARDIS with the Raspberry Pi! Massive selling point and a British tradition to boot.
Or have they? I might have missed it. Would not be surprised.
Seriously, though, wouldn't this thing be a lot better for most users if it was built into BBC Micro style case?
Sure the uncased board is useful for some of the applications mentioned here, but most users a keyboard is a requirement, and having a tiny unprotected circuit board dangling off 4 cables is just stupid.
Hopefully some enterprising person is already designing one.
Latest ETA from Farnells:
W/C 14/05/2012
The HUKDers who bought them because they were cheap will have realised by then that they don't have a clue what to do with them, and they'll be all over gumtree / facebook selling groups by then.
"RASPERY PI 4 SALE (NOT BORA, A3, IPAD)
SELING AS I CANT GET TEH WINDOS ON IT"
No doubt, the F5 DDOS push against Farnell et alia will provide credence to the threat that Anonymous are capable of mounting a cyber-attack 'within the next year or two'.
Not only that, but 2 Pi are being touted which, as any Intelligence Officer worth his salt knows, is code for The Tau Manifesto.
Dangerous times, indeed.
Anon, to give me time to leave a raspbery tart.
I don't know if anyone else has already said, i couldn't be arsed to trail through the waffle & snide comments. Some people have got some good ideas for what to do with them.
I registered my interest on both sites (being that i purchase from them anyway they already have my details)..
But like anything new, i'm not going to be first to buy one, i'll wait till everyones bought one and they find problems with it and then Raspberry Pi bring out a new revision or workarounds, then i'll buy the updated one.
It was a shame that the developers weren't given the option to buy before the slashdot crowd jumped on the bandwaggon. Some of use have been active on the forums for a long time and couldn't get a board. I guess there will be an amount on ebay in the next week when people turn them on and realise that they come without an OS and that they need to dig around to understand what they need to do to get it to even boot.
I'm afraid activity on the forum gave no special privileges - there were still 30k people so three to one on the boards anyway, there were even more people on the mailing list that there are on the forum, which makes it 10 to one. As it turned out demand was probably nearer 100 to 1.
And you know what, I don't have a final board either! Neither do most of the rest of the Raspi team.
The web servers died within seconds, but they didn't sell out within seconds. Not a small amount of seconds anyway.
Placed my order with Farnell at 7:10am, estimated delivery date of the 12th March. According to an RS press release they expect to receive the units on Friday 9th March, so I assume I hopefully managed to get one of the first batch.
I can see a market for selling these to all sorts of equipment manufacturers.
Also RPI should look into manufacturing really cheap touchcreens and interface cards to go with them 8 port mains controller??? with 8 inputs? I would love to get one of these and make myself a central heating/hot water/solar controller/programmer which works the way my family think rather than the way these things normally are designed.
Equipment manufacturers can just buy the processor - or any other manufacturer's CPU - and integrate it into their devices. Far cheaper and more flexible than buying a whole Raspberry Pi for it, unless you're doing really small runs.
That said for personal use I'd also like to see a touchscreen. But suspect a small HDMI display - PAL composite would't be crisp enough to run a nice looking user interface - and touchscreen combo will be very expensive.
Fantastic device, but typical UK academia. Why were they surprised?
They are selling a powerful development board at a price that undercuts EVERYONE.
At that price point even professional developers will buy a handful of them to use in lab equipment etc. Even bigger companies will use them for test equipment as internal development costs are so high, etc. etc.
Not to mention, there are millions of geeks out there for whom $35 is small change and they will want one even if it ends up in a drawer, having been hardly used.
Similarly, the price point is so low that it is within the 'throwaway' bracket. I.e. it can be bought by the curious, with no significant risk, even if they never use it.
I think they have done a great job, but I am old enough to remember the supply problems in the early 80s home computer revolution. This caused some manufacturers to go bust when they eventually oversupplied but the technology had by that time moved on.
Lets hope that the 6 years development time of the original is not reflected in follow on products.
I assume Broadcom will produce newer versions of the ARM as they come along and the GPU will only get better and if it becomes popular and standard enough there will be add-on boards and clones.
It would be nice if it became an international success though rather than another 'British' invention.
For some more nostalgia. Who said "one day computers will become bumps on cables"?
Well this low powered 'toy' is 100x the CPU power of a Sparc5 workstation from 20years ago.
Nowadays, with just a single PCB to build, construction to order is much more feasible, so any changes Arm version will just merge in to the supply. It's not like there is a big case, keyboard, lots of other components to worry about/stock up on.
As to the surprise part....it wasn't a surprise that there were a lot of people wanting one. The surprise was that there a LOT of people wanting one. Just a problem with magnitude!
Model A, Model B, initial production run of only 10,000, massive interest at launch and people unable to get through on the ordering line (ok, so its web and not phone this time), no products actually going to be delivered for a few weeks/months. Looks like they are taking the BBC micro heritage really seriously. Please, can someone assure me that they've launched RasberryPi while it still only exists as a couple of wire-wrap prototypes to complete the historical re-enactment!
[BBC] "Model A, Model B, initial production run of only 10,000, massive interest at launch and people unable to get through on the ordering line" I'm pretty certain there was no order line. I remember picking up the order form from the stand at the PCW? Show (Novotel Hammersmith) and that as they said they were not accepting orders before 22nd September I posted mine on the 21st. I recieved mine Easter Saturday. Others had to wait even longer. I don't think the wait will be that long this time.
Mail order how quaint!
Damn, I can think of so many uses for these, every telly in the house will have one and then there's the central heating and then there's the weather station I've been meaning to build and then the internet radio and then the webcam surveillance system and the in car entertainment system and then one each for the kids in their headrests and then the...............
Superb little device and so much respect for the people who designed and brought this device to market.
Got a call off Farnell this morning for the next batch (you can still place pre-orders on site now the first batch is gone). Supposedly the lasso on phone said we would get them on March 28th. Unfortunately only allowed one per customer though :( there goes the current plan for a mini cluster of them sadly.
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the page on rs' website for registration was live on the 28th @ 10pm...the day before the launch.
I registered then as I was browsing their site for other items....thinking I would do a bulk order of an MSP430 and some other goodies. RS now say (according to CS) that my details arent in the database..
big fail...to everyone involved.