Jam today: Raspberry Pi Ram doubled The Raspberry Pi Foundation has upgraded its credit card-sized computer: it now sports 512MB of memory rather than 256MB, but still costs $35 (£22). Foundation founder Eben Upton promised that anyone who has an outstanding order will receive the upgraded board. “Units should start arriving in customers’ hands today, and we …
I saw a tweet from cpc farnell a while back saying they had them in stock and ready for dispatch. cancelled my outstanding RS order and Farnell got one to me the next morning.
You just have to check with CPC to see if they have stock, can't remember their @twitter (something like @cpc-farnell) but should be easy to find I guess. They do read their @messages.
"The product is cheap therefore you don't deserve good service from the reseller? Now that's some good logic!"
Please post where anyone in the thread said that. They didn't. I didn't.
There was a supply issue previously, with a 6 week wait time, due to demand. If you're approaching the start of that queue, going to the back of it again isn't a great option. If they've resolved that issue, and you can cancel and reorder with the bigger memory, and receive it in a similar time, my info is out of date, and yes, do that.
No'one except you has questioned the retailer's service, and I'm unsure why you have.
Read your own post much?
"TBH for £22 you can't really complain ..."
Anecdotal evidence indicates that other suppliers are providing the goods in a timely fashion, while RS continues to flounder.
For £22 you are entitled to complain about shoddy service.
Hell, for £1 you are entitled to complain.
You've misunderstood my original point. I meant to suggest if you get one of the original RaspPi boards, rather than one with 512meg, you're still getting a great product. I didn't mention RS at all. I did say there were delivery lead time issues, which I believed applied to all (both) suppliers. If that's not the case, that's news to me, but you've still misunderstood the point i was making. Which I maintain was pretty clear.
So yes, I read my own posts, but you apparently don't.
Ordered my 512mb RPi @ 9.50 this morning. Despatch note received @ 11.43 for delivery tomorrow. On past form I expect Farnell to fufil on time.
I dunno who is the dumber - RS who obviously can't get their act together - or the whingers who complain about RS when they ignore advice to switch their order from other suppliers (not only Farnell) for next day delivery. Yes there was a period of 3 days last week when you could not get an RPi overnight. Now we know why ;-)
Where do they draw the line with these little 'upgrades'?
"I know, it'd be good if there was some sort of graphics chip included"
"Yeah, and a solid drive to permanently store data"
"Oooh, and how about we add a keyboard so you can type stuff on it?"
"We'll need to add a pointing device as well, like a mouse"
"Definitely - and a screen so you can see what you're doing!"
"What about sound, let's add a couple of speakers"
"OK, good idea. We can put it all in a case so it can sit neatly on someone's desk."
Well done, you just invented the PC!
The thing is, they have kept the price the same as it was before. I'm guessing the memory prices have come down enough that they can do this, or they're ordering enough volume to do this.
To me it's a bit like when the Speccy got an incremental upgrade going from 16K ram to 48K, apart from the fact in this case it's not really possible to upgrade the memory on existing Pis (well I'm guessing it's not unless you have some pretty specialist equipment at your disposal).
I don't think they'd go as far as adding solid stage storage, a display etc. If you want that, buy a tablet or PC.
Rob
Don't know about incremental upgrades, but you'd kinda hope that someone was working on the Mk2 by now. The RPi foundation has had a load of beta testers for the original board for 6 months or so. The crocs in that design are well known by now and given all the hype the produce is capable of generating a newer version would be a great way to keep it all bubbling.
I received one of the early batch of Pi's back in May (having got my order in seconds before RS' server tanked on the opening morning).
It's actually a pretty good performer - especially since I switched to the "hard float" version of Arch Linux recently - but the one hardware feature* that I think has always hobbled the Pi since I received it, has been the "low" memory" (256MB). There are ways to mitigate this - e.g. I run "lightweight" Linux apps, including the Fluxbox window manager - but you find the RAM filling up pretty quickly - Web browsing can be slow, and I have to enable a temporary swap file if I want to build an Arch software package (e.g. from the AUR).
I wasn't planning to go for a second Pi, but I feel I'll really have to give it some thought - 512MB could make a real difference to the machine, especially for desktop and multimedia use. Won't carp about "why not 512MB at launch?" - it's pretty clear they couldn't do this earlier, and I'm just grateful to the RPi Foundation for offering the upgrade.
* I emphasise "hardware" there - the biggest software tweak they could introduce, would be an accelerated X server which could take advantage of the Pi's 2D and 3D graphics hardware. That could take the machine to a whole new level...
Thanks for that info - I keep a weather-eye on the RPi forum, and there's been at least one thread there for some time (maybe more by now) which looks like programmers discussing progress on an accelerated X server, so it seems that people are working on it.
Whilst I don't have a "mission-critical" application which demands hardware-accelerated X11 graphics on the Pi, it'll be a "really-very-nice-to-have" when the feature comes - the icing on the proverbial cake, as it were...
How would a second core help uptake in the education market they were built for?
They explained many times about the difficulty of getting a wifi approved in every country in the world - that's why even you big name laptop actualy has the wifi as a little plugin mini-pci card
Initially ordered from RS and waited for ages, eventually cancelled. But to be absolutely honest, it gave me time to think. I already have a PC running Linux which has a faster processor, more memory, SSD storage, hdmi output, keyboard, monitor etc. etc. etc.
Once I realised I was going along with the hype to join the Pi fanbois I came to my senses. I don't actually need, or for that matter want one of these.
Who cares of Farnell can supply one with more RAM overnight?
They make absolutely marvellous media things. I have one stuck to the back of the TV running raspbmc, and another running MPD. They don't need to be turned off and they consume virtually no power, especially compared to the PC I previously had running for both reasons.
And that's not even a particularly creative use for them. I've got plans for all sorts of nifty things to do with them.
I thought of using one as a media machine but as I currently use my PC for that and it has a TV tuner, I'd need that on to watch/record TV and indeed to make the media files on the HDD available to the Pi.
I have looked at getting a NAS to store the media files but they seem to be so darn expensive and then of course I'd also need to buy another HDD to go in it.
The other thing I'd love to do with them is use them as terminals to Remote Desktop into a Windows box, replacing two old, noisy and no doubt power-hungry PII boxes which are currently filling that role. Unfortunately, they're both running VGA LCD monitors so until those die and they're replaced with DVI/HDMI ones (the owners can't afford to just buy a new monitor when what they already have does the job) that plan is on hold. That might work better once the accelerated X11 driver is ready anyway.
I don't mean memory wise, but all the other tweaks and upgrades they've done. Mine finally arrived last Thursday (was in no hurry so never noticed I could have cancelled my my RS Components order and got near next day from Farnell), but I've no initial clues as to whether it is 9or was last Thursday) the latest and greatest version, or if it was just old stock and RS Components were being slow.
Half a gig? I'm soooo glad I ordered mine from RS instead of Farnell. Twice the computer for the same cost? Delay definitely worth it, considering what I have in mind for it (and the other 63 I've in mind*) Phoah, I think I died and went to heaven! Only thing I'm now dreading is a letter in the post, telling me it's now available for collection from the Post Office (Posti)...If I got a few more weeks' delay, God only knows what I'll receive! XBox? Christ, noooooo!!!!
*http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/09/12/raspberry_pi_supercomputer/
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