Wanna buy a PI?! : )
By ShepherdSpy
@ShepherdSpy (8544)
Omagh, Northern Ireland
February 29, 2012 3:22pm CST
A new ultra cheap 1 board computer has been released called the "Raspberry Pi", costing £22...and this one is the more expensive,better specced version with more onboard memory-a £16 version is in the pipeline!
The machine is intended as an educational tool for schools and students to learn programming on,but homebrew developers have their eyes on them too as they have many potential uses in av systems,smart tv's,etc.. demand has been so high,both websites launching and selling them were crashed by wannabe buyers.....had you heard of this machine,or would you be interested in experimenting with one?
2 responses
@celticeagle (189792)
• Boise, Idaho
1 Mar 12
I hadn't hear of this new product until now. I wonder how many schools will be able to use it. I would be interested in experimenting with one if it is free. Hehe
@ShepherdSpy (8544)
• Omagh, Northern Ireland
1 Mar 12
The Launch was only Yesterday- isn't £16-£22 cheap enough for you to want to have a go with one of these things?
1 person likes this
@succeednow (1632)
• Singapore
1 Mar 12
Hi ShepherdSpy,
No, I haven't heard of such an ultra cheap single board computer before. Besides being used as an educational tool for learning programming, what are its main selling points (special features, advantages, uniqueness etc) besides being low cost that so many people are wanting to get their hands on one. How exactly does it interface with electrical appliance such as audio visual equipment? What sort of programming language does it support? Are interface equipment readily and easily available? Can a keen programmer profit from it? Thanks for sharing.
@ShepherdSpy (8544)
• Omagh, Northern Ireland
1 Mar 12
There are demo videos on beta versions of the machine already on youtube,and various computer/technical websites are coming up with possible applications for the Pi outside the classroom,among those being the ones I listed..one Demo showed the machine running Quake(4?) so speed and graphics seem to have been covered..It comes with a version of Linux,so coding is open source. This first version was shown as a bare board,i.e,uncased, and apparently will use a cellphone type PSU to power it. Googling the project will bring up more relevant and wider info than I can go into here.I'm fairly sure a keen coder or hobby Electronics builder could find many useful applications and inventions with one!
