27 Jun
2012
27 Jun
'12
1:07 p.m.
On 06/26/2012 01:23 PM, Liam Proven wrote:
As am I. People are talking about it like it's the first small form
factor Linux machine.
I must admit that I am not overly in favour of the Raspberry pi...
Firstly it seems ot be an overhyped product, and that always seems to
imply a product that I don;'t want. OK, perhaps that's a bit unfair, but...
The Rpi board is only part of what you need. You also need a PSU,
keyboard, mouse, USB hub, SD card and some kind of monitor. Even without the
last, that would essentailyl double the cost of the device. Please don't
tell me I can find those extras in the trash/junk box. I can't. My junk
box doesn't contain PC bits. It does contain enugh to build a computer
> About the Raspberry Pi in
particular...I'm having a very hard time
> getting excited about it. It's a neat board, to be sure, but it's onl=
y
> the twentieth or thirtieth design just like
it (and nobody got this
> excited about its predecessors), and you can't actually GET one withou=
t
spending
months on end on a waiting list.
=20
I am a bit surprised by the sheer level of hype myself, from scatch though.
And then there's the OS. From what I understnad the Rpi doesn't come wit
hthe OS. You have to download it onto an SD card yourself. That's a major
problem for me.
The docuemantion is attrocious. I couldn't find a schematic, or a real
hardware manual.
From waht I understnad (and please correct me) the main
'IC' (Acutally a
multichip module I think) on the Rpi is one that was used
in some other
large-prodcution device (smartphone?), and the Rpi is using the
'leftovers'. Part of the datasheet on this IC is covered by an NDA. Err,
no thanks. And I am worried that the supply of these ICs will dry up. I
am not goign to waste my time designing soemthign roudn a board that
won't be available when I want to make more of them.
but I think
the extreme cheapness is what is driving people.
That must be it. See below. This might be harder
to understand in America, where even in bad times, you guys typically
have lots more disposable income than we do -
I'm afraid this hasn't been true for a while. Of my "top ten"
in-person friends, seven are unemployed, five have been unemployed for
more than two years, and eight have lost their homes. And they are all
educated professionals; most are engineers.
I'm not trying to start an argument, but I must assert that the
typical "everyone in America is rich" image that many people outside of
America seem to believe (NOT saying you said that, but it's along the
same lines) has never been true...but the American propaganda machine is
perfectly happy to propagate that rumor. Our roads and bridges are
crumbling, our homes are owned by banks and rotting/falling down due to
unoccupancy, adults are living with their parents (I understand this is
acceptable in other societies, especially in South America...we are very
different, it means "loser" here), the homeless population is
overrunning the public parks and soup kitchens...it really is quite a mes=
s.
I realise it's the same in most western countries (if not most countries)
now. I have friends in many countries who are competent engineers and who
can't get jobs, or can only get jobs shelf-stacking or soemthing like
that which don't use their talents.
Thanks, Wall Street...and my stupid fellow Americans
for living beyond
I regaurd much of waht hte City (==Wall Street) does to be a form of
high-class gambling, and I am still wondering how it actually produces
anything.
-tony