3 Jul
2012
3 Jul
'12
6:19 a.m.
Tony Duell skrev 2012-07-02 20:12:
I also agree that the board should be avaialble on its
own, with no
OS-on-a-card, no manual, etc, for people who want to have more than
one and use them as embedded systems. It would eb silly to ahve to pay
for multiple manuals then.
I don't know how the RaspberryPi was initially advertised, I've only
followed the project from November. At that time the plan seemed to be
to get hardware out to early enthusiasts as soon as possible and then
fill in the missing items as manuals, case, preloaded OS and so on until
the real target audience could buy them. One of the main targets are
schools and the timetable for that was after the summer.
By releasing the hardware early on they have made it possible to have a
lot of hardware designs and software ported to the Pi before offering
them to the schools, a lot more than the foundation could make on their own.
Soon RS is going to release the Pi for general sale and they expect
delivery times or four weeks at that point.
Right now we see a lot of third party development from people that got
their hands on a pi early on. The gertboard (I/O breakout board with
buffers) connects to the Pi, you can build VAX clusters by running simh,
there's a ladder game where you have to connect some switches and
diodes.... even instructions on how to press your own ribbon cable.
http://www.raspberrypi.org/archives/1404 complete with a video.
I agree with you that there is too much interesting things coming out
all the time so if it doesn't looks good on the first look it is easily
dismissed. I do it all the time.
But at least I think that the Pi is a cool gadget at that
price/performance and that their strategy to release hardware as early
as possible is the right thing to do.
I just wish I had a lot more time to play with it... just thought of
another usage for it. As a serial to ethernet adapter for my ND-100 mini
computer, telnet in to it and get connected to the serial port. The GPIO
can be used to push the reboot and other front panel buttons via relays.
Ok, I could use another old PC, but at 3 watt and the size of a credit
card I can hide the Pi inside the machine and even take the power from
the ND-100.
... but first I'm going to build my Pi powered metal detector with built
in GPS. :-)
-tony
Regards, G?ran