26 Jun
2012
26 Jun
'12
11:47 p.m.
On Wed, Jun 27, 2012 at 6:50 AM, Dave McGuire <mcguire at neurotica.com> wrote:
I think there is a little bit of history repeating - and in part, it's
a deliberate move by the creators. In particular, remember the
ZX80/81; technically not very exciting; but cheap enough for anyone to
get it. That made it influential. The same argument can be made for
the Vic 20.
On 06/26/2012 01:23 PM, Liam Proven wrote:
[...]
but I think
the extreme cheapness is what is driving people.
?That must be it. ?See below. The idea of a
complete functioning RISC computer, all of whose
software is free, for ?30 including tax, is proving very enticing to
people here. It's not very powerful, but then, it also doesn't take
much power, so people are using them for media servers, digital
signage, monitoring and control.
?Yes, this is true. ?It has never happened at this price point. ?I have
a slightly more powerful machine that I paid, I think, $80 for two years
ago. (no silver spoon here, that was a big stretch!) ?The only real
difference about the Raspberry Pi is that it's very, very inexpensive. ?True, but any old PC that one can pick up for free on
trash day meets
all these requirements, and is even cheaper. ?Just larger and more
power-hungry.
Moreso in Europe than North America, space _is_ a serious
consideration. And also the prices for plain old Wintel boxen I see
here in France are quite a bit higher than I saw in Montreal - where
at points I had trouble giving away P4's that the university was
tossing out. Here in Rennes, those still seem to go for about 100
euros. (Judging from advertised prices on the local craigslist
equivalent (leboncoin.fr). I haven't needed to sell anything nor any
desire to buy such a machine, so I don't know if those people are
simply deluding themselves.)
Mind you, I have a more powerful machine than the Raspberry Pi in my
pocket, with similar CPU, GPU and OS. However, I need that as a tool
so I can't mess around with it too much - and it also cost
significantly more. It is also less open than the R? (where only the
GPU is somewhat closed).
That's why I am waiting to get myself a R?. I can play with it and if
I break it, it's an inconvenience. If I break my phone, I _have_ to
replace it.
If I want to mess with a R?, I get it out of a storage bin, do stuff,
put it back. A fullsized pentium (or similar) box requires a
permanent place on a bench. I do not have that kind of space at this
moment.
--
Joachim Thiemann :: http://jthiem.bitbucket.org