Raspberry Pi Beta Boards Unveiled 161
First time accepted submitter anwe79 writes "Those of you who have been wishing for a Raspberry Pi this Christmas will sadly not get your wish granted. However, you may be happy to hear that populated beta boards have now been produced. Beta of course means the boards still have some more testing to undergo. But, if all goes well, those inclined should be able to get their hands on production boards in January!"
Vaporware until it is in my hands (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:I cant wait to taste that pi (Score:4, Insightful)
Of course I am still under the "it doesn't exist until I can blow it up my self doing something dumb" crowd but it's making good progress
It *is* making "good progress". But where these types of projects usually hang up is when they finally get to the stage where they need to put together the infrastructure to source parts, manufacture, and market the *product*. At this point, they generally realize that they just don't have the organization and resources necessary, and the sub-$100 price point is out-the-window unrealistic for the volume they can realistically project to move...
Unsuitable for teaching (Score:3, Insightful)
This board is perfect if you want to learn to program ARM assembly or cross-compiling but the ARM architecture it's one of the most closed and patent-restricted technologies out there. Teaching ARM is the equivalent to teaching Visual Basic Programming, common but very closed architecture.
So it's not really open, even if the PCB design is open.
A truly open system would be OpenRISC [openrisc.net], there are dev. boards out there like this [orsoc.se] one (I'm not affiliated to OpenRISC in any way). They are more expensive because are made with are FPGAs, but that's what you should learn in school.
Wait until work to learn proprietary stuff.
Reality is coming (Score:4, Insightful)
Dunno, I was in the same camp, no way they would actually ship at the stated prices, expect a doubling which would make it too expensive to be interesting. Or at least less interesting than the many other similar project computers and/or microcontroller products actually shipping. But if they are expecting to begin shipping next month and still holding to the original price they are either really going to pull it off or are truly idiots with zero business sense. I'd give em even odds at this point. :)
But why is it front page news every time these guys pass gas? If they ship it, that is news. Heck, when they auction off these guys I'd guess that would be news too. But d we need a story every month even when there isn't any actual news to report?
Re:Unsuitable for teaching (Score:3, Insightful)
What other $25 Linux boxes are out there for teaching Unix, web programming, and other high level stuff? I don't think teaching ARM assembly was high on their list.
Re:Arduino, anyone? (Score:5, Insightful)
Arduinos are for retards. They're for all the people who seek validation being able to get LEDs to blink without knowing any annoying facts like operating voltages. The Raspberry Pi, however, is a BASIC stamp. That means that the real money-makers, the ones who know microcode, get back to work.
OK, WTF, time out. Can someone please explain this strange new trend of trolling with the intent of making yourself look stupid? I think it started on either 4chan or Fark, but it's been showing up here a lot lately. When I learned to troll, I was taught that the idea was to make the other guy look stupid.
Kids these days. Personally, I blame the excessive use of psychoactive prescription drugs in our schools.
Re:Arduino, anyone? (Score:5, Insightful)
$200? hardly.
$10 for a keyboard/mouse if you can't get hold of an old set.
$3 for a micr-USB charger, if you can't find a powered USB socket.
what else? a TV, an internet connection, a table, a chair, service from the power company, adequate nutrition. this stuff adds up!
Re:Reality is coming (Score:4, Insightful)
Not true. The first 10k batch will be sold at the advertised price. $25 for the Model A and $35 for the Model B.
100 boards have been made for testing, 10 of those will be auctioned off if they work OK. Once all testing is done, the 10k batch will be ordered. That will be sometime in early January if all goes well.
The people behind the project have LOTS of experience in running big companies, so that's not an issue. And as for saying this is non-news. Hmm, I would have thought the first boards of what may be a game changing device coming off the production line would be news in most peoples book.
Re:Reality is coming (Score:4, Insightful)
Mostly because they're being very open about the development process on their blog, meaning you see stories about stages which wouldn't be announced publicly in comparable projects.