ModMyPi Raspberry Pi Case Offers 5% Back To the Foundation 82
An anonymous reader writes "The Raspberry Pi Model B is now available to purchase, but most people are still waiting for new stock to be manufactured and delivered. In the meantime you can prepare for the tiny PC's arrival by figuring out what to do about a case. The fact the Raspberry Pi ships without a case doesn't cause a problem when using it, but encasing it in plastic will help protect and keep the dust off the components. Geek.com has already reported on one case design from hobbyist designer Marco Alici, but now another one has appeared that actually has a release date, color options, and an extra incentive to purchase it."
Re:fuck the raspberry pi (Score:3, Insightful)
At the risk of implying a consideration of the long term effect or *shudder* morality into capitalist economics, it is cheaper to have a local manufacturing base than rely completely on some rights-ignoring nation half way across the world. Hell, in under a year I'm sure they could get local manufacuring ramped up to the point that any cost difference is negligible. This is all the more important when you are trying to set an educational example for future domain experts with your product.
And, frankly, the few people put off by having to pay an extra $5 for initial runs will be entirely offset by the PR coup of demonstrating that, yes, it is still possible to build stuff in the West.
But, like I said, it's clear that the Raspberry Pi is just a tacky Broadcom sideline.
Re:Quick! (Score:1, Insightful)
Let me get this straight... you posted a contentless comment to complain about the lack of content, yet over-commentary on a given subject? Somehow I doubt the girlfriend story; First, this is slashdot, so I reject any claims of girlfriend/wife by default. In this case, though, I doubt that anyone near you is unclear on how you feel on any subject. I had a friend like you once... I had to unplug my phone at night to prevent him from calling me and telling me that he still didn't like infomercials.
Sticking out ports (Score:2, Insightful)
Please rename the headline to "Random guy designs case that doesn't quite fit a product that noone can get yet"
Re:Quick! (Score:5, Insightful)
Or you're dating only insecure women, because you're insecure yourself?
Re:Quick! (Score:3, Insightful)
this says far less about women in general than it does about the apparently limited subset of women who are interested in dating you. perhaps if you were less quick to generalise about the former set based solely on your experiences with the latter set, the size of the latter set would increase.
Re:Sticking out ports (Score:5, Insightful)
Jesus, so make your own, Mr. Clever. Seriously. 3D printing is so cheap, put your design where your mouth is.
Re:Sticking out ports (Score:3, Insightful)
Actually the headline should be: "Random guy designs pi case that is annoying as hell, pledges money back to foundation to alleviate pain of using it".
The protrusion around the USB ports will create annoyances, ethernet cables won't "click" and lock into place due to the base being in the way and, as you said, the HDMI-port will probably create problems as well. Not really a shining example of good industrial design.
Beside all the bitching, there is a point here (Score:5, Insightful)
All this bitching about the Raspberry in general and this case goes to show just how fucking hard it is to make a good solid product. We barely think about it but for every product out there we just use without issue, a hell of a lot of people spend a hell of a lot of time, just getting it right.
Take something as simple as a drinks can, you know the kind you get soft-drinks in. Once, they had pull of tabs, and those tabs had sharp edges and they got thrown away and people stepped on them with bare feet and got hurt. That is why nowadays, can's have a opening that opens inwards leaving all bits attached.
It took DECADES for this to change. It might now seem like rocket science but clearly it was.
Apple seems famous for good design yet its white mac-book air, the plastic one, when opened had rounded edges for the bit on your desk, and sharp edges for you to lay your hands on... not very comfortable at all. A minor issue? You would think BUT this issue is known about (how many keyboards have hard sharp edges to lay your wrist on?) and yet, Apple made this mistake again when the problem should have been known as well as the solution.
When you make a thingy like this raspberry board there a million things to think off, often things that someone somewhere has already solved but getting all that knowledge into one place has never been done (go ahead, point me to a resource where every mistake in designing say an MP3 player has been recorded, let alone with the solution) and so mistakes will be re-made and re-solved over and over again.
If you ever think of making your own product, estimate the time you need to make it, then add ten times that time to examine it against all other similar products so you can prevent making the same mistakes they did.
Good luck getting that approved for budget. So more then a hundred years after the first keyboards, we still get keyboards with hard sharp edges biting into our wrists...
And you worry about a cable not clicking.
Re:Lego Case (Score:5, Insightful)
What would I do with 256 MB of RAM?
I love these sorts of posts. My first computer had 16K of RAM (TRS-80). I do hobby work with embedded controller CPUs [microchip.com] that have a whopping 384 BYTES of RAM, and I can do all sorts of cool things - take temp/pres readings and send them to the mother ship via ZigBee, etc.There are even TCP stacks for these sorts of chips that have somewhat more memory.
Re:Sticking out ports (Score:4, Insightful)
[...] 3D printing is so cheap [...]
*NOW* it feels like the 21st century! Finally!