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Upgrades Hardware

Raspberry Pi Revision 2.0 Board Announced 155

An anonymous reader writes "The Raspberry Pi finally saw a release on February 29 this year and is thought to have sold 200,000 units, with a million expected to ship before the year is over. That's a lot of tiny PCs, but it's also been an opportunity for owners to feedback any problems or tweaks they'd like made to the board. The Raspberry Pi Foundation has taken the feedback on board and today announced a revised design is being put into production. The new Raspberry Pi, known as revision 2.0 PCB, is expected to start shipping in the next few weeks. The revision includes a number of changes, but is essentially the same board. To summarize it includes a new reset circuit, a replacement for the reset fuses allowing for more reliable USB hub power, two GPIO pin changes for JTAG debug support, four redundant GPIO signals have been removed, and a new connector has been added for attaching a range of boards including a clock or audio codec. Two of the more easily noticeable changes include a fix that stops the HDMI connection interfering with certain operations of the Raspberry Pi, and the addition of two 2.5mm mounting holes to allow for easier mounting."
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Raspberry Pi Revision 2.0 Board Announced

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  • by Dave Whiteside ( 2055370 ) on Thursday September 06, 2012 @09:53AM (#41248039)

    In Wales by Sony to be exact
    http://www.raspberrypi.org/archives/1925 [raspberrypi.org]

    • by pnot ( 96038 ) on Thursday September 06, 2012 @10:01AM (#41248157)

      In Wales by Sony to be exact
      http://www.raspberrypi.org/archives/1925 [raspberrypi.org]

      Nice! That would have been a far more interesting headline than "RasPi gets mounting holes and minor bugfixes".

      • Nice for some because, well, quality production lines so hopefully less of a problem with supply.

        Horrible for others because, well, ZOMG BOYCOTT SONY.

        • by pnot ( 96038 )

          Nice for some because, well, quality production lines so hopefully less of a problem with supply. Horrible for others because, well, ZOMG BOYCOTT SONY.

          Naah, it's even good for those people: they can find something to whine about withiout too much effort. Just think how disappointed they'd be if the board were being manufactured from fairtrade components and PCBs made of sustainably harvested pressed hemp, by a local co-operative which shelters kittens and supports the orphanage down the road.

          Sure, there would be an outraged campaign against the fact that the hemp wasn't 100% certified organic, but it doesn't quite have the satisfying ring of ZOMG BOYCOTT

    • Ewww (Score:4, Funny)

      by DeathToBill ( 601486 ) on Thursday September 06, 2012 @11:03AM (#41249155) Journal

      There's so much I love about this. Seeing British-designed products being produced in Britain. It just feels right. I love the educational aims of the RPi. I love the hacker culture around it. I love the ethical sourcing and the informal PR of the RPi foundation. It's all so good.

      And then... it's produced by... Sony. Yuck.

    • Yeah, I feel a bit dubious about that. I wasn't too excited about made in the UK in the first place (nothing wrong with capital flow to poorer countries in my book), but it's Sony, too. I really don't want to be putting money in Sony's pockets after the stunts they've pulled in the last decades.

      Will there be an option to buy 2.0s by a specific manufacturer?

    • I wonder if Microsoft is subsiding Sony's bid to make sure tech enthusiasts won't buy any? Or could the Raspberry Pi be okay because it doesn't have any lithium batteries or rely on any Sony-supplied software or media?
  • by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Thursday September 06, 2012 @10:01AM (#41248149)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • by Dimwit ( 36756 ) on Thursday September 06, 2012 @10:03AM (#41248183)

    My problem with the Raspberry Pi is that it's not truly open - there's a binary bootloader and graphics driver, and the SoC is undocumented. If I wanted to write my own operating system from bootloader to windowing system, I'd have to do a lot of reverse engineering. That's kinda why I'd prefer the Beagle Board.

    (Disasbuse me of this notion if I am wrong.)

    • by tommeke100 ( 755660 ) on Thursday September 06, 2012 @10:08AM (#41248261)
      Check out this tutorial for OS development on the Pi : http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/freshers/raspberrypi/tutorials/os/ [cam.ac.uk]
      • I think you completely missed the part about 'binary bootloader and graphics driver'. Yes you can write your own OS, but you still have to integrate that binary blob into your code somewhere. The GP is not complaining about his inability to write an OS for it, he's complaining about the fact the binary blob is closed. It's not something that bothers me all that much, but it's something that bothers the GP. Each to their own and all that....
        • Depends on what you mean by binary blob.

          If you are talking about the firmware, you don't have to integrate it into your code. In fact, it's executed on the GPU before your code gets to run, before the ARM CPU is even started. Think of it as the BIOS on a PC.

          If you were instead talking about the OpenGL ES, OpenVG and OpenMAX closed source libraries, these are user-space libraries that you don't need to have a functional operating system. You only need them if you want hardware accelerated video decoding and

      • by makomk ( 752139 )

        I'm curious as to where they got the driver code for the USB controller from. There's no usable public documentation for that and probably never will be because it's a third-party IP core.

    • by Dan Dankleton ( 1898312 ) on Thursday September 06, 2012 @10:20AM (#41248427)
      It's not completely open - but that was never the idea of it. The idea is to get something into the hands of kids to help them learn programming.

      Bare metal programming is possible though, and the system is fairly open.
    • Check out Olimex: https://www.olimex.com/dev/index.html [olimex.com], particularly the upcoming A13-OLinuXino. My understanding is that they are making hardware that is vaguely similar to the Raspberry Pi, but with full documentation.

    • It's as open as any other ARM SoC with an integrated GPU. There's nothing stopping you from writing your own operating system. Many people already are in the process of doing that. The closed bits are only needed if you want hardware-accelerated 3d rendering and video decoding, which aren't necessary for an operating system to work.

      The Beagle Board also has a GPU with closed source binary drivers, I don't see how how it's any different from the Raspberry Pi.

    • If you feel that way then why are you even looking at this topic? If you think that the system is unacceptable because it's not "open" enough then don't waste your time on it.

      Personally I like it. I haven't bought one but I will at some point when I have some time to play with it. There are 200000 people who feel like I do and have shelled out real money to get one. They, and people who are thinking about buying one have a reason to comment on board changes, you don't.

      One question: are you a professional

  • Hello, I'd like a plastic case, from anyone, that doesn't cost anywhere near the price of the networked/motherboard/CPU powerhouse that is Rasberry Pi. We're talking about molded, (or whatever), plastic. Relatively precision plastic I will grant you, but a small plastic box is The Specification. It doesn't even need to look pretty, just more functional than the cardboard box now in-use. -Thanks, from my entire budget for Rasberries this season.

    • I agree. It cost me almost $20 to get an adafruit case. Its nice and all, but its just laser-cut Lexan
    • by mspohr ( 589790 )

      This is a step up from a cardboard box and it's still dirt cheap:
      http://h2database.com/raspi/ [h2database.com]

      • by SpzToid ( 869795 )

        That is pretty darn near perfect! Thanks. One of my Christmas projects is building asterisk servers to run as documented 'answering machines' associated with a www.12voip.com SIP account. Kudos!

        http://nerdvittles.com/?p=1784 [nerdvittles.com]

        Also, I'm thinking about moving away from a conventional dd-wrt Broadcom router setup and using a Pi as a firewall. Bringing down the cost helps buy a bunch of these, and saves electricity in the long run, and hopefully improves the firewall security too.

  • Bad USB drivers. (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Ostracus ( 1354233 ) on Thursday September 06, 2012 @10:26AM (#41248513) Journal

    Has the problem with the USB drivers [slashdot.org] been fixed?

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by rephlex ( 96882 )
      I submitted that. No, the problems with the USB drivers have not been fixed but software modifications subsequent to that post have improved the situation slightly for all Raspberry Pi's. Also, the revision 2 boards can supply more current to USB devices which means more of them will work when plugged in directly to the Pi. Unfortunately USB will most likely never work well on the Raspberry Pi due to the sheer difficulty of fixing the vendor-supplied drivers for the Synopsys USB controller which remain v
    • I am really unhappy about the situation. In all respects the raspberry pi experience has been unsatisfying. I ordered one in march which never arrived and I received a refund in august. I ordered one in June which arrived in august. It was Farnell in UK to blame. They ignored dozens of emails from me and eventually agreed to reship my original ordered unit right away, expedited, but wanted my credit card, and this was before they finally gave me a refund. After all that I finally get my unit, plug it in, ma
  • What is this?!? (Score:4, Informative)

    by MetalliQaZ ( 539913 ) on Thursday September 06, 2012 @10:27AM (#41248537)

    After waiting for 11 weeks for my RaspberryPi to ship, then getting an email that they would need many more weeks to supply the orders, they announce a 2.0 revision? How about fulfilling your orders first? They announced to the world months ago that they are producing thousands of units per day and yet I still don't have my order. I really don't like how this company is working.

    • I ordered mine from Farnell two weeks ago. They quoted three weeks for shipping. It arrived last week.

    • by ctid ( 449118 )

      If you're in the UK, order from CPC. I ordered mine (having cancelled my RS order) at 10am on Tuesday and it was delivered at around 11am this morning.

    • by batkiwi ( 137781 )

      You didn't buy it from the rasp pi foundation, you bought it from RS/Farnell/etc.

      It's like blaming MS because your pre-ordered xbox at best buy didn't come in time while gamestop/etc still has tons.

    • Because, you know, while the guys are designing the r2.0 board they're not putting r1.0 boards in boxes and licking stamps?
  • by WillyWanker ( 1502057 ) on Thursday September 06, 2012 @10:37AM (#41248711)

    I just bought one a month ago. And NOW they release an updated board? Com'n, you couldn't warn us it was coming???

    • Re:Dammit (Score:5, Funny)

      by pnot ( 96038 ) on Thursday September 06, 2012 @11:06AM (#41249181)

      I just bought one a month ago. And NOW they release an updated board? Com'n, you couldn't warn us it was coming???

      No. [wikipedia.org]

      • But that ignores the "now I'm fucking pissed, will never give you any of my money again, and badmouth you till the end of time" effect that often accompanies the Osborne effect.

        • No it doesn't. It's a toss up of two evils, and a few bitching customers is worth not going completely under (the subject of the Osborn effect).

          Mind you if customers really bitched about a lack of upgraded product announcements we'd have no more companies. It's common practice not to announce new products until they are imminently available for exactly that reason.

          We're in the fast paced tech world, and a new model has been released. Unless your old one now magically doesn't work there's really nothing to c

          • Despite being in a high-tech world and the consequences of the Osborne effect not a single tech company makes product announcements like this. Every single one gives many months notice of upcoming new releases. NO ONE does product announcements like this. And for a very good reason.

            To blatantly say "yeah, we have this brand new board that's ready to go, we're just waiting for suckers to buy up all the old ones before we start selling it" is pretty damned stupid. They're sure not going to earn any good will

            • Yes well most companies are driven by a profit motive, not a non-profit scraping through products at ludicrously low prices.

              Sorry your 1 month old computer is obsolete. This was quite common a few years ago. But keep complaining, you only sound like a winger who hasn't missed out on anything and is out of pocket for less than a decent meal and a drink.

              • The price is irrelevant. It's the principle. You don't milk people for money like this. It's bad form, it pissed people off, and pissed off people have long memories.

    • Are you new to computers or something?
      • You mean like where Intel or AMD will announce new CPU/GPUs many months in advance, so you know what's coming in the future and can decide whether you want to buy their current offerings or wait for the new ones? Those kinds of computers?

  • UK 2.0 (Score:5, Funny)

    by drwho ( 4190 ) on Thursday September 06, 2012 @10:45AM (#41248853) Homepage Journal

    I am happy that the Raspberri PI has updated the UK to version 2.0. UK v 1.x was getting long in the tooth.

    • by mickwd ( 196449 )

      Great. Do you know if they've fixed the weather?

      And what about the motorway throughput? Is it really a driver problem?

  • by Opportunist ( 166417 ) on Thursday September 06, 2012 @10:47AM (#41248887)

    After not being able to get the first, when may I expect to be unable to get that one?

  • by deathguppie ( 768263 ) on Thursday September 06, 2012 @10:54AM (#41249001)
    Really doesn't matter to me since I had to sign up on a waiting list six months ago, then wait ten weeks after payment for shipment then just recently received an email stating that the order would be delayed. If I can't get the first revision a second one is simply meaningless to me.
  • I have been waiting for the A board to be released. I want the 1/2 power use and all the useless stuff removed.
    Please guys? release the A board soon! I have an alarm clock project and a car stereo project that is dying for the A board.

    • by ctid ( 449118 )

      In today's announcement about UK manufacturing, they stated that the Model A would be available before the end of the year.

  • by slashmojo ( 818930 ) on Thursday September 06, 2012 @12:01PM (#41250007)

    I gave up trying to get a RaspberryPi long ago. I was looking forward to it for months, I had such plans for it, but it's one hurdle after another to actually buy one. I check back every few months to see if anything changed - today I looked again and what do I see in the availability column? "Awaiting delivery". Wonderful..

    I'll just go back to tinkering with a picaxe instead.. it was cheap and easy to get and easy to make it do cool stuff even though I know nothing about about electronics. It may not run linux but it plugs into my ubuntu netbook and can be programmed with basic. It's actually fun, unlike the Pi which so far is just an exercise in frustration.

  • These are not difficult to get now, except if you order from RS. They're the only supplier that has failed to deliver one within a week. CPC and Farnell are pushing them out pretty quickly now. Not sure about Maplin.
  • They've made a new board but kept the positions of the USB/Ethernet misaligned. Good one.
  • Have they yet replaced the defective closed-architecture chips that required binary-only drivers?

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