A Smaller Version of Raspberry Pi 3 Is Coming Soon (pcworld.com) 89
An anonymous reader quotes a report from PCWorld: A smaller version of the popular Raspberry Pi 3 will go on sale in a few months. Raspberry Pi is developing a new version of its Compute Module, a single-board computer that plugs into specific on-board memory slots. The new Pi will be more like a mini-computer inside a computer, and it won't come with a power supply. The Compute Module will have similar circuitry to that of Raspberry Pi 3, a wildly successful computer that can be a PC replacement. But it will be smaller, with the memory, CPU, and storage embedded tightly on a board. While the Compute Module will have a 64-bit ARM processor like the Pi 3, it won't have Wi-Fi, Eben Upton, founder of Raspberry Pi, said in an interview with IDG News Service. The Compute Module could ship as soon as this quarter, Upton said. It will be priced similar to its predecessor, the 2-year-old Compute Module, available from reseller RS Components for about $24. The older Compute Module is based on the original Raspberry Pi. Like Raspberry Pi 3, the new Compute Module will work with Linux and Microsoft's Windows 10 IoT Core, Upton said. A Compute Module Development Kit, in which the Compute Module can be slotted for testing, may also be sold. The Development Kit could have multiple connectivity and port options, much like the Raspberry Pi 3. Last month, the biggest manufacturer of the Raspberry Pi, Premier Farnell, was acquired by Swiss industrial component supplier Daetwyler Holding AG for roughly $871 million.
Will it be impossible to buy too? (Score:1)
Another cool nano computer that you won't be able to buy.
The new RasPi 3.. (Score:1)
Well, then for god's sake, DON'T CALL IT THE RASPI 3!!!!
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> DON'T CALL IT THE RASPI 3!!!!
They don't, they call it a Compute Module.
However, it is electronically the same as the RPi3 (except no WiFi).
Re:The new RasPi 3.. (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't imagine the normal purchaser of a RPi being a normal member of the general public.
Re: The new RasPi 3.. (Score:2, Funny)
Start imagining it you insensitive clod.
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Imagine harder.
That's Apple's new motto, isn't it?
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The guts are the same as a RPi3 but it doesn't have any ports. Instead it has a board-edge connector so you can plug it into a custom-designed board.
Saying that it's a smaller version of the Raspberry Pi 3 (i.e. the headline here and on PCWorld) is really misleading. You cannot just take it out of the box and start using it. (Well you probably can if you get the development kit but it's probably not going to be smaller or cheaper at that point.)
Re:The new RasPi 3.. (Score:5, Funny)
Well, then for god's sake, DON'T CALL IT THE RASPI 3!!!!
They should call it the Raspberry Tart.
Much like the Pi, but not quite as (ful)filling.
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Raspberry Tau?
1/2 pi, but just as useful.
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Not really just as useful if they've cut off its I/O ports.
Do they have a reference design for interfacing this to ethernet and other standard ports?
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tau=2pi
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D'oh.
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That and standard ports. I guess you can get a more customizable plug in module of ports that you will want to use. Thus saving space. Having that HDMI out but not the composite. Swap USB3 with USB C?
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You can find really inexpensive Android cell phones for as low as $10 with WiFi, cellular, and GPS with a graphical interface. If you want to program on Android, there's lots of great ways to do it, but even the non-programmer can use apps like Automate or Tasker to perform complex operations with no previous experience. Why is the Raspberry Pi so great for tinkerers?
I think it's mainly because of what you can do with that big header strip on it.
Community, GPIO to build physical thing. Also HDMI (Score:5, Informative)
The cell phone doesn't have general-purpose IO; it can't interface with physical components such as motors, servos, sensors, switches, etc. You mentioned "programming on Android" - if you want to write SOFTWARE you can do that on your computer - your desktop or laptop. The Pi is particularly useful for creating HARDWARE. A great example is in a haunted house - you have motion sensors or light beams to sense when someone rounds a corner and that triggers the mummy to pop up, the strobe lights to flash, etc. That's the Pi's specialty - combining software with the physical world via GPIO. Maybe you're building a DIY 3D printer or CNC machine - you're using software to control motors and things based on various sensors and switches. An Android phone or garage sale computer can't do that so readily.
You mentioned the comparison to a cheap Android phone for more purely software tasks. The cheapest Android phone I found in a quick Google search was on clearance for $17. For $35, the Pi is within $20 of that price point, and has millions of people doing projects with it and documenting how they did it. That cheap cell phone has a lot of unknowns. One real problem I've encountered - phones like to sleep when they're idle. Setting it to stay awake keeps the screen on, which sometimes drains the battery faster than it can be charged. On the phones I tested, I certainly can't leave the GPS running with an active app, the battery will die even with the charger connected. That's one example of many types of problems that pop up when re-purposing hardware that's not designed for tinkering projects. A pi is designed for embedded projects, and with millions of users any problems are well known and any solutions documented. Even if I don't need GPIO, using the standard tinkerer platform, the RPi, is well worth the extra $20.
Some people use the HDMI interface to connect a TV, using it as a media center. Most Android phones don't have HDMI, though some tablets do. It is reasonably well suited to that role.
My current project today with my RPi 3 is a transparent wired ethernet to wifi bridge, a reverse access point. An Android phone doesn't even HAVE a wired ethernet port, but if some device DID have it, why choose some random device that's poorly documented, if at all, when I can use the most common platform, and have the full power of Linux, customized however I want? As you may know, over 95% of the world's fastest supercomputers run Linux, massive numbers of powerful network devices run Linux, and yet it also runs routers with 4MB of storage and 8MB of RAM - it's a very powerful and flexible OS.
For my bridge, I copied the stock Raspbian image to a micro SD card, ran less than a dozen commands, and had a bridge that works better than anything I can buy. The bridges available for sale cost more than the Pi, and they all have some drawback that creates problems for my use case - they put the wired media on a different subnet, a different network, than the wifi it's attached to and they NAT it. That's not what I want. Other, still more expensive options fail to handle the MAC addresses properly. My Pi project can do exactly what I want it to do, at a cost lower than buying a Netgear or Linksys bridge, and I know I can make any changes I desire as my needs change.
Assuming only one mummy. Almost mentioned Arduino (Score:4, Interesting)
I almost mentioned Arduino in my post. Absolutely sometimes Pi are used when they are overkill and an Arduino would be well suited. In fact, I have four Arduinos (including two $4 chips and two full Arduinos), amd had no reason to buy a Pi until yesterday.
Having said that, my earlier post said a Pi could run a haunted house. An Arduino could run one mummy.
Putting a Pi in each prop would be overkill. On the other hand, a design with 8 Arduinos in 8 props communicating with each other might be better done with one Pi.
There are of course a large number of different devices of varying power, complexity and cost. You probably don't want to learn all of them, though. The following four devices cover most needs without being too much over powered or underpowered:
a) Relay
b) Arduino
c) Raspberry Pi
d) Full-size PC/server
Fortunately the last two both run Linux, so that's only one system to learn, and relays should be easy to learn.
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Pi is way overkill for that application
Oh, you've read the entire detailed design criteria?
It always amazes me when someone comments about someone else's application based on a title alone.
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Not to mention that 6 months from now when you want to duplicate the project, you'll easily get an identical PI but who knows about the cheap cellphone? Even if it is the same model, the internals may be all different.
$40 just for the adapter costs more than the PI (Score:3)
Not sure why adding a $40 non-standard adapter to non-standard hardware is better than paying $35 for standard hardware that doesn't need an adapter.
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You mentioned "programming on Android" - if you want to write SOFTWARE you can do that on your computer - your desktop or laptop.
The Pi 3 is a quad core 1.4GHz ARM cpu. That's actually a moderately functional computer, certainly faster than my cingle core celery 900 eee which I still use for websurfing and email, and occasionally not very intensive programming tasks.
Not that I use a Pi for that. You are of course correct that it's great for hardware. I'm currently building a piece of test equipment and the
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...has millions of people doing projects with it and documenting how they did it.
To me, this is the actual value - and the limited number of models helps this process tremendously.
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You could us USB-OTG with a smartphone to add GIO and https://www.amazon.com/Plugabl... [amazon.com] ethernet.
The Pi is probably a better solution for say CNC machine and frankly for your wifi bridge I would suggest one of the old TP-Link Wifi Routers running wrt. You will bet much better performance than the PI using the shared USB ethernet on the Pi.
Amazon link not compatible with most Android. (Score:2)
From your Amazon link: ... ... Amazon, Samsung, LG, phones and tablets.
Limited Android compatibility.
Not compatible with
I did consider wrt. Partly I had trouble finding recommendations for fairly recent (high power) hardware for WRT. Also the default bridging setup is imperfect, so I'd be tearing out the WRT routing/bridging code and doing my own anyway.
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The problem with the PI is the ethernet performance. I uaed aTP-LINK with WRT as a bridge for my XBox 360 and it worked just fine. The new FCC rules are going to make life difficult for WRT going forward but Linksys is still still supporting it but they are not cheap.
As I said you could use an Android phone for projects involving GPIO and even and Ethernet. Yes you have to make sure it will work but it can be done.
I just got a PI3 and it is pretty good. I have have a few projects I am plaining on doing with
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...Why is the Raspberry Pi so great for tinkerers?
Well for one it allows one to tinker with it easily. The only way to connect something to an android phone is via blue tooth or USB, both of which take way more effort to control than the PIO pins on the Raspberry Pi.
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Cool (Score:5, Informative)
I have my Pi3 in a nice little wooden treasure box case, with a Bluetooth keyboard, and a soundcard dongle plus a USB to serial adapter, and am using it to do digital Radio comms with. I'm running mostly Ubuntu Mate - although I also have Raspbian OS on a different MicroSD card. One cool feature lost with the smaller version is with embedded memory, you won't be able to have different MicroSD cards for different OS's. Maybe the smaller computer will give a boost to the W10 IoT OS from Microsoft. I didn't find that too useful
Anyhow, the more Pi, the better.
Storage, not memory. (Score:2)
>" But it will be smaller, with the memory, CPU, and storage embedded tightly on a board"
This threw me until I realized it is incorrect (it is pretty late/early in the morning). The new one will have embedded STORAGE. Of course the memory is embedded, it always has been on every Pi- none of them have memory slots or expandable memory..
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Reply to self. Of course, then I read it again and duh. What they said that I quoted is absolutely correct, just a little misleading. What actually threw me was this:
>"a single-board computer that plugs into specific on-board memory slots"
The article makes so much more sense:
" Like its predecessor, it's likely the new Compute Module will be compatible with SODIMM slots, which are cheaper than PCI or SDRAM slots and can carry high-speed signals reliably. "
It is just designed to use an SODIMM slot connec
It never fails. (Score:2)
I bought my Raspberri Pi and a week later, the Pi 2 was announced.
I bought my Pi 2 and within about a month, the Pi 3 was announced.
I just ordered my Pi 3 on Prime Day and less than 72 hours later, I hear about this...
LK
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This isn't for you - it isn't for most people who buy Pi's, its designed as a replacement for the Compute Module, for use in large scale multi-board projects with custom back-planes. Your RasPi3 purchase is perfectly safe as if you were upset at this announcement then you would have been buying the existing Compute Module in the first place...
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The Pi compute stick has been around for years, this is just upgrading its internals.
Great (Score:4, Interesting)
I just finished a small Raspberry Pi cluster, with two RPi 3 compute nodes and an Rpi 2 front-end node. Not because it has such great computational capabilities - it doesn't - but because it's a low-cost way to get a "training system" that I can abuse without messing up anything on the real cluster I also use.
These new Pi's would be even better; could have a single backplane that the nodes slot into. Ideally you'd be able to route both power and ethernet through the backplane as well, but I don't know how feasible that'd be.
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It's really easy to set up. Take a few Pi's, add a small switch (get one that takes 5V). Connect them up, and use a single larger power brick that can power all Pis and the switch. Either make some kind of enclosure, or - as I did - rack them up with spacers, drill holes in the switch lid and mount the rack of PI's to it.
One wrinkle is that you probably want to keep the switch only for the internal network. I use a USB-Ethernet dongle on the login node for external communication. it's just as fast as the
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One wrinkle is that you probably want to keep the switch only for the internal network. I use a USB-Ethernet dongle on the login node for external communication. it's just as fast as the on-board Ethernet in practice
Is the onboard USB ethernet a bottleneck?
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no, it's an RJ-45 connector. they haven't shipped bottleneck connectors for decades
HAR HAR
and unless you have FIOS or the like, your ISP is the bandwidth limit
We're talking about clustering here, son, try to keep up
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Well, yes and no. You're limited to 100Mbit/s, which is if course a lot slower than gigabit ethernet, But normally a scientific cluster (which is what I'm interested in) isn't really limited by bandwidth as much as by latency. Going through the USB subsystem for all packets is going to give you worse latency than dedicated hardware. But then, I also use a cheap switch that's probably not a speed demon for retransmitting packets either.
And the thing is, the Pi is a fairly slow computer. I suspect that as a r
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It's fairly common in complex robotics to have a set of tiny MCUs like the AVR (that Arduino is based on) to control one or two joints, then a larger single-board computer to send commands to those units, and receive status updates about angles and speeds.
The Arduino and Raspberry Pi are well suited to those two roles.
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VMs would work well, I agree. But this way I also get real(ish) network latency and delays in the same way a full-size system does. And an actual tiny cluster on my desk is a lot more fun :)
Linux vs the other OS (Score:1)
Just compare:
"Linux"
vs
"Microsoft's Windows 10 IoT Core"
Linux wins for size and simplicity!
Please not another Pi-0 (Score:2)
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I would reallly like a rpi-zero wifi.
Currently there isn't much use for the zero until you add adapters, which are a lot thicker than the whole pi-zero. With wifi on board, it could do all kinds of server tasks and keep begin thinner than most mobile phones.
CM or A+ version first ? (Score:2)
In other news... (Score:1)
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and i already have three from a month ago. Just check http://whereismypizero.com/ [whereismypizero.com]
I got them from thepihut and pimoroni (together with really nice blinkenlights).
MEh... (Score:2)
I tried working with the compute module and it's a Pain in the arse. we switched to using pi zeros (yes they can be bought for the $5.00 price mark without too much trouble.
While the compute module gives you absolutely everything on the connector, we dont need it so a standard pi zero works perfectly and a whole lot easier. Just opened another box of 10 last night for another project.
You just have to not be lazy and jump when the stock notification arrives that the store has them back in stock again to g
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You just have to not be lazy and jump when the stock notification arrives that the store has them back in stock again to get them.
This really sounds like getting rare things in socialism. Why should the zero be rare except that it's a loss leader?
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Is there a decent backplane for these? (Score:2)
As small as... (Score:2)
If they keep this trend going, we will soon see Raspi's as small as a strawberry or even a blueberry...