While the Raspberry Pi is not the perfect hacker-friendly computer, it has done a lot of good. Some reasons off the top of my head:
1. Providing a low cost computer has given many people access to computers. Giving more people access to the web, email, an office suit, a programming environment AND giving people the ability of safely tinker without the fear of bricking an expensive device.
2. Introduced many different types of people to the FOSS landscape of powerful tools (e.g. distros such as Debian, tools such as Python).
3. The Raspberry Pi foundation has paid developers to write/optimise FOSS (e.g. paid Collabora to optimise WebkitGTK+ -- I think some Wayland work was also done).
4. Built on top of existing FOSS tools (e.g. building Raspbian on top of Debian), instead of doing everything on their own in a proprietary fashion. This has no doubt also helped to introduce new people into these communities.
This is a really good counter-point to all the "locked down" (hacker unfriendly) devices like smart phones and tablets.
This is probably the result of boards like the $9 C.H.I.P. stealing their thunder a little. (Which should actually be able to run Debian, unlike the Pi - Debian Jessie has built-in support for that generation of Allwinner chips.) The Pi has not actually been all that cheap lately compared to the competition. There's no reason they couldn't have done this years ago; like that Allwinner chip, the BCM2835 is an old, slow processor whose R&D costs were probably paid back long ago that they wouldn't otherwise be able to sell. This is especially true of the BCM2835, which is an ARM11 chip that's not widely supported outside the RPi ecosystem.
"1. Providing a low cost computer has given many people access to computers. Giving more people access to the web, email, an office suit, a programming environment AND giving people the ability of safely tinker without the fear of bricking an expensive device."
I seriously doubt about your first point. Adding the cost of accessories (mouse, keyboard, screen) and a shipping cost, Raspberry Pi costs the same as a decent, used laptop that can be used to install a full Linux distro. Even getting Raspberry Pi Zero with essential kit (cabels + the smallest SD card) to my country rises its costs to 20£, add the cost of accessories, and you can get another working used laptop (and as a bonus Ethernet/WiFi connection which RPi Zero lacks).
Don't get me wrong, Raspberry Pi is great for tinkering and home projects, I have much respect for what they are doing, but getting "computer to every home" is not it's strongest point.
To add a fifth point if I may - it was also rocket fuel for getting CS into the (what most here will call 'K12') curriculum.
When I (only ~5 years ago) took GCSE (last compulsory qualification) 'IT' - even though it was the slightly different course for 'more able' pupils - we were learning how to make Flash animations, use MS Office, Windows Movie Maker, and sorry things like that.
Forget "fifth point" - I think it's impact on schools is #1.
Definitely an impressive feat. I really, really, really wish it had on-board Wi-Fi though. At least that would make it a useful web server.
The way it's designed now, it's kind of unusable for anything useful without making it a 3X larger package. Add a Wi-Fi dongle and the converter from regular to micro-USB is about the size of the board itself. And since it only has 1 USB port, you'll need a full-blown hub to connect any other stuff like sensors, keyboards, or whatnot.
This is so cool, it's even cheaper than an Arduino. This could turn into a standard embedded development, OS development and learning board for every enthusiast and students.
The cost makes it a great choice for students with less resources.
Oh Nice! They are finally delivering on what I feel was the great promise of the Raspi in the beginning. Full linux install in the size and price of a micro (read: Arduino).
Some people are bound to gripe about the "lack" of ports but its not like this one displaced the A or B models. Its just another spin of the concept where you don't have to pay for expensive physical parts you don't need. Its a linux server at a price cheap enough to buy one for each little project you want to do and then leave it there. Makers rejoice.
I've got to hand it to the Raspi folks. They've really done an outstanding job creating their product line and getting it out to the masses. When they started, there was nothing but a sea of vaporware and "next-year" promises in the inexpensive SBC linux world. I rather famously doubted them at first. I am very happy to have been wrong.
I've got three Raspberry Pis. I don't know why. I don't know what to do with them. None of the projects that I've seen have been particularly compelling to me, and I'm not creative enough to come up with a good idea. So they sit on my desk, gathering dust, and act as a conversation piece when friends come over. "That? Yeah, I can build X, Y, or Z." and they say, "oooh, cool" and then I never actually follow through. I'm a terrible nerd. :(
Arduino Uno for $2, NodeMCU for $3, RPi for $5... please let this trend continue. A year or two, and we'll basically have computronium - simple dev boards powerful and cheap enough to just tile your house with them.
I've recently figured out that there's no point in designing your own PCB for placing sensors at home, when you can get an Arduino and an ESP8266 for $5; add power (and some ~$0 of voltage regulation) and you have a base station. Or just buy NodeMCU for $3 and skip on wiring Arduino and ESP8266 together.
Love watching the progress of Raspberry Pi. The attraction of the platform to me (compared to something more capable, with more ram ghz etc) is that the ecosystem is now so mature, you can easily google and get a cut and paste guide to exactly what you want to do. This means you can spend time tinkering with aspects that interest you rather than maintaining an operating system or troubleshooting hardware...
I'm curious to see how far optimisations could go. Analagous to the old consoles where developers could squeeze incredible performance out (compared to the equivalent processors elsewhere) since it was so uniform. e.g. the later games on a nintendo or neo geo were incredible compared to what was capable on a typical 8/16 bit computer of the time.
A $5 version is just going to accelerate this ecosystem... looking forward to it.
There is a lot of capability on the graphics side, which takes up most of the die. Can run Quake3 etc. Not very impressive compared to modern PC graphics, but very handy if you want to put something on a small screen.
Same with Arduino. You can use dozens of off-the-shelf shields and libraries to make it do exactly what you need without having to understand every little detail (however, if you want you can change every little bit or resistor!).
Instead you can focus on solving the problem at hand, mostly writing high level glue code.
I would love to see someone sell these as preconfigured as minimal bandwidth tor exit nodes with wifi so they can be spread far and wide. Just connect to power, make sure it is connected to a wifi network and then leave it alone. Just make sure it advertises itself as such so that law enforcement knows that it is likely not owned by the owner of the Internet connection and therefore doesn't make sense to do anything other than find the device and disable it if that's what they want. It should have a similar disclaimer as the standard tor exit not notice, except it should say something like "this tor exit node is operating on a disposable computer and was placed clandestinely on this network without the consent of the owner" or something to that effect.
I know there are ethical implications here, but that doesn't mean that something like this shouldn't or won't exist eventually.
Most wifi networks are NATed, so this would only work if you could also reconfigure the router to forward the necessary ports to the device.
You could use it more easily for hosting hidden services though, as those only require an outbound connection to be made to the Tor network. Hidden services on a hidden device.
The 80s are widely considered as the golden age of hacking, but what the hell? I just bought ten microcontrollers that can run Lua/Python/C for $20, there are full-blown computers for $5, and all the supporting ecosystem (sensors, components, etc) is cheaper than most toys.
I am very optimistic about the future, given that people (and children) these days have trivially cheap access to powerful programmable and easily connectable computers, and hopefully they'll start to demand more and more that all their other devices are equally hackable. If most people have a microcontroller at home that they made themselves that controls the coffee maker, they will want to be able to connect other stuff around the house up, and that can only be done with open protocols.
The next few years are going to be very interesting on the maker scene.
This is great, but for people who want to "get started in computing", don't they also need a display, a mouse and a keyboard?
LCD screens are like, $100, a mouse is $10-$20 new and low-end keyboards are $10-$30.
At that combined price, why does it matter if the computer is $25 or $5?
And if one is going to outlay the 150 bucks in peripherals, they might as well spend a bit more than $5 on the computer to get a significantly better computing experience.
Is there anything else going on here? Do they have a different approach that I'm not getting? It feels like, yeah, Moore's law is great and computers are cheap, but once RPi got to around or <$50 (which it did with the first version anyway), the computer was already cheaper than everything you needed to plug in to it.
Ah well. I recently (a week ago) started a new project with the Arduino and then they release this beast. It's basically cheaper than an Arduino (except that there's no storage in the Pi) AND faster than the Arduino.
Sure, it won't have the same IO capabilities as there's much more layers but it will be pretty close and I don't really need great performance anyways.
I guess, I'll have to switch to the Pi, it's not even a fair race at this point.
(luckily for me, I was mostly writing the SaaS that would work with the Arduino and only spent about a full day's work doing C/C++ coding so far)
You can find zigbee, wifi or bt dongles for $8 or less these days. I suspect board development costs are the limiting factor for the Foundation here, it's easier to slap on USB and tell users to plug in what they need.
The headers/shield solutions could easily provide that too, so it doesn't have to be integrated into the SoC if you want to add something not already there. These type of electronics have essentially become digital Lego.
Too bad they didn't include camera module connector (CSI). Low-latency hardware-encoded h264 stream from camera is one of the most cool features in RPi platform. The Zero would be great e.g. for FPV fying folks, if it supported camera module. (USB cameras aren't answer here, as they typically don't have low-latency hw-encoding.)
The sheer amount of "stuff" you get for $5 (albeit USD) is staggering.
I am designing some simple electronics gadgets for Burning Man, and the electronics (low-end MSP430 based) for that is costing me a significant portion of $5 yet its significantly less powerful.
I know, I know, volume is a key issue, but honestly, that doesn't make it any less impressive to me.
Broadcom must be delighted to have managed to find a use for their obsolete part from 2007 or so. Some accountant, somewhere, is happy :-)
Probably a neat little board too, but unlikely to be $5. It's at £11.88 [0] ex VAT ex shipping at farnell UK (and can't be ordered anyway) -- that's more like nearly $20 these days.
Don't forget, also, that the ARM11 in the BCM2835 is actually just a secondary processor; the main CPU is a blisteringly fast dual-core Videocore 4, which lots of interesting DSPish and vector processing instructions. (You can call out to it from the ARM.)
I'd like an updated Compute Module. Given how small the Pi Zero is, it should be doable to fit it inside the layout and with the connectors of a MiniPCIe board (though, of course not with the pinout).
Also, the compute module has support for USB Slave mode but there is no documentation for this - I'd like to see some expansion in this area as well.
Or choosing of a CPU with a MII interface to allow real GBit or, heck, fiber/powerline/wifi adapters...
Same here. What I'm fantasizing about is a kit with a set of compute modules in a "tower stack" with a power supply, with horizontally oriented boards stacked on the height, with all compute modules connected to ports in the tower.
And you could choose where the pin-outs leads - either straight out to connect to some electronics on the outside, or straight down to a router in the bottom.
Then you could dedicate some pins on all boards to link to the router, making for a small compact HPC setup (easy to ventilate too) and connect stuff like per-module LED rows for module status info and whatever else you might like.
I learned to take these pricing claims with a large grain of salt. $5 sounds great and makes for great news. But then I head over to Farnell/element14 and learn that a) this is unobtainium, because the first shipment is expected on Dec 21, and b) it will cost me $17 + VAT + shipping.
The title should say "the computer that might be available to some people at $5 at some time in the future".
Fantastic development, but I can't help but think about the years of pain we're going to be in security wise when people inevitably start using these for all sorts of "Internet of Things" purposes. Software stacks on these type of devices inevitably have lackluster cipher suites, sub-par protocol support, unpatched kernel/userland, etc—even if they run all the latest things out right now, they WILL get out of date and WILL NOT receive patches!
Not sure what you mean by "these type of devices", but you will be overjoyed that on Raspbian, updating the system is as easy as `apt-get udate && apt-get -y upgrade`, the kernel is currently v4.1.13 [1], and the rest of your comment is also FUD.
And thank God for that. I'm totally fine with securing critical infrastructure, bank/e-mail accounts and such, but infosec has a magical tendency of sucking joy out of everything. That insecure DIY light controller at my neighbours', you know what it is? Fun. :).
[+] [-] maheart|10 years ago|reply
While the Raspberry Pi is not the perfect hacker-friendly computer, it has done a lot of good. Some reasons off the top of my head:
1. Providing a low cost computer has given many people access to computers. Giving more people access to the web, email, an office suit, a programming environment AND giving people the ability of safely tinker without the fear of bricking an expensive device.
2. Introduced many different types of people to the FOSS landscape of powerful tools (e.g. distros such as Debian, tools such as Python).
3. The Raspberry Pi foundation has paid developers to write/optimise FOSS (e.g. paid Collabora to optimise WebkitGTK+ -- I think some Wayland work was also done).
4. Built on top of existing FOSS tools (e.g. building Raspbian on top of Debian), instead of doing everything on their own in a proprietary fashion. This has no doubt also helped to introduce new people into these communities.
This is a really good counter-point to all the "locked down" (hacker unfriendly) devices like smart phones and tablets.
[+] [-] makomk|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kbart|10 years ago|reply
I seriously doubt about your first point. Adding the cost of accessories (mouse, keyboard, screen) and a shipping cost, Raspberry Pi costs the same as a decent, used laptop that can be used to install a full Linux distro. Even getting Raspberry Pi Zero with essential kit (cabels + the smallest SD card) to my country rises its costs to 20£, add the cost of accessories, and you can get another working used laptop (and as a bonus Ethernet/WiFi connection which RPi Zero lacks). Don't get me wrong, Raspberry Pi is great for tinkering and home projects, I have much respect for what they are doing, but getting "computer to every home" is not it's strongest point.
[+] [-] OJFord|10 years ago|reply
When I (only ~5 years ago) took GCSE (last compulsory qualification) 'IT' - even though it was the slightly different course for 'more able' pupils - we were learning how to make Flash animations, use MS Office, Windows Movie Maker, and sorry things like that.
Forget "fifth point" - I think it's impact on schools is #1.
[+] [-] grp|10 years ago|reply
Curious about that.
[+] [-] dheera|10 years ago|reply
The way it's designed now, it's kind of unusable for anything useful without making it a 3X larger package. Add a Wi-Fi dongle and the converter from regular to micro-USB is about the size of the board itself. And since it only has 1 USB port, you'll need a full-blown hub to connect any other stuff like sensors, keyboards, or whatnot.
[+] [-] theinternetman|10 years ago|reply
Done then abandoned. Doesn't work with their currently shipping hardware/OS.
[+] [-] aaggarwal|10 years ago|reply
The cost makes it a great choice for students with less resources.
This is easily my pocket pc now.
[+] [-] noonespecial|10 years ago|reply
Some people are bound to gripe about the "lack" of ports but its not like this one displaced the A or B models. Its just another spin of the concept where you don't have to pay for expensive physical parts you don't need. Its a linux server at a price cheap enough to buy one for each little project you want to do and then leave it there. Makers rejoice.
I've got to hand it to the Raspi folks. They've really done an outstanding job creating their product line and getting it out to the masses. When they started, there was nothing but a sea of vaporware and "next-year" promises in the inexpensive SBC linux world. I rather famously doubted them at first. I am very happy to have been wrong.
[+] [-] Jemaclus|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tomjacobs|10 years ago|reply
It feels a lot like a tipping point for something.
http://makezine.com/2015/11/25/raspberry-pi-announces-5-comp...
[+] [-] TeMPOraL|10 years ago|reply
I've recently figured out that there's no point in designing your own PCB for placing sensors at home, when you can get an Arduino and an ESP8266 for $5; add power (and some ~$0 of voltage regulation) and you have a base station. Or just buy NodeMCU for $3 and skip on wiring Arduino and ESP8266 together.
[+] [-] djfergus|10 years ago|reply
I'm curious to see how far optimisations could go. Analagous to the old consoles where developers could squeeze incredible performance out (compared to the equivalent processors elsewhere) since it was so uniform. e.g. the later games on a nintendo or neo geo were incredible compared to what was capable on a typical 8/16 bit computer of the time.
A $5 version is just going to accelerate this ecosystem... looking forward to it.
[+] [-] pjc50|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Tepix|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] malandrew|10 years ago|reply
I know there are ethical implications here, but that doesn't mean that something like this shouldn't or won't exist eventually.
[+] [-] driverdan|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] geographomics|10 years ago|reply
You could use it more easily for hosting hidden services though, as those only require an outbound connection to be made to the Tor network. Hidden services on a hidden device.
[+] [-] VMG|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] StavrosK|10 years ago|reply
I am very optimistic about the future, given that people (and children) these days have trivially cheap access to powerful programmable and easily connectable computers, and hopefully they'll start to demand more and more that all their other devices are equally hackable. If most people have a microcontroller at home that they made themselves that controls the coffee maker, they will want to be able to connect other stuff around the house up, and that can only be done with open protocols.
The next few years are going to be very interesting on the maker scene.
[+] [-] cconcepts|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rockmeamedee|10 years ago|reply
LCD screens are like, $100, a mouse is $10-$20 new and low-end keyboards are $10-$30. At that combined price, why does it matter if the computer is $25 or $5?
And if one is going to outlay the 150 bucks in peripherals, they might as well spend a bit more than $5 on the computer to get a significantly better computing experience.
Is there anything else going on here? Do they have a different approach that I'm not getting? It feels like, yeah, Moore's law is great and computers are cheap, but once RPi got to around or <$50 (which it did with the first version anyway), the computer was already cheaper than everything you needed to plug in to it.
[+] [-] foxpc|10 years ago|reply
Sure, it won't have the same IO capabilities as there's much more layers but it will be pretty close and I don't really need great performance anyways.
I guess, I'll have to switch to the Pi, it's not even a fair race at this point.
(luckily for me, I was mostly writing the SaaS that would work with the Arduino and only spent about a full day's work doing C/C++ coding so far)
[+] [-] smarx007|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] trymas|10 years ago|reply
Such step would increase price, I know, but AFAIK, most people are almost always buying either wifi or bluetooth dongles anyway.
All in all, RPi ables to deliver exciting, rather (for me) unexpected and most importantly great and user-friendly products.
[+] [-] creshal|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Natanael_L|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] DiThi|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] swah|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Yaggo|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] intrasight|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cobweb|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] robzyb|10 years ago|reply
The sheer amount of "stuff" you get for $5 (albeit USD) is staggering.
I am designing some simple electronics gadgets for Burning Man, and the electronics (low-end MSP430 based) for that is costing me a significant portion of $5 yet its significantly less powerful.
I know, I know, volume is a key issue, but honestly, that doesn't make it any less impressive to me.
[+] [-] weland|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] buserror|10 years ago|reply
Probably a neat little board too, but unlikely to be $5. It's at £11.88 [0] ex VAT ex shipping at farnell UK (and can't be ordered anyway) -- that's more like nearly $20 these days.
[0]: http://uk.farnell.com/raspberry-pi/raspberrypi-zero/sbc-zero...
[+] [-] icebraining|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] schappim|10 years ago|reply
- A Broadcom BCM2835 application processor
- 1GHz ARM11 core (40% faster than Raspberry Pi 1)
- 512MB of LPDDR2 SDRAM
- A micro-SD card slot
- A mini-HDMI socket for 1080p60 video output
- Micro-USB sockets for data and power
- An unpopulated 40-pin GPIO header
- Identical pinout to Model A+/B+/2B
- An unpopulated composite video header
- Our smallest ever form factor, at 65mm x 30mm x 5mm
Source: http://raspberry.piaustralia.com.au/products/raspberry-pi-ze...
[+] [-] david-given|10 years ago|reply
See: http://maazl.de/project/vc4asm/doc/index.html
And if you're into shader programming, the GPU has a 24 GFLOP shader unit.
https://github.com/hermanhermitage/videocoreiv-qpu
Only suitable for very specialised purposes, but astonishingly fast.
[+] [-] vertis|10 years ago|reply
I ordered one from PiHut in the UK because that was the cheapest I could find (AUD$16 including shipping).
[+] [-] mschuster91|10 years ago|reply
Also, the compute module has support for USB Slave mode but there is no documentation for this - I'd like to see some expansion in this area as well.
Or choosing of a CPU with a MII interface to allow real GBit or, heck, fiber/powerline/wifi adapters...
[+] [-] Natanael_L|10 years ago|reply
And you could choose where the pin-outs leads - either straight out to connect to some electronics on the outside, or straight down to a router in the bottom.
Then you could dedicate some pins on all boards to link to the router, making for a small compact HPC setup (easy to ventilate too) and connect stuff like per-module LED rows for module status info and whatever else you might like.
Bonus point for a "split" tower with modules on both sides, folding down like some toolboxes do: https://www.howdentools.com/data/howden/ul/1406847600/140933...
[+] [-] jws|10 years ago|reply
- 512MB ram
- HDMI
- Micro-usb
- Micro-SD
- 40 pin GPIO
https://www.raspberrypi.org/blog/raspberry-pi-zero/
[+] [-] jwr|10 years ago|reply
The title should say "the computer that might be available to some people at $5 at some time in the future".
[+] [-] smarx007|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sago|10 years ago|reply
S+H is £2.50
[+] [-] atmosx|10 years ago|reply
But all in all it's an impressive little machine that can do wonders for small home/school projects.
[+] [-] gambiting|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] aorth|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rdancer|10 years ago|reply
[1] https://github.com/raspberrypi/firmware/blob/master/boot/ker...
[+] [-] TeMPOraL|10 years ago|reply