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RasPi: $25. Monitor: About 100. Mouse/keyboard: 20 or so. Power supply: 5. Speakers: 5. SD card: we'll say about 20. So we're talking about $175, total for a 700 Mhz machine. I'll bet you could do as well on Craigslist looking for used laptops.

Or you could get the monitor on Craig's List and save money, if Craig's List is an option. And in a year or two, a kid might be able to pick up a whole RPi setup including monitor on Craig's List.

In short, it is not fair to compare the straight-up full cost of an RPi with the cost of a random used laptop, possibly old. Heck, I once got a computer free because the owner got a new one. Should I complain that the RPi isn't free?

A school will be able to equip a whole classroom lab with a bunch of RPi computers. Each student will have his/her own to use during class, and at $25, any student who wants to buy one for home use realistically can.

So, students will show up to class, each insert their own personal SD card, and boot up the RPi. Then do development in Python, or Scratch, or Logo, or whatever teaching language the school prefers. Many of the students can have an RPi at home and can play with it there.

The idea of "buy a cheap used laptop on Craig's List" doesn't scale for a whole classroom. With the RPi, each device is identical to each other device, and it is really cheap to have a bunch of hot spares put away.

This is a device to inspire future geeks, not teach the masses how to program. I think that's the idea.

Well, you could always try going to the official web site and see if there is anything here:

http://www.raspberrypi.org/about

Oh, they want to enable computer classes to focus on computer stuff (as opposed to training in how to use Microsoft Office), and they want every family to be able to afford a computer that can access the Internet.

steveha

The FAQ states that audio over HDMI is supported. ( http://www.raspberrypi.org/faqs about halfway down.)

You boot it from the USB, so who cares

Initial boot is from the SD card, but after that you can go to the USB/Ethernet(Model B only) for /

You probably wouldn't want to bitbang to some random IC you wanted to talk to with R-Pi

Actually, this is pretty much why the RasPi was made. Getting kids to plug stuff into their computer and make it work. Gert Van Loo has made an extension board to help, taking care of buffering the IOs so that the RasPi doesn't pop a fuse or the SoC.
The RasPi has built in CSI for cameras, directly into the GPU so cameras aren't going to need much in the way of connecting and learning. They will just be used and programmed around. There is already a fairly good idea at the Foundation of which camera module will be supported.

Come over to the forums and have a look. If you order one now you won't have to wait too long for delivery.

They are trying "List of open source games that can be ported to the R-Pi"
http://www.raspberrypi.org/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=5395

If it were a more standard flavor of Linux, like a regular Debian kernel, I'd definitely prefer it over Android.

You're in luck - the Debian image is currently the recommended one on the downloads page.

(I've no idea what the 'official' educational version will be running, but from the distributions I've played round with so far, Debian is probably the most complete. Although I have switched to the go-faster-stripes Raspbian, which is very similar from a usage point of view.)

There are multiple Raspberry Pi users on the official Troubleshooting forum experiencing hardware problems with their Pi. It appears the Raspberry Pi has problems with USB, specifically with powering peripherals that require 140 mA or more. Look here: http://www.raspberrypi.org/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=24&t=5830

This situation causes a voltage drop that results in the USB voltage becoming out of specification. This has resulted in malfunctions with USB devices such as Wi-Fi dongles, even when connected to the Pi via a powered hub. Also, there appears to be Ethernet problems caused by this "excessive" (but well within USB specifications) current draw: http://www.raspberrypi.org/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=6037

There are multiple Raspberry Pi users on the official Troubleshooting forum experiencing hardware problems with their Pi. It appears the Raspberry Pi has problems with USB, specifically with powering peripherals that require 140 mA or more. Look here: http://www.raspberrypi.org/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=24&t=5830

This situation causes a voltage drop that results in the USB voltage becoming out of specification. This has resulted in malfunctions with USB devices such as Wi-Fi dongles, even when connected to the Pi via a powered hub. Also, there appears to be Ethernet problems caused by this "excessive" (but well within USB specifications) current draw: http://www.raspberrypi.org/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=6037

Some people seem to be expecting a low-cost general purpose device

Gee, I can't imagine where they could have gotten that impression.

This just in: Marketing is important. It should not be left as an afterthought or as a secondary task for developers, any more than product development should be done by marketdroids in their spare time. Ric Romero has more at 11.

The fact that it can't run Quake ...

Then again... http://www.raspberrypi.org/archives/1139

I wouldn't consider the Engadget review to be negative. They tried to use the board for things it wasn't designed to do (like play Youtube or Flash videos), and it failed to do so. Big deal. The people who are actually trying to buy these boards would likely know better.

The reviewer didn't seem to have a clue what they were doing... they complained about having to type in the startx command to start the GUI, for pete's sake. If anything, the review did a better job of making Engadget look bad than the product they were reviewing.

That said, it's easy to think of negative things to say about the Pi... like the lack of supply. I've been on the waiting list for one for over a month now, and I haven't even been given an estimated shipping date at this point.

"They tried to use the board for things it wasn't designed to do"

Funny that you say that

What’s a Raspberry Pi?

It’s a capable little PC which can be used for many of the things that your desktop PC does, like spreadsheets, word-processing and games. It also plays high-definition video.

http://www.raspberrypi.org/faqs

You, sir, are a hero.

Nah, I'm no hero, I just dislike the thought of the internet being restricted. Because as soon as they can restrict it, they will use restriction as a way of enforcing things.
"Oh, you don't agree with [insert elected leader's name]'s policies? Well, say goodbye to your internet access..."

Plus, it may not even work. (it does use a Raspberry Pi as the processing unit though, so chances of success are higher than they might have been.)

Two, actually :)
http://www.raspberrypi.org/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=62&t=6012

I came up with another solution.
But that wasn't what my reply was about. GP said that RasPi had built in radio, I just pointed out it doesn't.

For me this is no problem, I don't intend to put WiFi or BT into the machine, although I do have one of those stupidly small BT dongles (from the Pound Shop no less).

Neither this not the RasPi have built in WiFi/BlueTooth.

Some people think Desktop with shiny windows if they hear the word computer.

The Pi has (for example) GPIO ports along with SPI, I2C, UART and more. If this is not enough, or you don't want to design your own PCB you might add a gert board and you get motor drivers without any knowledge of electronics. Now you have a robotics platform. Since it is running Linux one has a plethora of programming languages at hand to do something useful with these features (for example robotics).

Or you may just want to build an appliance which can be controlled via http, IR whatever (media center any one?).

Of course, it can also be used as very cheap desktop or server of some sort. But for people with an imagination beyond the Desktop this little computer is a big deal.

2 millions ordered in that short time without millions of marketing budget tells me that some people might have a vision beyond the Desktop. And that for only $35.

Cheers,
-S

Model A cost $25 and model B cost $35

Model A is not available to order.

Model B costs $40. It is not possible to order it without the mandatory delivery charge, so $40 it is.

I'm pretty sure that the Pi handled 1080p video just fine. I'm not sure about the h.264 though.
http://www.raspberrypi.org/archives/571

Farnell in Norway does not sell devices other than the Raspberry Pi to end users. There was a big PR campaign by the Raspberry Pi Foundation to market the device to ordinary end users, then a big backlash when they changed their distribution plan and only businesses would be able to order it in many countries, so they managed to convince Farnell and RS Electronics to start selling to ordinary consumers in countries where they normally don't.

There you go http://www.raspberrypi.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/mooncakehelpsout.jpg

(from a forum thread 'Pi's and small fuzzy animals. How will you keep them apart? ')

Your welcome.

They do have about 2000 in their hands now.

http://www.raspberrypi.org/archives/945

So they "have" 2000 boards 2 months after "official launch", during which they claimed they already gave 10000 boards to distributors? Nice.

They do have about 2000 in their hands now.

http://www.raspberrypi.org/archives/945

http://www.raspberrypi.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/1seaofpis.png

gosh this looks like a lot of Raspberry Pi's in shrink wrap, I wonder if maybe you got modded out for some reason other than you make sane reasonable points with evidence in a calm and reasonable manner?

Its 29 or March, there is ~900 boards in the picture, they are still in China.
Launch date was 29 February (full 30 days ago), Launch means here you go click and buy. There was nothing to buy.

If you read post that came with that picture you will learn they are talking about 2000 boards, so where did the 8000 go? They never existed in February.

Btw I just checked and they banned me :-) Banned me for saying they "officially launched" with ZERO inventory.

Launch was in February. Farnell says that EARLIEST date is June. It all stinks. I feel scammed.
Its one thing to be incompetent, its another to constantly lie.

http://www.raspberrypi.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/1seaofpis.png
gosh this looks like a lot of Raspberry Pi's in shrink wrap, I wonder if maybe you got modded out for some reason other than you make sane reasonable points with evidence in a calm and reasonable manner?

As the Raspberry Pi Foundation failed to produce these first boards in the UK ( see this article, previously linked on Slashdot), the just have to put the China Exports CE mark. :)

Raspberry Pi delayed? Shocking!

I thought we were just days away last month?

http://www.raspberrypi.org/archives/696

TLDR: Saturday 2/25 Eben expected the boards to ship (to them) that day or Monday.

I'm sure the Pi-ers will mod me down fiercely, but come on guys... I ordered one too, I want one, but lets not pretend this has been handled well.

http://www.raspberrypi.org/archives/571

I think they eventually changed this after everyone yelled about it, but originally their selected retailers were adding hefty extra charges on top of VAT and shipping in quite a few EU countries. You may not have noticed the complaining because they stuck all discussion of the retailers and pricing in the off-topic section of the forum and closed a lot of the threads just like this.

psshh. the pi rdf means that you should be excited for a product that's both _cheap_ and _charitable_, if you got something negative that's OFF TOPIC. doesn't matter if there's no actual charity aspect(it's in pipeline) or if everyone involved is making money from the product. but it's not a product, since that would imply being a business selling to consumers which would imply some responsibilities.

(another offtopic note is that you can get android comps on a puck with hdmi out, remote control in etc for 70-80 bucks including shipping)

it would be nice if the next Pi article had something about some dude who received his pi doing something cool with his pi.

I think they eventually changed this after everyone yelled about it, but originally their selected retailers were adding hefty extra charges on top of VAT and shipping in quite a few EU countries. You may not have noticed the complaining because they stuck all discussion of the retailers and pricing in the off-topic section of the forum and closed a lot of the threads just like this.

psshh. the pi rdf means that you should be excited for a product that's both _cheap_ and _charitable_, if you got something negative that's OFF TOPIC. doesn't matter if there's no actual charity aspect(it's in pipeline) or if everyone involved is making money from the product. but it's not a product, since that would imply being a business selling to consumers which would imply some responsibilities.

(another offtopic note is that you can get android comps on a puck with hdmi out, remote control in etc for 70-80 bucks including shipping)

it would be nice if the next Pi article had something about some dude who received his pi doing something cool with his pi.

I think they eventually changed this after everyone yelled about it, but originally their selected retailers were adding hefty extra charges on top of VAT and shipping in quite a few EU countries. You may not have noticed the complaining because they stuck all discussion of the retailers and pricing in the off-topic section of the forum and closed a lot of the threads just like this.

I think they eventually changed this after everyone yelled about it, but originally their selected retailers were adding hefty extra charges on top of VAT and shipping in quite a few EU countries. You may not have noticed the complaining because they stuck all discussion of the retailers and pricing in the off-topic section of the forum and closed a lot of the threads just like this.

You should be thankful you're not on the official Raspberry Pi forums, or the moderators would've deleted your criticism and one of the fanboys would have joked about tying you to a lamppost naked or something to punish you (which, unlike any kind of criticism, is entirely A-OK with the Raspberry Pi staff). I am not making this up. You can find the original thread here. You can see that the moderators were aware of and fine with the tying-to-a-lamppost comment because they read and deleted its target's complaint about that comment which is still quoted in the thread.

You should be thankful you're not on the official Raspberry Pi forums, or the moderators would've deleted your criticism and one of the fanboys would have joked about tying you to a lamppost naked or something to punish you (which, unlike any kind of criticism, is entirely A-OK with the Raspberry Pi staff). I am not making this up. You can find the original thread here. You can see that the moderators were aware of and fine with the tying-to-a-lamppost comment because they read and deleted its target's complaint about that comment which is still quoted in the thread.

"Firstly, the schedule for manufacture for every UK business we approached was between 12 and 14 weeks (compared to a 3-4 week turnaround in the Far East)."
http://www.raspberrypi.org/archives/509
[Posted on January 10th, 8.5 weeks ago - and manufacturing had already started at that point].

I guess UK manufacturing wouldn't have been much slower, after all.

RS

Actually, people have been reporting prices as high as 57 euros including shipping in France (about $75, and I'm pretty sure the comment about import duty in that thread is BS because there's no import duty when shipping between EU member states), and a similar price when ordering from Israel. Apparently Farnell were originally wanting $20 for shipping to the US too. Then there's Farnell's minimum value for credit card orders in some countries. In others they refuse to sell to non-business customers full stop.

Also, notice how all of those posts are in the Off Topic section. That's because their forum moderators have a policy that all discussion of pricing or actually buying the device is off-topic or even outright trolling.

Actually, people have been reporting prices as high as 57 euros including shipping in France (about $75, and I'm pretty sure the comment about import duty in that thread is BS because there's no import duty when shipping between EU member states), and a similar price when ordering from Israel. Apparently Farnell were originally wanting $20 for shipping to the US too. Then there's Farnell's minimum value for credit card orders in some countries. In others they refuse to sell to non-business customers full stop.

Also, notice how all of those posts are in the Off Topic section. That's because their forum moderators have a policy that all discussion of pricing or actually buying the device is off-topic or even outright trolling.

Actually, people have been reporting prices as high as 57 euros including shipping in France (about $75, and I'm pretty sure the comment about import duty in that thread is BS because there's no import duty when shipping between EU member states), and a similar price when ordering from Israel. Apparently Farnell were originally wanting $20 for shipping to the US too. Then there's Farnell's minimum value for credit card orders in some countries. In others they refuse to sell to non-business customers full stop.

Also, notice how all of those posts are in the Off Topic section. That's because their forum moderators have a policy that all discussion of pricing or actually buying the device is off-topic or even outright trolling.

Actually, people have been reporting prices as high as 57 euros including shipping in France (about $75, and I'm pretty sure the comment about import duty in that thread is BS because there's no import duty when shipping between EU member states), and a similar price when ordering from Israel. Apparently Farnell were originally wanting $20 for shipping to the US too. Then there's Farnell's minimum value for credit card orders in some countries. In others they refuse to sell to non-business customers full stop.

Also, notice how all of those posts are in the Off Topic section. That's because their forum moderators have a policy that all discussion of pricing or actually buying the device is off-topic or even outright trolling.

Actually, people have been reporting prices as high as 57 euros including shipping in France (about $75, and I'm pretty sure the comment about import duty in that thread is BS because there's no import duty when shipping between EU member states), and a similar price when ordering from Israel. Apparently Farnell were originally wanting $20 for shipping to the US too. Then there's Farnell's minimum value for credit card orders in some countries. In others they refuse to sell to non-business customers full stop.

Also, notice how all of those posts are in the Off Topic section. That's because their forum moderators have a policy that all discussion of pricing or actually buying the device is off-topic or even outright trolling.

I don't want "more IOs to drive steppers". I would settle for ANY.

What about the Gertboard?

Please move aside and let those of us that want to figure out things to do with it enjoy our moment where a computer that is pretty open source from the ground up gets its moment in the sun.

Oh if that were so.

There is no case for the Raspberry Pi. There's a lot of people who suggest using an Altoid's tin but unfortunately because they don't round the edges of the board, it will just barely not fit in an Altoid's tin

You'd probably want ethernet (model b) for a cluster. But you could probably cluster them together using a (much slower) connection via i2c/spi/usb or straight gpio.

the ethernet comes from the USB2 bus, so in fact, you would want the model A for a cluster unless you needed the additional memory of the model B.

Here is the comment from Liz for anyone else wondering where it was:
(by the way, BOM means Bill of Materials)

Ha – no, that was something else entirely. Wired asked us to give them a copy of our BOM. We told them we couldn’t do that because it’d land us in hot water with our suppliers (particularly Hynix and Broadcom); if their other customers were to use our BOM to demand similar pricing, we’d be in trouble. So instead, they *made up* a BOM (which was gratuitously wrong). They told us they were doing this, and we asked them not to; saying we’d be happier for no article to appear at all. They published it anyway. Our suppliers started getting calls from their other customers, as predicted; we had a lot of apologising to do.

Slightly less serious, but still damned annoying: Wired also demanded pictures of a cased version of the final board. This was well before Christmas, at which point we didn’t *have* any beta or final boards, still less any cased ones (the cases are being finished after the board themselves are finished at the end of this month). They didn’t take no for an answer, and kept asking, and asking, and askingand then photoshopped a case onto an alpha board (wrong size, wrong proportions) for their magazine. Which is misleading, but it’s nothing like as damaging as their efforts with the BOM were.

Needless to say, they’re off the list for press samples, and they’re not getting any more interviews either (they ran Rob ragged in preparation for this, then never used any of the material they’d got from him). Wired seem to believe they’re still as relevant as they were in 1998. Luckily for us, they’re not; we’ve interacted with hundreds of journalists over the last six months or so, and not a single one of them has been as hard to work with as Wired were.

I'm not saying that anywhere is particularly booming in IT (or related industries) at the moment but Open Source adoption is fairly big amongst telecoms equipment providers, where there's been a big push away from commercial UNIX distributions like Solaris and HP-UX to Linux.

The company I work for first moved into Red Hat Linux servers when the world started to go Voice Over IP about a decade ago, now I think someone is looking a lot more at margins on our appliance servers as we move into virtualisation - Red Hat seems to be slowly disappearing in favour of CentOS, presumably as we move into more self-supported Linux distros rather than paying Red Hat for support (not that I have a particular problem with either methodology).

You also might want to keep an eye on the Raspberry Pi. It may never be "the Year Of Desktop Linux" (not that I care anyway) but many people here in the UK are predicting a big uptake in schools over here for it - so presumably that will need experts to support them also in educational departments. Even I'm getting to the age now where big wage packets are becoming slightly less important as the mortgage on the house gets a lot smaller and I feel like giving back some of my accrued knowledge over 30-odd years of telecoms, IT and security experience back to the youngsters. If the Raspberry Pi kicks off a new-found interest in youngsters taking up programming, there may be something an old git like me can bring to them...

It might be worth seeing how it takes off where you are... and have a look around some of the telecoms manufacturers like Cisco, Avaya, Siemens, etc., not to mention those companies that do third-party applications that interface to their kit for voice recording, predictive dialing and call-centre reporting.

I had no intention of running Win8 on my RasberryPi anyway!

Quoting user shirro from the Raspberry Pi comments:

Quartz crystals provide a clock signal that regulates all the other components. They utilize the mechanical resonance of the crystal to produce a stable electrical oscillator. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crystal_oscillator

Digital circuits such as microprocessors have delays in processing and moving data about and a clock is required to regulate the system so that data is not read before it is available. Different parts move at different speeds and the master clock is divided down to appropriate rates for each component of the system.

Read up on it for more information. This is my understanding of it:

• The Model A (128 MB RAM, no ethernet port) is $25
• The Model B (256 MB RAM, ethernet port) is $35

The first run is of the Model B, as they anticipate more people are interested in that set of hardware. Their FAQ likely provides more in-depth information that what I have provided here.

Will you sell a self-assembly kit?

No. It would be too expensive for us to provide kits alongside finished boards, which would mean introducing another step in manufacturing; and a kit would be impossible to hand solder. We use special equipment (robots!) to solder on the BGA package and other tiny components.

I'm sure they will release documentation in good time, but even before that it would be easy to add additional custom hardware interfaces through USB in the form of Arduino or other USB supporting hardware platforms.

Also the idea behind the project is not to be a cheap terminal for 3rd world countries (tho it would serve this purpose very well) but as an ultra cheap programmable computer for English school children to encourage more programming in IT lessons and bedroom coding like in the days of the ZX spectrum and C64.

http://www.raspberrypi.org/archives/592#comment-10077

liz on January 31, 2012 at 9:17 pm said:
Indeed – we have to use an x-ray machine with microscopy to ensure all the pads are connected properly. And NOBODY has one of those at home.

This post has just been Slashdotted. http://hardware.slashdot.org/story/12/01/31/203229/why-the-raspberry-pi-wont-ship-in-kit-form Plenty of commenters there appear downright insulted that we don’t think they’ve got ovens, masks, and an x-ray machine at home, along with the dexterity of a TINY TINY PIXIE. (They don’t have any of those things, but they’re still insulted.) Sometimes I really hate Slashdot.