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PCMCIA Computer Project Aims Even Higher (and Cheaper) Than Raspberry Pi

Posted by timothy on from the concept-that-can-be-turned-into-an-idea dept.

lkcl writes "An initiative by a Community Interest Company Rhombus Tech aims to provide Software (Libre) Developers with a PCMCIA-sized modular computer that could end up in mass-volume products. The reference design mass-volume pricing guide from the SoC manufacturer, for a device with similar capability to the Raspberry Pi, is around $15: 40% less than the $25 Raspberry Pi but for a device with an ARM Cortex A8 CPU 3x times faster than the 700mhz ARM11 used in the Raspberry Pi. GPL Kernel source code is available. A page for community ideas for motherboard designs has also been created. The overall goal is to bring more mass-volume products to market which Software (Libre) Developers have actually been involved in, reversing the trend of endemic GPL violations surrounding ARM-based mass-produced hardware. The Preorder pledge registration is now open (account creation required)." Of course, the Raspberry Pi is not only only much further along, but has recently announced an expansion module (the Gertboard).

39 of 161 comments (clear)

  1. Great by Hatta · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I'll buy one of each.

    --
    Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
    1. Re:Great by lkcl · · Score: 3, Informative

      good man! feel free to fill in the preorder form http://rhombus-tech.net/allwinner_a10/orders/ i'm a bit reluctant to do it on your behalf [aitch tee tee pee slashdot dot org slash tilde hatta]

      please do bear in mind that in the early stage we're *not* going to sell completely untested cards in mass-volume right away, that would be foolish. we're going to follow the process that Dr Schaller has been doing on the development of the GTA04 - http://wiki.openmoko.org/wiki/GTA04_revisions as have various other projects, OpenPandora included.

      so, early alpha boards go out to people prepared to take a risk, but who have the money spare (under $100, gosh, wow, break the bank why not) to consider "what the heck, this is cool, let's support this initiative" but at the same time have some expertise in embedded GNU/Linux development, and they might actually get something that works perfectly first time, and they're the ones that got it, before anyone else.

      beta boards go out to people who want something that, hardware-wise, is pretty much guaranteed to work 100%, but maybe the software's not all there, and they might have to (gosh) get involved and help write it.

      stable boards go out to people who really would "just like something that works, thank you, where's the debian distro image, where's the instructions for putting everything onto an sdcard, heck, where can i buy a pre-loaded MicroSD card so i don't have to do that, even".

      so it's a known trade-off: the principles of Software (Libre) Development as applied to hardware: release early, release often. exactly the sort of thing that you never normally see in the development of hardware products, and i think it's pretty damn cool to be able to witness and be part of something that *isn't* GPL-violating. at bloody last.

    2. Re:Great by Raenex · · Score: 2

      I don't understand, and I don't read long texts without capitalization. Your comments may not be "full articles", but they are long texts publicized for a wide audience.

      I consider it rude to not follow basic conventions, as it places a burden on the reader and diminishes the value of conventions used in language.

    3. Re:Great by Pioto · · Score: 2

      If you are going to write a response to nit-pick someone's grammar, spelling, etc... you should check yours first!

  2. Why PCMCIA? by bcmm · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Why use the PCMCIA form-factor? It appears they aren't actually using it for PCMCIA. Is it very difficult to design a connector, or is it to do with using existing manufacturing tools originally designed to make PCMCIA cards?

    --
    # cat /dev/mem | strings | grep -i llama
    Damn, my RAM is full of llamas.
    1. Re:Why PCMCIA? by Nerdfest · · Score: 3, Interesting

      PCMCIA seems to be what happens when a marketing droid forces design constraints on something. "It needs to be the size of a credit card"! If if smaller and thicker, connectors would have been much sturdier.

    2. Re:Why PCMCIA? by LinuxIsGarbage · · Score: 2

      PCMCIA has been obsolete for like 15 years replaced with identical form factor Cardbus cards. Not only that but Cardbus has been obsolete for 5 years replaced with Expresscard, which itself isn't that popular because most people use USB for add-on peripherals these days.

      So really they are comparing it to an old obsolete format.

    3. Re:Why PCMCIA? by mikael · · Score: 2

      I'd guess it's for upgrading a laptop. PCMCIA would give the board a chunk in memory-map space, as well as being in a robust form-factor. USB dongles tend to end up having damaged connectors to the point they are unusable.

      --
      Vintage computer adverts: http://www.vintageadbrowser.com/computers-and-software-ads
    4. Re:Why PCMCIA? by petermgreen · · Score: 4, Informative

      PCMCIA was originally designed as a memory card form factor. It was later thickened up for use as an expansion card form factor.

      Also I think being thicker would have doomed it sooner as laptops got thinner.

      --
      note: i'm known as plugwash most places but i screwd up registering that here somehow in the past and now can't register
    5. Re:Why PCMCIA? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I think they're just using the physical PCMCIA connector, not the PCMCIA pin-out. I think it's so that the entire thing can be plugged in to a variety of hardware devices: small form-factor computers, TVs, tablets, whatever. There are benefits to that approach. Wouldn't it have been nice, for example, if you could have upgraded your original iPad by simply ejecting the motherboard and inserting a new one? There might not have been any reason to replace the screen and battery. This sort of modular approach resolves that. And it opens up opportunities for hardware manufacturers if they know they can get a whole computer in a known form-factor. It would relieve them of an otherwise huge part of the product design.

    6. Re:Why PCMCIA? by lkcl · · Score: 3, Interesting

      http://rhombus-tech.net//faq/#index4h2 - re-use of *existing* connectors, housings and assemblies keeps the price right down. yes you're absolutely right: expecting a complete new design of connector to be reasonably affordable is impossible.

      the whole initiative is based around leap-frogging over the normal barriers to entry for products. use Software (Libre) Developers for the software engineering. use off-the-shelf parts as much as possible. do a deal with the factory ["we won't charge you for software engineer time if you won't charge us for hardware engineer time"]. use pre-existing casework designs from China-based Industrial Flea Markets (don't get the wrong idea, here - these Markets are the size of football pitches and 7 stories high!) and so on.

    7. Re:Why PCMCIA? by lkcl · · Score: 2

      I think they're just using the physical PCMCIA connector, not the PCMCIA pin-out. I think it's so that the entire thing can be plugged in to a variety of hardware devices: small form-factor computers, TVs, tablets, whatever. There are benefits to that approach. Wouldn't it have been nice, for example, if you could have upgraded your original iPad by simply ejecting the motherboard and inserting a new one? There might not have been any reason to replace the screen and battery. This sort of modular approach resolves that. And it opens up opportunities for hardware manufacturers if they know they can get a whole computer in a known form-factor. It would relieve them of an otherwise huge part of the product design.

      exactly! now, why did you say this as an anonymous coward? :) the problem with the above is that what end-users would love is exactly what consumerism hates! planned obsolescence is what it's called, i believe. we don't like that sort of thing round here, y'all :) hence the initiative is being done under the umbrella of a Community Interest Company, because it removes the absolute requirement to maximise profits over-and-above-all-else [CICs just have to not make a loss, and there are *no* Shareholders, and no dividends to pay out]. thus, there is no driving force, for example, to justify planned obsolescence, nor is there a justification to remove the dual motherboard design, because to do so would result in larger profits through the argument that "when it breaks people will spend more money with us, buying a whole new one, profit is higher".

      the other reason for the modular approach is that there are now restrictions on air-shipment of explosives (lithium batteries being an explosion hazard). so by having a modular design where there is a battery compartment that can take AA or AAA batteries, and you can upgrade later to a lithium pack, Mass-Volume Hypermarket Retail Stores can do "Just in Time" ordering of the main parts of the device(s), get them shipped in by Airfreight, as well as stock up on Sea-freighted modular battery packs in large volumes which, if they truly run out or don't arrive in time, doesn't matter because the sales staff can direct people to buy the bit of plastic that holds standard AA/AAA batteries.

      we've thought this through from lots of different angles. really :)

    8. Re:Why PCMCIA? by bcmm · · Score: 2

      It's just the form-factor/connector. TFA says it won't be electronically compatible with PCMCIA and will be physically keyed to not fit in a PCMCIA slot (though otherwise identical).

      --
      # cat /dev/mem | strings | grep -i llama
      Damn, my RAM is full of llamas.
    9. Re:Why PCMCIA? by hairyfeet · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Then what we really need to be shooting for is CRFF or card reader form factor because frankly i haven't seen any express card or cardbus slots in a while on anything sub $1k but they ALL have card readers now. Sure that doesn't give a lot of space but that is why everything is going nano right? tell them white coats to get on it!

      And while I love your idea of bringing standardization to mobile sadly it will NEVER happen, and here is why: all those PCs companies (with the exception of the fruit company and their world famous RDF) found that with standardization comes commoditization and razor thin margins and they don't like that, hence why there isn't jack shit interchangeable anymore if they can help it. I'm sure they miss the days of "Compaq RAM" that was 3 times the price but you had to buy if you had a Compaq, or Dell PSUs that were just funky enough they wouldn't fit in a normal case, and that is what they have now with mobile. After all how could they gouge you on a battery if you could just run AAAs? How could they get you to buy a whole new unit if the tiniest part fails if you could easily just buy the part and DIY or take it to the local shop?

      Sadly the corps have figured out "designed for the dump" gives them their biggest profits hence why everything is so flimsy and easily broken now. Personally I wish the FOSS guys all the luck in the world, i'd love a cell phone or laptop where parts were as easy to get and interchange as your average desktop but I doubt the corps would ever let that happen, it'd cost them too much profit.

      --
      ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
    10. Re:Why PCMCIA? by lkcl · · Score: 3, Informative

      hi pedrop,

      yeah we thought about that, but ExpressCard means PCI-e. so we investigated how many SoC "embedded" CPUs have PCI-e and it's like about... 5. several from marvell, but they're the high-end "server" style ones, with power budgets wayyyy over the reasonable limit.

      then we looked instead at PCI-e "PHY" chips. there's _one_: it's a PCI-e to USB converter, which says it all, really.

      the other option is an FPGA: they're just... horrendously expensive. something like the Zynq-7030 would be able to do it in hardware using the on-board FPGA, but that's not out yet.

      the only other option would be bit-banging! updating multiple GPIO pins to emulate a 33mhz ISA bus *shudder*. ... yeah overall we just went "ok, forget it - let's just take over PCMCIA at the connector/header/socket level".

    11. Re:Why PCMCIA? by tftp · · Score: 3, Informative

      re-use of *existing* connectors, housings and assemblies keeps the price right down

      lkcl, before you jump into production please make sure that you don't want your SATA and USB work. Because they aren't very likely to; the PCMCIA connector is not a controlled impedance part, and your pinout requires 90 Ohm differential for USB and 100 Ohm differential for SATA. Ethernet is also 100 Ohm, but it has plenty of margin. Even if the board works on the bench, it's not the right thing to do. You need a proper differential connector, something that you can get from Samtec, for example.

      I really don't know how much you are an expert in manufacturing, but I built a number of professional designs, and I strongly suggest that you don't pick an old, obsolete connector just because you think it is cool. You need to consider the other side of the connector. How many PCMCIA cages can you find at Digikey? How many of them are easy to solder by hand? Hell, this connector would give *me* trouble, and I can solder 0402 all day long under the microscope. This connector has pin spacing of 0.635 mm, and practically none of your customers can solder it.

      I still don't quite understand the business idea of your product. By "business" I don't mean making money; I mean "delivering value," making good things. What value do you expect to deliver if nobody can connect to your board? Your super-small form factor is a problem here. Very few electronic enthusiasts are so much concerned about size and space. They are far more concerned about being able to see the parts without using an electron microscope. If you'd ask me, I'd say you need to think how your customers are going to use your product.

      The talk about standard connectors ... if you want it done right, use COM Express. These modules are interchangeable and your product would actually fit into an existing market. You can actually sell the thing without Slashdot. Inventing your own standard, using an obsolete connector and breaking the electrical signaling requirements will not do you any good. You are not large enough to establish a competing standard, and your design is not as good anyway. But if you don't want to deal with COM Express (which is not a pleasure to solder either, I admit) then just forget the unification and use plain vanilla 0.1" headers for everything except high speed interfaces. Or include a CardBus breakout board with your CPU board.

  3. No competition, yet by LtGordon · · Score: 4, Interesting

    The Raspberry Pi is expected to ship to mainstream customers early Q1 2012. Per the summary, this group is still in the "could end up in mass production" phase. They can hardly compete if this one isn't being sold.

    1. Re:No competition, yet by lkcl · · Score: 2

      yaa, who said anything about competing? :) feel free to buy a 700mhz ARM11 unit for $25 when it's available. we're going in incremental stages. if you've seen what happened to projects like the OpenPandora, the OpenMoko and so on, you'll appreciate why. http://rhombus-tech.net//faq/#index2h2

  4. Lotsa Talk by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    There has been a lot of talk about these ultra low cost(and low power) computers recently. But, until something ships, meh.

    Where is my Raspberry Pi?
    Where is my Chumby NeTV?
    So far, the only ones to ship have been the Plugcomputers and they haven't been cheap.

  5. not a fair pricing comparison by pz · · Score: 5, Informative

    "Mass-volume" pricing is manufacturer speak for wholesale prices, as in buying thousands of units at a time. You expect those prices to be half or less of retail. So a $15 OEM price will be about $30 at retail, generally speaking. That compares reasonably well to the $25 retail pricing of the Raspberry Pi, given that this new board has somewhat higher specs.

    --

    Put my fist through my alarm clock with its ding-dong death inside my ear. - The Blackjacks.
    1. Re:not a fair pricing comparison by lkcl · · Score: 2

      "mass-volume" is code usually for 100k+ pricing. the pricing quote for the raspberry pi is equally based on mass-volume (100k) pricing. the pricing quote for the raspberry pi equally excludes profit, shipping, tax, packaging, delivery, handling, tax, customs duty, tax on customs duty, agent shipping handling fees, tax on agent shipping handling fees, customs duty on tax on agent shipping handling fees and so on. whilst that sounds like a joke it's not: each and every one of those costs _does_ actually exist.

      now, in the case of the raspberry pi, because they are a not-for-profit foundation, they are *not allowed* to make a profit (definition of "not for profit"), thus there is no room for expansion or for investment. as the front page explains, and i think i put it on the FAQ as well, sales of products for this initiative is being done via a "Community Interest Company", thus, when we say "it's possible that all profits can be fed directly back into R&D for further products to the direct benefit of Software (Libre) Developers" or "a decision can be made to spend an entire years profits on buying modules and giving them away to charity or to Software (Libre) Developers for strategic purposes", you know that we really MEAN that.

      if Rhombus Tech was a "Ltd Company" and tried that kind of "stunt", the shareholders would be absolutely screaming blue murder and would want the Directors' heads on a platter. CICs are pretty misunderstood and under-rated, but they're a much better vehicle for what is being planned.

  6. I'll wait until ... by petes_PoV · · Score: 3, Insightful

    ... there's a website that I can order one from at that price, which will deliver with 7 days.

    Until that time it's just vapourware - same goes for the Raspberry Pi, unless you want a keyboard sticker, they've got nothing on the market.

    --
    politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons
    1. Re:I'll wait until ... by michael_cain · · Score: 2

      Let's be honest; you haven't provided the information the grandparent post is asking for. No date for "Stage: stable"; no predictable quantity-one price. The Raspberry Pi has made a commitment to a known quantity-one price: $25 w/o Ethernet, $35 w/, shipping date unknown but Feb 2012 looks like a reasonable expectation. The beaglebone has a quantity-one MSRP: $89, and I can order from Digi-Key USA at that price today.

      I have multiple small projects in mind for which this type of system on a card would be useful, but the hardware and the software need to be stable and reliable. The question, "When can I buy one such board, and what will the price be?" is reasonable, and so far as I can tell, not yet answered.

    2. Re:I'll wait until ... by lkcl · · Score: 2

      michael, hang on dude! you're asking me to try to run before we walk, ok?

      if you're not familiar with the way this stuff works... ok: the only thing we can do - *right now* - is set an "upper bound" based on known costs.

      so *right now*, and *at this stage*, which is "alpha stage", we can say that, based on the fixed NREs of $USD 2,000, the more people that place preorder pledges, the more that we can subdivide those costs across the total number of people.

      *right now* we have approximately 30 pre-order committments which, if they were all "alpha" committments, that $2000 would mean $75 per person.

      what we _do_ know is the "upper bound" as well - based on the $15 figure from the SoC manufacturer, which is $15.

      in between those two values the costs are a *direct* relation to the size of the order.

      i've explained this - clearly - on the preorders page. i hope. i think. if it's not clear, please do say so.

      but if you absolutely want a fixed price i'm sorry, that's just simply not possible. ok, it is, but you'll have to place cash on the table to get it.

      do you have cash up-front that you can put on the table? because if so, then that's absolutely fine: i can then go to the Factory and say "we have a cash order for NNNNN units, please can you quote an *exact* figure for us?" they will then ask for a deposit - which you will have to pay - before they proceed with the work.

      do you see how that is a completely different kind of deal from the one that we're doing? what we're doing is to *collaborate* with the Factory. we've done a deal which summarises as "we won't charge you for software engineer time if you don't charge us for hardware engineer time", and ensuring that the EOMA-PCMCIA CPU card can fulfil both *their* customer requirements as well as our mass-volume sales opportunities *and* fulfil the requirements of Software (Libre) Developers... ... you see how radically different that is from the "standard" business deal of "pay a factory in china to get it done (y'all), add that to the product retail cost and multiply up by some margin equals profit"?

      it's... _complicated_, michael :) i'm doing my best to keep it simple, but also following the lessons learned from other related products like the PixelQI screen (they borrowed factory time at christmas of a taiwanese LCD manufacturer) and Goldelico's GTA04 product, designed by Dr Schaller. (Dr Schaller deliberately picked components that are available right down to Qty 1).

      ok i'll leave it at that, hope that helps clarify.

      p.s. it turns out that we do have someone who is willing to place an order for 1,000 units. i've asked - and will keep pressing - the factory for a quote based on those quantities. when it's available, i'll update the pages accordingly.

  7. Computer on a PCMCIA card by rossdee · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Great, so this low cost computer can be plugged into the PCMCIA slot of a laptop. Or you couyld just use the laptop. Am i missing something here?

    1. Re:Computer on a PCMCIA card by Rennt · · Score: 4, Informative
      They are just using a cheap connector with plenty of pins. FTFA:

      These pinouts make no attempt to be electrically or electronically compatible with the legacy PCMCIA standard. 16 GPIO pins, 24-pin RGB/TTL, USB2, I2C, 10/100 Ethernet and SATA-II interfaces are included in the Version 1.0 specification.

    2. Re:Computer on a PCMCIA card by Man+On+Pink+Corner · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Perhaps the project leaders should instead think before writing marketing copy.

    3. Re:Computer on a PCMCIA card by lkcl · · Score: 3, Informative

      Great, so this low cost computer can be plugged into the PCMCIA slot of a laptop.

      ah NO! :) the mechanical design prevents insertion of EOMA-PCMCIA CPU cards into legacy PCMCIA slots:
      http://elinux.org/Embedded_Open_Modular_Architecture/PCMCIA#Deliberate_Mechanical_Non-interoperability

      if you tried to force it in, you would mechanically damage the laptop and/or the card, and once you'd done that, the chances are that you'd blow up the card and/or the laptop as well.

      Or you couyld just use the laptop. Am i missing something here?

      you're missing something :) the design concept is that the EOMA-PCMCIA CPU card *is* the laptop... but only when the modular CPU card is plugged into an EOMA-PCMCIA-compliant laptop Motherboard that's *designed* to take these CPU cards. see example motherboards here: http://elinux.org/Embedded_Open_Modular_Architecture/PCMCIA#Example_Motherboards

      to have an x86 CPU in a laptop already (cost of $300+) and to then put in an extra low-cost CPU card that does pretty much the same job as far as 98% of computer users are concerned, well... that would just be silly. why not just have a modular mass-volume laptop plus CPU card that can retail for about $95, eh? :)

  8. Re:Reptiles are among us! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    As a member of the Illuminati, I can assure you that we have no reptilian DNA at all. You are confusing us with some of our experiments.

    Please leave your Faraday cage, then we can reprogram you with correct ideas.

  9. Re:Reptiles are among us! by oodaloop · · Score: 4, Funny

    I am a reptilian illuminati, you insensitive clod!

    --
    Tic-Tac-Toe, Global Thermonuclear War, and relationships all have the same winning move.
  10. Re:computer in your wallet by nyctopterus · · Score: 3, Insightful

    You mean.. like a phone?

  11. Open platform by unixisc · · Score: 3, Interesting
    Had it been running an open spec hardware, it would have been more expensive. If you want an open CPU, ARM is not it - the only one I can think of is OpenRISC. One idea - take the OpenRISC CPU (essentially Verilog code that one would implement on an FPGA), take another FPGA to contain all the interface and support logic it needs, and then add whatever the appropriate amount of RAM and Flash it needs. Once all that is there, port something like Minix on top of it (so that the resource consumption is not much) and you'll have a purely open system.

    However, it will not be anywhere near as cheap as $35, at least initially. First of all, it's not something just a couple of guys will do - one would need whole engineering teams to do various things
    • Write a complete spec on both the hardware and the software
    • Make the tweaks to the design that are necessary for it to be supported on any fab, process & lithography, and work w/ the fab on ensuring acceptable yields
    • Procure the other supporting chipsets or design needed to make a complete system
    • Port an existing FOSS platform to this reference design - the OS, the UX, and everything else
    • Produce bundles based on different requirements - from low price to high functionality - which can then be sold in the market
    • License that entire design - hardware & software - to whoever wants to manufacture, market and sell it
    • Work on price reductions

    The above exercise would enable a company to produce a bunch of products that can be spec'ed @ difference performance points, and targeted towards various market segments - from home hobbyists and education going right up to smart phones and tablets.

  12. Re:Great for 3rd world countries, if they success by unixisc · · Score: 2

    This stuff about these solutions being good for 3rd world countries is just a fantasy, first thought out by god knows who! The only way it would be of any use to 3rd world countries is if they had high computer literate population - and by that, I mean that an average citizen of one of these countries is as knowledgable as the average /. poster. Only then would it make sense - you give some average citizen in Malawi or Cameroon a PCMCIA or Raspberry Pi, and next thing you know, you have a whole bunch of websites w/ plenty of software and other fun things based on these platforms coming out of those countries. Or you'll have Linus being flooded w/ kernel fixes and suggestions from these places once such things become popular. Guess what - it's not going to happen.

    Essentially, any product would have to do a minimum of what an average phone or tablet can do - be a calculator, a GPS, a planner, a notepad and maybe a few games. If not, why will anybody pick those when most phones are already enough? Oh, and I'm assuming that they will have an easy to use UX - not something one factors in when one thinks of a $25 unit, which they're probably imagining will be good enough to run emacs or bash.

  13. Re:computer in your wallet by maxwell+demon · · Score: 2

    iPod touch? iPhone? Android phone or tablet?

    Which of them fits in your wallet?

    --
    The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
  14. Good step in the right direction by lennier1 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I work in a company where some of our products are basically Full-HD TFT displays with integrated ARM-based computers (glorified nettop components) running a company-internal Linux distro.

    Having one of these to replace/upgrade their computer like you'd switch the optical drive in a business laptop would certainly cut down costs.

  15. Re:computer in your wallet by lkcl · · Score: 2

    ah, but then can you take the CPU out of the phone and put it into a low-cost beowulf supercomputer cluster? yes, seriously: one of the options that's possible with these little CPU cards, because they have SATA-II interfaces (proper ones) and also use such little power, is to plug them into a massive rack, 1gb RAM, 1ghz CPU speed, NEON instruction set per CPU, hell you'd have an ultra-low-power supercomputer in no time! if only bloody ARM would release information about how to use the GPU on the MALI 400 MP for scientific purposes we'd be laughing.

  16. Re:poorly chosen connector by LuxuryYacht · · Score: 2

    I imagine the reason that they reused the PCMCIA design is for reuse of the tooling for the case and also the durability of the connectors. The PCMCIA connectors have durability ratings of 10K insertions. Many card edge connectors have only a durability of 100-200 insertions. The simply made fascia plate keeps these new cards from being inserted into legacy sockets. The cpu card might be swapped from a laptop to a desktop, set-top-box, car PC, cluster rack, etc etc. You could make devices with a simple cover plate to keep the cpu module from being easily ejected if you wish. Devices such as laptops, set-top-boxes, etc might be easily upgraded to a newer or more powerful cpu or more RAM by simply swapping the cpu module.

    --
    Quidquid latine dictum sit altum viditur
  17. What is this going to mean for me, the end-user? by Robotech_Master · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I'm not a programmer or a hardware hacker. I don't know anything about soldering circuit boards. I'm just a guy who likes to surf the net, write stories, play games, hang out on-line, and so on. What is the availability of this $15 device going to mean for me?

    I mean, at least (as far as) I know the Raspberry Pi is going to be producing fully-realized devices that I can buy, plug in a keyboard and monitor and Ethernet cable, and I'm done. It sounds like this project is just about building a circuit board. And while it's nice it will be 40% cheaper and three times as fast, I'd like to know what I could do with it if someone came up to me on the street and handed me one.

    --
    Editor Emeritus and Senior Writer, TeleRead.org
  18. Re:What is this going to mean for me, the end-user by lkcl · · Score: 2

    I'm not a programmer or a hardware hacker. I don't know anything about soldering circuit boards. I'm just a guy who likes to surf the net, write stories, play games, hang out on-line, and so on. What is the availability of this $15 device going to mean for me?

    I mean, at least (as far as) I know the Raspberry Pi is going to be producing fully-realized devices that I can buy, plug in a keyboard and monitor and Ethernet cable, and I'm done. It sounds like this project is just about building a circuit board. And while it's nice it will be 40% cheaper and three times as fast, I'd like to know what I could do with it if someone came up to me on the street and handed me one.

    if they _literally_ handed you one on the street, you'd be able to plug in a USB-OTG-powered hub, then you could put in a keyboard and a USB ethernet, and also an HDMI monitor, and some headphones.

    if they also included the "micro-header" that is also a planned product, you'd also be able to plug in an ethernet cable (without the USB internet dongle), and you'd not have to plug in that USB-OTG hub, you'd be able to put a standard hub on instead, and also power it from a 5V PSU, and you'd also be able to connect a standard (externally-powered) eSATA drive.

    oh, and there's a MicroSD slot, so if the man-on-the-street had taken out its OS card before giving it to you, you'd be able to download ready-built standard GNU/Linux OS distros, shove them in and go.

    so hell no, it's most definitely *not* about just "building a circuit board" - that's just the first step.