First Steps With the Raspberry Pi

An anonymous reader writes "The Raspberry Pi received an extraordinary amount of pre-launch coverage. It truly went viral with major news corporations such as the BBC giving extensive coverage. Not without reason, it is groundbreaking to have a small, capable computer retailing at less than the price of a new console game. There have been a number of ventures that have tried to produce a cheap computer such as a laptop and a tablet but which never materialised at these price points. Nothing comes close to the Raspberry Pi in terms of affordability, which is even more important in the current economic climate. Producing a PC capable of running Linux, Quake III-quality games, and 1080p video is worthy of praise." Beyond praise, though, this article details the hooking-up and mucking-about phases, and offers some ideas of what it's useful for.

Comments

Re:SoC datasheet?

[Anonymous Coward]

there u go
http://www.element14.com/community/docs/DOC-43016/l/broadcom-datasheet-for-bcm2835-soc-used-in-raspberry-pi

Re:A more important question...

[humanrev]

The video probably isn't quite as good as the Pi (it maxes at 720p), but who is going to be doing sophisticated video with these devices anyway, at this stage? It's a hobbyist board.

A lot of people are buying the Pi to run XBMC. Since it can support 1080p flawlessly and the Via APC cannot, well... for many people the choice is obvious.

With any luck, the (relatively) open nature of the Pi and increasing size of the community will make it a more interesting option than competing boards, which is the reason why the Arduinos are still very popular despite being outclassed hardware-wise by other boards.