Raspberry Pi's $25 Model A Hits Production Line

hypnosec writes "The Raspberry Pi Foundation has announced that the cheaper variant of the Raspberry Pi — the Model A — has entered production phase. Model A of the credit-card sized computer has been stripped of its Ethernet port and a USB port, leaving just one USB port. This model comes with 256MB RAM, but as it is less complex compared to its predecessor it will consume less power, thus opening up quite a few new usage scenarios. The Foundation has posted the first image of the $25 Model A on its site and noted 'We're anticipating that those of you who buy the Model A will be using it for different applications from Model B owners.'"

Comments

Too little too late?

[NewtonsLaw]

I'm wondering if the model A will really have much of a market.

The end of the market that the A might have been useful in may well have been overtaken by the top-end of the M-series ARM processors, especially with companies like STM now pitching boards like the Discovery STM32F4 for $20 or so.

Yes, it's got less RAM, less MIPS and so forth -- but it *is* 100% open and incredibly capable for what it is.

Re:Too little too late?

[ArchieBunker]

It also lacks HDMI.... Nobody really cares about how open this board is except for the few loudmouths on this site. The fact that the boards sell out so quick is proof.

Re:Too little too late?

[c 0xFF]

Completely different markets. The RP is NOT a microcontroller. It is not an Arduino. It is a full ARM computer (albeit a slow one compared to what you have on your desk). It's as if you ripped out the motherboard from your phone or tablet and made it more hacker friendly.

Where you have some overlap is the RP gives pinouts for connecting some hardware, but the way you talk to that hardware is completely different.

And when you talk about the RP having more RAM, I should put that into perspective. The Discovery board has 192kB. The RP has 256MB. These aren't even close to being the same class of device, much less the same market. Read the article ... can you see the one you linked to bring used as a media center? Of course not, it's an absurd idea.

There's plenty of market for the model A. If anything, the model B had taken up a lot of that market (only ten bucks more and you get Ethernet, one more USB, and more RAM).

Openness really doesn't matter to the RP's target market. If you're working on a microcontroller, your goal is to eventually move beyond the prototype stage and make a product. Openness matters in that case. But the RP isn't a prototype board (though it could be used as one). Instead, it's the product, already finished for you (just add a case and power supply). Openness matters a bit when it comes to drivers and access to SPI and whatnot, but the documentation for that is available, and I've yet to hear any complaints.

Re:Too little too late?

[Dogtanian]

I'm wondering if the model A will really have much of a market.

The irony would be that the "Model A" and "Model B" naming was a homage to the BBC Micro, which originally came out in Model A and Model B versions. The more powerful "BBC B" (32KB instead of 16KB and more ports) turned out to be far more popular- it overshadowed the cheaper Model A and became the "canonical" version to the extent that most games and software required the BBC B and didn't bother with versions that would run on the Model A.

History repeating itself?

Re:Refresher

[petermgreen]

The plan was for the B to be released first as the intial release was aimed at early adoptors and developers, the model A would then follow soon afterwards.

However that was back when they throught demand for the Pi would be in the tens of thousands. With the manufacturing partners scrambling to meet demand (and being frustrated by SoC lead times) they did not want to divert SoCs away from model B production to model A production.

Now that the situation is starting to improve and stabalise they are finally bringing up the model A production (though how long it will be before they are readilly available is anyones guess).

Cool but SLOOOOOOW

[TheRealQuestor]

I got my model b last week and it's been pretty fun so far. But one thing that kinda sucks about it is its speed. Even overclocked to 1Ghz it's pretty painful to do anything on. Not to mention it wasn't 35 dollars to get it up and running. I wrote this a few days ago for another site but it is pretty relevant here too.

.

How a $35 computer cost me $90 bucks..

So a long time ago I signed up to order one of these cool little Raspberry PI $35 dollar card sized computers. After a month or 2 I finally was able to order it. After a .
week or two I finally was able to hold it. After a day or two I finally was able to actually use it..

I’ll explain. It’s JUST the little pc, nothing else.

SO I had to buy the following:
1x 1k 5v USB wall wart. $20 bucks.
1x 16 Gig Class 10 SD Card $20 bucks.
1x Micro USB to USB Cable $10 bucks.

Factor in the cost of the PC with shipping $43.79 + $20 + $20 + $10 and now that $35 dollar computer is actually almost $94 bucks..

That said, it’s actually kinda cool. Not as powerful as one might like but cool none the less..
As a test I set it up running the debian installer [this took about 6 hours], setup to compile XBMC [this took about 2.5 hours] and went about compiling it..
On my main rig the compile takes all of about 8 minutes [after a make clean], on the RPI it took over 12 hours. 12 HOURS to do what my main rig can do in 8 minutes!.

Now I understand it's "only" a 35 dollar PC so one cannot expect a whole lot out of it, but in reality it's NOT a 35 dollar pc. It's a 90 dollar phone guts without the phone parts.

Re:Cool but SLOOOOOOW

[NewtonsLaw]

Hey, I picked up a microUSB 5V wall-wart supply for $9.99 at the local equivalent of Walmart and just used an old Class 4 SD card I had laying about so my $94 Raspberry Pi only cost me $44.99.

Actually I lie -- I had to buy an HDMI cable and I can't find a spare ethernet cable either so I'll have to fork out some more cash.

But come to think of it -- neither my DVD player nor my TV came with an HDMI and my PC didn't come with a network cable so I guess that no matter what you buy, there are always "essential extras" to factor in.

And my Pi didn't come with a mouse or keyboard either -- what's with that?? :D

Re:Cool but SLOOOOOOW

[guruevi]

You well overpaid for everything. Even Amazon has this stuff for cheaper.

5V USB wall-wart: $4 + free shipping
USB cable: $2 + free shipping
16GB SD Card: $12 + free shipping
Case for Raspberry Pi: $10

Total: $63

And that's simply for prototyping. If you buy the necessary items in bulk you can get the add-ons down to $10.

Re:Cool but SLOOOOOOW

[guruevi]

I see this comment a lot and it makes me cringe. The Pi, the Arduino and these Android mini-PC's have totally different markets though.

The Arduino has a power usage of ~1-25mA (depending on what your code does), the core can get down to 0.2mA at 1MHz and if necessary in the picoamps range in standby mode.

The Pi has a power usage of 300mA (model A) to 700mA (model B)

The Androids have a power usage of ~2500mA

This makes a huge difference in development and powering these types of devices. The Androids will probably never run on battery (unless it's a car battery), the Pi will run for a while on a set of AA or D batteries (depending on what you want to do), the Arduino runs a really long time on a 9V battery.

The Arduino is built for RT, the Pi less so but has nifty I/O anyway and the Androids will probably never even have an SPI header.

Re:Cool but SLOOOOOOW

[amorsen]

Hey, I picked up a microUSB 5V wall-wart supply for $9.99 at the local equivalent of Walmart

Yes, and it happened to work for you. You risk having to go through multiple different brands because a) USB wall-warts are generally crappy and lie about their specifications and b) the Pi power design is not very forgiving. Incidentally, the first hardware revisions were not just unforgiving but quite broken, but they were not pulled from the market and no replacements were offered.

Re:Cool but SLOOOOOOW

[johnw]

I can't find a spare ethernet cable

The rest of it rings true, but this is just too far fetched. Ethernet cables are like wire coat hangers - they breed. I try to keep them confined to my study/shed, but they have to be purged regularly to stop them taking over the house.

Re:Cool but SLOOOOOOW

[VVrath]

There seems to be a huge difference in the amount people are spending on supporting peripherals for the Raspberry Pi. I just bought a set of twenty for my classroom (breakdown below) and ended up spending GBP855 in total - around GBP43 each. TBH I could have trimmed this down further, as the USB Hubs and multiple sets of HDMI-DVI adaptors are to make it easier for pupils to switch between the Windows PC on their desk and the Raspberry Pi; they only have to swap two cables instead of three, and HDMI connectors are a lot more user friendly than DVI for frequent connections/disconnections.

Had it been available the model A would have been ideal for our usage - the Raspberry Pi's will not be connected to our network for security reasons, and the extra RAM and additional USB port are of no great benefit for our use case (teaching pupils about alternatives to the Windows OS they have been using since primary school, teaching programming in a sand-box that won't endanger the rest of the network).

Breakdown for those who care:
20 x Raspberry Pi @ GBP23.98 each
20 x Cases @ GBP4.20 each
20 x Micro USB PSUs @ GBP4.90 each
20 x HDMI Cable @ GBP0.80 each
20 x HDMI - DVI Adaptor @GBP 2.24 each
20 x HDMI - DVI Cable @GBP 2.71 each
20 x 4 Port USB Hun @ GBP1.32 each
20 x 4GB Sandisk SD Cards @GBP 2.60 each

THIS is why you buy a Raspberry Pi...

[Doctor_Jest]

Tinkering and coming up with cool (if impractical) uses... and quite frankly, that's what computing has lost over the years... Doing strange crap with the user port of your C-64 was damn fun, IMNSHO.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5npkz0xY1fo

Thanks to the Pi for bringing that tinkering fun back....

Re:It's true!

[ipquickly]

I'm using my model A for frosty pissing.

Go ahead.. plug it into a 220 V outlet first tho.

Re:Yes, I don't understand the Pi.

[maevius]

I think you are missing some points here.
1. The pi runs linux. You can use c/c++, python, perl, bash scripts, almost anything else you want
(1a). You have hundreds of libraries to go with that. Also thousands of programs to pipe info.
2. You can connect a 3g, wifi stick or anything USB instantly
3. You lose absolutely no time on hardware design. It might just be me but I like have my hardware done and just worry about software
4. The community will point out almost all the hardware/software limitations or bugs of the pi and you know in advance what you are getting yourself into
5. You have portable code. If you program for linux, it runs on most hardware that runs linux (some recompilation required)
6. The community has started building addons (see arduino shields) which can achieve much more

As a software developer who used embedded linux and arduino class hardware, I love the pi because it solves all the problems I don't want to worry about. I also love that I don't have to test it on different hardware/software configurations. My target will always be raspberry/debian. I undestand that this is not what some people want/like but for "rapid" embedded development the pi is number one and because of its community I think it will be for a long time to come.

I had to.

[kurt555gs]

Can you imagine a Beowulf cluster of these?

Sorry.

It's been done with the model B.

[j1m 5n0w]

That's hard to do without the ethernet port, but it's been done with the model B.

Re:Even more useless!

[amorsen]

They fixed it in the latest release... I have tried it with the new ISO... works great. :)

No they didn't. Isochronous transfers are still broken.

Re:Is it open? Does it have shitty hardware?

[amorsen]

On the upside it will not have a broken USB hub to contend with, only the broken USB host.