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Pi to Go: Hot Raspberry Pi DIY Mini Desktop PC Project
MojoKid writes "Hot Hardware recently set out to design a custom mini desktop system with the popular Raspberry Pi single board computer. People have configured the device for a variety of applications, from micro-servers to low cost media players. Basically, the goal was to turn what is currently one of the cheapest bare-bones computer boards into a fully enclosed mini desktop computer that could be taken anywhere without the need for cabling or setup. This small DIY project is just one of many examples of the flexibility of the Raspberry Pi's open architecture. And to think you can even run Quake and Minecraft on it."
They used an off-the-shelf project box made the old way in a gloopy factory? Luddites. They should have 3D printed a case which would have taken days and weeks of design and tweaking and dozens of prototype runs. All that to end up with a ridged wobbly blob. That's the future.
This simply isn't newsworthy.
Beaglebone Black is more powerful, for similar amount of money.
Someone puts some electronics in a box and that's newsworthy???
If so, then I've got a suggestion for you. Just follow me around at work for a week and you'll get enough stories for a year of stories like this.
I am Slashdot. Are you Slashdot as well?
The Raspberry Pi is not open hardware at the board level (schematic but no gerbers) nor at the SoC level (no full reference manual on the Broadcom BCM2835 device) nor at the boot level (booting and boot options are handled by the proprietary VideoCore IV) nor at the GPU and DSP levels (the VideoCore is entirely closed/under NDA). In fact, the only fully open thing about Raspberry Pi is its old and rather obsolete ARM11 processor.
So why exactly is anyone associating the word "open" with Raspberry Pi?
Far more open is the similarly priced BeagleBone Black, which provides full gerbers, full SoC reference manual, and full open source boot control (U-Boot). The BeagleBone Black's TI SoC does have a closed GPU, but since the board isn't aimed at running games nor consuming media like the Raspberry Pi is, it hardly matters. And the BeagleBone Black is far more capable in almost every other respect.
It's cool that Raspberry Pi has helped to bring ARM board prices down, but it shouldn't be called an open platform when it's mostly closed.
A desktop computer you can carry anywhere, someone should have thought of this 30 years ago. It really needs it's own category name don't you think?
.. hmm, they're just not *quite* right are they?
What about the 'kneetop' or perhaps the 'stomachtop' or maybe the 'palmtop'
My project goal was to utilize what the raspberry pi was able to do and learn about linux programming on a small scale. I have plenty of computers that could be utilized if I needed a computer that is faster or has larger capabilities. -The Author
You are perfectly correct: we should discourage people from entering the field of electronics by focussing upon advanced projects. Yes these projects are exciting to read about, but they are impractical for the novice to attempt building. It's impractical because it's too complex to understand, too expensive to botch, and tedious for those who don't have the construction skills. We should also discourage people from entering the field of electronics by instilling the mentality that it ain't worth trying if it ain't new, thus ensuring that any project is out of reach of the novice.
After all, we wouldn't want to encourage people to get into electronics by pointing to articles about stuff that they can actually try doing.