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Eben Upton Explains the Raspberry Pi Model A+'s Redesign

Posted by samzenpus on from the straight-from-the-horses-mouth dept.

M-Saunders writes It's cheaper, it's smaller, and it's curvier: the new Raspberry Pi Model A+ is quite a change from its predecessor. But with Model Bs selling more in a month than Model As have done in the lifetime of the Pi, what's the point in releasing a new model? Eben Upton, a founder of the Raspberry Pi Foundation, explains all. "It gives people a really low-cost way to come and play with Linux and it gives people a low-cost way to get a Raspberry Pi. We still think most people are still going to buy B+s, but it gives people a way to come and join in for the cost of 4 Starbucks coffees."

3 of 107 comments (clear)

  1. Re:No composite output means no output at all by pavon · · Score: 3, Informative

    The A+ and B+ boards still have composite video, they just output it on the smaller 3.5mm jack to save space, like many other mobile devices do. You can get adapter cables to split out the typical red,white,yellow RCA connectors for a couple bucks.

  2. Watch out Pi by LoRdTAW · · Score: 3, Informative

    While the Pi is good for most of its intended tasks, it is lacking in many areas. The Beaglebone is a good upgrade but it too has shortcomings. But if you need more power, the Beagle team has another board in the pipeline.

    If you want some serious power for an embedded project look no further than the Beagleboard X15. This thing is going to be a beast:
    Dual core A15 ARM @ 1.5GHz
    2GB DDR3L RAM
    Dual core GPU (unfortunately PowerVR SGX, not open source friendly)
    2D accelerator and Video accelerator
    Dual C66x DSP processors
    Dual Cortex M4 Image processors (only one is user programmable)
    Dual PRU-ICSS ( programmable cpu accelerator to offload ethernet packet processing for industrial protocols like Ethercat, Profinet, etc.)
    eSATA
    USB 2.0 and 3.0
    Dual PCIe ports, Gen 2, one x1 and one x2 (Yes they will be routed to ports)
    Appears to have some type of video in, probably a camera port.
    And more...

    Rumored to cost about $150. Yes it costs much more than the Pi but you get what you pay for; a boat load of processing power and memory.

  3. For lots of relays, two chips per 8 relays by raymorris · · Score: 3, Informative

    > I drive relay boards
    > We have three here already, and I'm probably about to add a fourth.

    If you need to drive a lot of relays, you might consider a serial-to-parallel chip feeding a ULN2803 octal darlington array. That's about $2.50 of electronics per eight relays. With connectors and such, call it $0.50-$1 per relay. You can connect up to 256 addressable serial-to-parallel chips to a single IO on one Pi (or a PC, through a $2 level shifter). So for the price of another Pi, you can add 35-70 more relay outputs to your existing Pi.