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$9 Open Source Computer Blows Past Crowdfunding Goal
An anonymous reader writes: A team of engineers and artists has launched a Kickstarter campaign for C.H.I.P., a small computer that costs $9. The campaign met and far exceeded its $50,000 goal on the first day. The device runs an R8 ARM CPU clocked at 1 GHz, 512 MB of RAM, and 4GB of storage. It has built-in Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, and runs a version of Debian. The price was enabled by two things: super-cheap Chinese tablets pushing down processor costs, and support from manufacturer Allwinner to make it even cheaper. The team is also building breakout boards for VGA and HDMI connections, as well as one with a tiny LCD screen, keyboard, and battery. Importantly, "all hardware design files schematic, PCB layout and bill of materials are free for you the community to download, modify and use."
Wifi b/g/n AP|client, bluetooth 4, and a battery charge controller(easy UPS) are onboard, as are 8 digital GPIO, 1 PWM, and a parallel LCD output(it has an HDMI converter, but I wouldn't expect 1080p)
No power or case for the $9 version. No ethernet on any of them, looks like.
https://linux-sunxi.org/GPL_Violations
https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Allwinner-GPL-Violate-Proof
why are we enabling them and encouraging them?
Your comparison is flawed. The Raspberry Pi doesn't have Wifi, Bluetooth, or any onboard storage. By the time you add those three things to the Pi, C.H.I.P. will still be less than half the price (even with the HDMI board).
Better known as 318230.
Here's a link about Allwinner's GPL violations.
Tom Geller
$9 with $5 shipping on Kickstarter, at least in the US.
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
Why would you automatically assume that it would usually be coupled with an expansion board costing 67% more than the device itself? I'm comparing it to the Compute Module, becasue that was the stripped-down Pi which was announced as JUST the CPU, 4GB flash, and 512MB ram, delivered on a notebook RAM form factor, designed for relatively easy usage of a Pi-compatible SOC for embedded projects.
Plus the article explicitly mentions that they designed this thing in response to deciding that the CM wasn't actually all that well suited for it's intended market (for example, I imagine, consider that if you want *any* sort of I/O you have to build a custom circuit board containing the necessary modules wired to a SODIMM-style socket) Honestly I'm somewhat puzzled about the expected use-case of the CM - it seems they expect people to trade in all the IO features of the Pi A/B for a little storage and a slightly smaller form factor at roughly the same price. Seems to me there's a pretty narrow range of "amateur" products where the thickness is *that* important. The price point though - Chip shaves off $16, 64% of the cost of the Pi-A, while keeping pretty much all the features of interest to an embedded project (and actually, I'd say the swap from ethernet to wifi counts as a substantial upgrade in almost all scenarios).
That it can *also* function as an alternative to the RPi-A with a different set of features by adding an HDMI shield is an added bonus. Though as you point out yourself, 4GB of storage isn't much for a PC configuration, and there's no expansion potential except by using one of the two precious USB ports. (Not to mention, with PC usage patterns that 4GB flash isn't going to last long)
As an aside, please be aware that case matters for units: 1GB(gigabyte) = 8Gb(gigabit). "gb" isn't an actual thing, and guessing which of the aforementioned was intended can be difficult, especially considering how many seedy marketers intentionally exploit the confusion, but also when when talking about the embedded device space where native hardware capacities are often measured in bits, I suppose for consistency with smaller-capacity hardware and/or to avoid confusion around non-standard byte sizes (for example extra "hidden" bits are required for each byte to provide error-detection or -correction)
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.