[GRLUG] another Raspberry Pi article

[Michael Mol]

On Tue, Nov 29, 2011 at 9:18 AM, Bob Kline <bob.kline at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Tue, Nov 29, 2011 at 8:51 AM, Michael Mol <mikemol at gmail.com> wrote:
>> On Tue, Nov 29, 2011 at 8:34 AM, Bob Kline <bob.kline at gmail.com> wrote:
>> > Re $25 and $35, and earlier item here
>> > said there are two versions - the differences
>> > escape me just now.
>> >
>> > Just playing devil's advocate, I'll ask
>> > where's the beef?  By the time you hang
>> > enough stuff on the board to do anything
>> > with it there won't be any cost saving to
>> > speak of.  One can get any number of
>> > great motherboards for under $100 today.
>> >
>> > Just asking.....
>>
>> Personally, I think the Raspberry Pi is way, way overhyped, but it
>> does sound like a nice little board.
>>
>> The beef is:
>>
>> 1) It's very cheap for what it does.
>> 2) It's special-purpose. The feature set suggests it's designed to
>> make a quick, easy, hobbyist's HTPC. Hardware decoding of h.264 will
>> make that seamless.
>> 3) It's ARM-based, which means its performance-per-watt is going to
>> kick any x86-based competitor to the nearest Freecycle group. Low
>> power consumption is something you really, really want in an HTPC.
>> 4) As a combination of (2) and (3), it's very small.
>> (5) At $35, nobody's going to complain too much when technology shifts
>> and the demands of an HTPC outgrow it. It's nearly disposable.
>>
>
> That should all work just fine for hobbyists.
> There are clearly all shades of gray of hardware
> out there, going from embedded setups to
> conventional motherboards.  Years ago I used
> to wire-wrap prototype boards.
>
> I think some of the virtues above might be
> fine for production boards - e.g., power
> consumption - but even for a hobbyist the
> cost savings overall will be in the noise compared
> to the time involved.

That's why they're call them hobbyists; the time is spent having fun.

> It is cheap as custom boards go.

It's not a custom board, it's designed for a particular market. (That
happens to be reasonably large)

[snip]

-- 
:wq

-- 
This message has been scanned for viruses and
dangerous content by MailScanner, and is
believed to be clean.