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Can a $9 Computer Spark a New Wave of Tinkering and Innovation?
- LordKano 11y agoIt certainly lowers the bar to entry. Somewhere out there, there's a kid with an idea that will one day become the next Zuckerberg or Woz. Whereas it was next to impossible for my peers to convince our parents that we needed a $3,000 computer setup just for learning, these young people can earn the money for their own supplies with a summer job.
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- mrcactu5 11y agodoesn't this still require a monitor and keyboard? they should provide "starter-kits" for the uninitiated... but yeah $9 once you know how to use it is great.
- SixSigma 11y agoplus you're going to need a second computer to read the online documentation and forums and so on. We should make them run code on a cardboard computer [1] first :) [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CARDboard_Illustrative_Aid_to_Computation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CARDboard_Illustrative_Aid_to_...
- corysama 11y agoSelf-contained handheld version. $49 http://getchip.com/pages/pocketchip http://getchip.com/pages/pocketchip
- zoidb 11y agoSigh, I believe the answer is "no". Cost is not the problem with tinkering. I don't think access to computing gizmos is an issue at all in the US. For me I surfed in on a wave of tinkering and innovation by building things that my friends were impressed by and played with (programming calculators, text adventure games, even some electronics). Where is it now? I'm not sure (and I would love to know) how kids these days are building things that are able to compete for valuable attention span. Especially if they are going head to head with psychologists who design smartphone games.
- irremediable 11y ago> Where is it now? I'm not sure (and I would love to know) how kids these days are building things that are able to compete for valuable attention span. I'd say it's videogames. I got into programming through glitching games, then scripting games, then programming games. I know a lot of other people my age (mid-20s) who had similar experiences. Look at kids making various contraptions in Minecraft -- and look at how many of them go into the modding scene. I don't think that tinkering experience has been lost; people just forget what a small fraction of the population was interested in this stuff in the first place.
- lordCarbonFiber 11y agoContinuing on your thought; one thing I've noticed is that, even being only a couple years removed from the "kids these days", it's hard to appreciate how ~big~ things like minecraft are. Talking with my older coworkers, the same spark the parent comment spoke of is now being channeled into these shared digital creative experiences.
- webjprgm 11y agoI know a 12 yo who made a simple game in Unity. I think he plays with making games in Python and Scratch too, though I haven't seen them. Tools change, but interested kids still find a way to tinker.
- superuser2 11y agoI think children having their own general purpose computing devices is pretty important. Time sharing and the obligation not to break "the family computer" make it pretty useless as a tinkering platform, unless your parents are technical and comfortable with it. The individual devices children own are compilation targets, maybe, but they can't run text editors and compilers. Cost of the actual computer is not the problem. All of these $50, $20, $5 computers conveniently ignore that fact that you also need $150+ for a monitor, USB hub, keyboard, mouse, WiFi adapter, etc. This quickly raises the price from "something a low-income family can easily spend on a child" to "no fucking way." I found OLPC a lot more compelling. Still, I'm thankful for cheap hardware on which to run pirate AirPlay targets and homebrew IP cameras :).
- tyingq 11y agoOlimex, who are in a strong position to know, say that the cpu alone (Allwinner R8M) costs $16, direct from Allwinner[1], in volume. That's just the CPU. None of the other components, the PCB, the labor, etc. The $9 price just isn't sustainable. It appears the the CHIP team is doing a combination of padding shipping prices, and probably taking a loss for the sake of initial marketing. [1]https://olimex.wordpress.com/2015/06/05/how-to-get-in-the-news-tell-people-that-you-will-make-and-sell-something-which-cost-you-20-for-9/ https://olimex.wordpress.com/2015/06/05/how-to-get-in-the-ne...
- gwern 11y agoWhat about the Raspberry Zero? The specs looked similar, it costs $5, and I haven't seen any complaints about inflated shipping.
- tyingq 11y agoThe cpu for that is a broadcom BCM2835. The best guesses for that part is somewhere in the $3 range. Unlike the CHIP, it has no onboard flash, or wifi. It does have HDMI. Personally, I don't see how the Zero could cost less than $5 to make. Even if the BCM2835 is $2, there's the 512MB ram, various connectors, PCB, etc.
- blhack 11y agoFrom what I understand, assembly is your real cost when you start getting into BoM costs that are that low.
- lorenzhs 11y agoThis article gets brought up in every post about CHIP. Maybe there's something to it but coming from a competitor this sounds a bit fishy. It was also before the Raspberry Pi Zero (made in the UK!) launched, which lacks quite a few of the CHIP's features but at $5 sets a high bar in any case.
- tyingq 11y ago
- ageofwant 11y agoA $9 computer that cannot be shipped for less than $10 is a $19 computer.
- lowboy 11y agoFrom getchip.com, shipping to Canada comes out to $6.22 for a single CHIP, and $11 for 5 CHIPs
- rorykoehler 11y agoPeople do know it's possible to get $1 ones on alibaba?
- lorenzhs 11y agoan Arduino clone is something like $1.70 on aliexpress and has a fraction of the processing power so it's not exactly a fair comparison
- blhack 11y agoAn arduino clone is almost infinitely more useful as a teaching tool than these arm based computers are, though. Source: I teach people to program microcontrollers every day.
- TickleSteve 11y agocompletely agree, the complexity of Linux actively hinders learning. Much easier and useful to learn on a bare-bones microcontroller.... I certainly learned on a 4MHz z80 and have a much more in depth understanding of software and hardware as a result.
- tracker1 11y agoThe problem with these kind of articles and releases is that for most people, $9 vs $100 isn't that big of a difference... At least in the U.S. and other first-world countries where an initiative kid can earn either in a relatively short period of time, and most parents could gift it to them if not. As others have and will point out, it isn't just $9, there's the need for another system to be able to read documentation, and work on while doing projects on said $9 computer... there's also the peripheral costs, kb, mouse, monitor which would likely run it up to close to $100 anyway. I think the issue is sparking ideas and interest in younger people... most are more interested in writing phone/tablet apps than they are in touch with tinkering. There's a reason that Radio Shack had to shift gears, and in turn died off... Don't get me wrong, the availability of cheap computers with decent i/o pins is really nice, and for anyone interested in integrating electronics and software, there's never been a better time... But having yet another <$100 option really isn't going to spur extra tinkering at this point... And getting exposure into schools is particularly difficult given that most people with the skills to actually work and teach for these things are likely employed at a much higher salary than they'd get in a K-8 role (at least 2-3x).
- chaostheory 11y agoEven in the 1st world, most kids would have to wait longer to ask for something that costs $100 vs $9. Not counting IOT which is already huge on its own and just focusing on children, maybe the point of things like this isn't the 1st world?
- sharemywin 11y agobut what if I wanted to make a 100 computer/robot network now it's a big difference. or my drone army to ward off neighbors...
- tracker1 11y agoIs it really that huge compared to options before CHIP?
- noam87 11y ago> The problem with these kind of articles and releases is that for most people, $9 vs $100 isn't that big of a difference. What world do you live in? Median household income in the U.S is $51k.
- jedberg 11y ago> And unlike Microsoft products, CHIP has both open-source software (Linux) and hardware. That seems like an unnecessary dig.
- bluehazed 11y agoNot really? It's a valid point, it's generally easier to tinker with open source software.
- whoiskevin 11y agoI agree. Maybe it should read "unlike Apple, Microsoft, Samsung, X, Y, Z, CHIP has both open-source software..."
- rasz_pl 11y agoactually that seems like a lie, it shipped with usual arrangements of allwinner crap binary blobs
- ck2 11y agoWe've had cheap computers in every generation, remember the Sinclair ZX81 ? ($100 when a PC was $1500+) What sparks tinkering and innovation is open minds and creative thought processes. (as well as laws that don't get in the way of tinkering) Those kinds of minds find the tools, not the other way around.
- protomyth 11y ago> We've had cheap computers in every generation, remember the Sinclair ZX81 ? I would dispute that. That was the 8-bit era. An entry level programmable computer in the sub $100 price range has been missing for a long time.
- ck2 11y agoA $10 smartphone today is as powerful if not more powerful than most of these attempts at low end computing. Just needs a keyboard and HDMI output.
- ghkbrew 11y agoDo $10 smartphones exist today?
- shiftpgdn 11y agoOn the second hand market, as a locked down android phone, absolutely.
- ck2 11y agoIn the USA there is a $10 smartphone sale practically every week of one brand or another. This week: http://www.bestbuy.com/site/tracfone-alcatel-onetouch-pixi-glitz-no-contract-cell-phone-black/4427501.p http://www.bestbuy.com/site/tracfone-alcatel-onetouch-pixi-g... It's very low end for a smartphone but can run almost any android apk and use wifi even without airtime. Some $10 phones can be rooted and then you almost have a full linux-like system. For $20 you can get quad-core with 1GB of ram: http://www.walmart.com/ip/Straight-Talk-LG-Prepaid-Destiny-L21G-Smartphone/45822123 http://www.walmart.com/ip/Straight-Talk-LG-Prepaid-Destiny-L...
- DaveSapien 11y agoI really don't have any faith in the company, I have an otto camera. They abandoned all support and development for it as soon as it was shipped to backers. (one update) Felt like, "we've got your money, here is the minimal amount of stuff to keep us legal....now go buy or other stuff"
- tlrobinson 11y agoI think the biggest improvement of the CHIP over the Raspberry Pi, besides the price, is it's got on-board WiFi and flash storage, and is pre-loaded with an OS. Those are nearly always the first 3 things I need to take care of when starting a new Raspberry Pi project.
- saintfiends 11y agoFor the lazy: - 1 GHz processor - 512 MB RAM - 4 GB Storage (No SD card support) - WiFi b/g/n and Bluetooth 4.0 - Composite output by default but HDMI and VGA are supported with an adapter (Sold separately) - 1 USB Port and 1 USB Micro with OTG - 8 GPIO
- Obi_Juan_Kenobi 11y agoIf you're not using the display pins, you can use at least 23 more pins as GPIO.
- spullara 11y agoNo
- mblumberg 11y agoNPR covering the news in true NPR style... Five years too late.
- ArkyBeagle 11y agoI believe I would have been better off with better math courses in junior high and high school than I would have been learning computing. Perhaps that's too path dependent, and based too much on the sheer level of pain experienced as an undergrad having to learn it properly. But I was hacking (analog) electronics ( at a very shallow level ) so maybe the little RasPi class machines make up for that.
- gregimba 11y agoNo
- barkingcat 11y agoI think the biggest positive aspect of widespread distribution of raspberry pi and devices like it is to ward off the fear from adults in the school system. If the school board comes out and says, we're purchasing these things for an entire district - this is an official movement from the school board top down - the governor signed off on this and we're getting these out to every single kid in our schools, teachers can no longer point to microelectronics and say that it's a bomb. Hopefully fewer students get sent to the police station for tinkering with electronics.
- brianclements 11y agoI'm going to go out on a limb and say it's not the price of the electronics (which are very cheap), or the availability of them (they are plentiful), or even the knowledge to learn (this is the age of the Internet on mobile devices), but is actually the price of another thing that that is going up: time (and by extension, focus). I feel that students have to start planning for college earlier and earlier these days, even planning how courses line up as early as middle school. When all academic scheduling decisions (sports, classes, extra curriculars, clubs, etc.) are always viewed through the lens of college admission, there is very little time to turn brains off and just play with the knowledge they've gained thus far. If an activity isn't directly linked to job training of one or two strong focuses that could potentially lead to a major in college and a job afterward, they aren't seriously considered as an activity worth spending time on, and that is a pity. I would add lastly that as a counterbalance to this extreme need for academic focus, instead of seeking invigorating hobbies to which students at the end of the day will lack the energy for, they instead seek more mindless and passive activities which are readily available on their mobile devices. The harder they work, the dumber they want their hobbies to be.
- antoniuschan99 11y agoI think these computers (Rasp Pi, CHIP, Beaglebone, BBC Micro) are doing what the one laptop per child couldn't do. That is to be the affordable computer to the 3rd world. Almost everyone in the west can afford a $100-$500 computer, but that is still beyond the reach of many people in the 3rd world. That means basic computer and programming skills will be within reach for a large number of the population in the world. Also, currently, most of the development work available are for PCs, Mobile, and Tablet devices. These chips are the building blocks of the Internet of Things, meaning development work needed in the future will go beyond just programming for PCs, Mobile, and Tablet devices.
- mcguire 11y agoThe VGA/HDMI converters ($10/$15) cost more than the computer. (!)