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The Rasp Pi is amazing, and everything it has done for the industry is amazing. But cameras, ISP, and image sensors are still third class citizens, without any

The Rasp Pi is amazing, and everything it has done for the industry is amazing. But cameras, ISP, and image sensors are still third class citizens, without any support, hidden behind NDA's, and generally impossible to build. (Yes, the rasp pi comes with support for a couple sensors, the awful OVT 5Mp sensor and the slightly less awful sony sensor).

Jonnax 8y ago
Well that's on Broadcom so there's not too much the RasPi people can do. Since they must have pushed for some openess.
- beatgammit 8y ago
  Well, they could perhaps choose a different chip, no? I'm sure the chip they went with was the right choice at the time, but I wonder if perhaps the landscape has changed some since.
AnIdiotOnTheNet 8y ago
Alright, I'm curious, what exactly has the RPi done for "the industry"? As far as I can tell, it's largely used as an overpowered LED blinker or a reasonably-powered media player.
- gmiller123456 8y ago
  So long as "the industry" refers to the maker community [since the RPi was never really intended as an industrial product], it has done a lot. And it shows by the number of copycat products available. I personally know dozens of people who never would have experimented with robotics or electronics if it weren't for the RPi. An Arduino/clone opened up the world for a lot of people. But being able to just type a command on the Pi and see something happen does a great deal for the learning process. And it provides a somewhat familiar GUI to get it up and running before continuing on. The fact that it doubles as a low end computer helps justify the cost.
  - AnIdiotOnTheNet 8y ago
    I guess that's my problem, I think it's a pretty big stretch to refer to the maker community as "the industry".
- geezerjay 8y ago
  > Alright, I'm curious, what exactly has the RPi done for "the industry"? Without the raspberry pi there would be no market for inexpensive barebone linux SoCs with enough computational power to serve as desktop replacements.
- etaoins 8y ago
  It's contributed to the open source ARM desktop/server community quite a bit. While ARM has had first class support in for embedded and mobile for a long time people weren't really running X11, Gnome, database servers, etc. As a result the experience was rough around the edges. Now it's easy for any open source developer to pick up a working ARM machine for $35 for testing. qemu is an option but running on actual hardware is more rewarding. I've personally worked on open source code that would not have ARM support if something like the Raspberry Pi didn't exist. ARM desktops and servers have become more common recently but I think Raspberry Pi's laid some of the groundwork for that.

Jonnax 8y ago

Well that's on Broadcom so there's not too much the RasPi people can do. Since they must have pushed for some openess.

beatgammit 8y ago
Well, they could perhaps choose a different chip, no? I'm sure the chip they went with was the right choice at the time, but I wonder if perhaps the landscape has changed some since.

AnIdiotOnTheNet 8y ago

Alright, I'm curious, what exactly has the RPi done for "the industry"? As far as I can tell, it's largely used as an overpowered LED blinker or a reasonably-powered media player.

gmiller123456 8y ago
So long as "the industry" refers to the maker community [since the RPi was never really intended as an industrial product], it has done a lot. And it shows by the number of copycat products available. I personally know dozens of people who never would have experimented with robotics or electronics if it weren't for the RPi. An Arduino/clone opened up the world for a lot of people. But being able to just type a command on the Pi and see something happen does a great deal for the learning process. And it provides a somewhat familiar GUI to get it up and running before continuing on. The fact that it doubles as a low end computer helps justify the cost.
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 8y ago
  I guess that's my problem, I think it's a pretty big stretch to refer to the maker community as "the industry".
geezerjay 8y ago
> Alright, I'm curious, what exactly has the RPi done for "the industry"? Without the raspberry pi there would be no market for inexpensive barebone linux SoCs with enough computational power to serve as desktop replacements.
etaoins 8y ago
It's contributed to the open source ARM desktop/server community quite a bit. While ARM has had first class support in for embedded and mobile for a long time people weren't really running X11, Gnome, database servers, etc. As a result the experience was rough around the edges. Now it's easy for any open source developer to pick up a working ARM machine for $35 for testing. qemu is an option but running on actual hardware is more rewarding. I've personally worked on open source code that would not have ARM support if something like the Raspberry Pi didn't exist. ARM desktops and servers have become more common recently but I think Raspberry Pi's laid some of the groundwork for that.