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Very cool, although a win10 minipc would probably make far more sense for people who specifically need a tiny windows 10 computer, especially as they basically
by TheRealPomax 6y ago
Very cool, although a win10 minipc would probably make far more sense for people who specifically need a tiny windows 10 computer, especially as they basically cost less than what a copy of windows 10 pro costs.
(A fully functional fanless atom x5-Z8350, 4GB ram, 64GB flash, Win10 pro x64 Mini-PC will set you back $139. A copy of Windows 10 pro x64 is $168...)
And I know, some folks might say "why not a lattepanda?" to which the response really is "because that costs three times as much". Sure, you don't get GPIO pins on a minipc, but given that you can just buy a $10 data acquisition module that connects via USB, and that you can talk to using UART... that's hardly a problem?
- 1996 6y ago> A copy of Windows 10 pro x64 is $168... Cheaper on ebay. First sale doctrine covers you.
- cable2600 6y agoI got a copy of Windows 7 Ultimate for free from Microsoft as part of a developers conference. Then I upgraded to Windows 10 Pro for free. I bought some Windows 7 upgrades and 8.0 upgrades that convert to Windows 10 as well. Microsoft has a good upgrade policy and the upgrade versions are cheap. I bought some when Amazon had a sale on pre-orders of 8.0 upgrades.
- TheRealPomax 6y agoUntil you discover it's an illegally sold volume license copy and the volume license gets voided. Fun times, fun times.
- Sohcahtoa82 6y agoDoes this still happen? I bought my Win10 Pro key from a grey market site for like $10, so I figure it's likely an illegally sold volume license copy. Yeah, I totally acknowledge that it could get voided, but I know several other people who have bought their Windows key from these types of sites, and none have ever had a problem.
- 1996 6y agoAnd in the worst case, buy another. As a customer, the question of the legality of the license key is not my concern. I purchased it, Microsoft checked it, while knowing my IP address, and decided it was good to go. The fault is theirs: if they don't want volume keys to work outside some markets, add some limitation like geolocalization.
- Sohcahtoa82 6y ago> And in the worst case, buy another. That would basically be my plan. If the second key got revoked, THEN I might consider buying a legitimate one.
- TheRealPomax 6y agoUsually only when the company that bought the volume license goes out of business, so not all the time, but it certainly still happens.
- vardump 6y ago> Sure, you don't get GPIO pins on a minipc, but given that you can just buy a $10 data acquisition module that connects via USB, and that you can talk to using UART... that's hardly a problem? Bandwidth for USB GPIO: 8 kHz if you're lucky and there are no other devices on the same controller. Bandwidth for the direct GPIO: up to tens of MHz.
- TheRealPomax 6y agoSo, not exactly a problem for anyone who wants to use a raspi but also windows? If you need MHz of GPIO speed, you're basically in arduino land now, and raspi+win or a minipc+win doesn't make a whole lot of sense. But hey, you can you also just connect an arduino to the minipc and get the best of both worlds.
- vardump 6y agoYou can achieve MHz GPIO speed with RPi running Raspbian. There are FIFOs and DMA. The days of bitbanging are long since gone.
- TheRealPomax 6y agoOf course you can, but this article is about folks who want to use Windows (for whatever reason). If you want to use "the raspi" as a controller, there is zero reason to look for a way to put Windows on a tiny board. A standard raspi already does what you need.