4 ms·

Fortunately, URB-to-Ethernet adapters aren't very expensive.

by jamesgeck0 16y ago

sentinel 16y ago
But then where would you plug your keyboard?
- udp 16y ago
  USB hub, perhaps? They appear to be using one with many devices connected in the photograph on the official website [1]. [1] http://www.raspberrypi.org/ubuntu.jpg http://www.raspberrypi.org/ubuntu.jpg
  - lucasjung 16y ago
    If you need a USB hub to use one effectively, then the true price just went up by a third or so. Why not make the thing twice as thick, providing room to add an ethernet port and a second USB port? Then much more of the associated costs will be incorporated into the unit.
    - elliottcarlson 16y ago
      I think "effectively" is really dependent on the end user. If the goal is to provide an easy and cheap system for school children to work with, much like the OLPC, then internet may not be something that is available or required for the target demographic. In the case of your standard hacker, it would obviously be awesome to have all the additional items on-board, but with the ease of adding a USB hub and all required additions to it you can expand on it as much as you want in what ever cost range you can afford.
dspillett 16y ago
Or USB->WiFi. The mini-USB bluetooth adaptor that they currently have stock of in my local pound shop (for, not surprisingly, £1) (they look very like http://cgi.ebay.co.uk//300388440707 http://cgi.ebay.co.uk//300388440707 so may be the same thing) work perfectly will under Ubuntu (at least on 10.04 and 11.04). So as long as the bluetooth stack doesn't eat too much of that small chunk of RAM and network speed is not a big issue you could use the PAN or DUN profiles for networking on the cheap, tethering to a phone or a desktop/laptop with bt and PAN/DUN support. The official site doesn't say anything about power but as the image only shows USB and screen connections I assume it runs off the power a USB connection can provide, so it could probably run nicely off a pair of AA or AAA batteries. I can think of a number of play projects for monitoring (attach a cam, mic, temperature probe, and so on via USB) or display (attach a small LCD screen and/or a beeper and you've got a portable status monitor for some other project). Something like this could be great fun for a nerd like me to spend a bit of time playing with. A bit like an Arduino for a software-only person. If they do hit the market at the £15 estimated or there abouts I'd certainly buy a couple, as I'm sure would a couple of my friends.
- unwind 16y ago
  I assumed (from the video of Braben) that it was the other way around; it's powered by the HDMI connection to a TV. This makes kind of sense, since it's a USB host. It allows you to connect stuff like keyboards and mice, which a USB device wouldn't do. What's ... interesting about that reasoning is that according the Wikipedia, HDMI sources at most 50 mA at 5 V, which is 10% of what a USB root port is expected to deliver (500 mA). Perhaps it will require a power supply, unless you can find a power-efficient keyboard. Shouldn't be impossible I guess, keyboards are fairly passive.
  - dspillett 16y ago
    But it also supports composite out - if you were connecting the display that way it would need power from somewhere else. Perhaps the connections seen at the top of it in http://www.raspberrypi.org/pcb.jpg http://www.raspberrypi.org/pcb.jpg are providing the power - it looks like they end up plugging into the USB hub (if that is the case then it must be a powered hub, but a passive hub could presumably be used if the board were getting power from elsewhere like a battery connected to those contacts). I've not watched the video yet (no speakers/headphones handy) so I could be missing something they show/say in there.
    - unwind 16y ago
      True, for composite you'd need a different power supply. I agree that the wires in the picture look like they're coming off of the USB hub, and also that the hub looks like the powered variety. So, probably they'll go with at least one, preferably many, ways to power the machine externally. I hope they leave HDMI only as an option though, since it's incredibly neat. Oh, and I agree with others that they should look hard at integrating WiFi onboard.
- sedachv 16y ago
  There are 802.11 USB adapters in the same form factor: http://www.tigerdirect.ca/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=7047590&sku=U12-41385 http://www.tigerdirect.ca/applications/SearchTools/item-deta... It should be possible to power this thing with power over ethernet.

Fortunately, URB-to-Ethernet adapters aren't very expensive.

sentinel 16y ago

But then where would you plug your keyboard?

udp 16y ago
USB hub, perhaps? They appear to be using one with many devices connected in the photograph on the official website [1]. [1] http://www.raspberrypi.org/ubuntu.jpg http://www.raspberrypi.org/ubuntu.jpg
- lucasjung 16y ago
  If you need a USB hub to use one effectively, then the true price just went up by a third or so. Why not make the thing twice as thick, providing room to add an ethernet port and a second USB port? Then much more of the associated costs will be incorporated into the unit.
  - elliottcarlson 16y ago
    I think "effectively" is really dependent on the end user. If the goal is to provide an easy and cheap system for school children to work with, much like the OLPC, then internet may not be something that is available or required for the target demographic. In the case of your standard hacker, it would obviously be awesome to have all the additional items on-board, but with the ease of adding a USB hub and all required additions to it you can expand on it as much as you want in what ever cost range you can afford.

dspillett 16y ago

Or USB->WiFi. The mini-USB bluetooth adaptor that they currently have stock of in my local pound shop (for, not surprisingly, £1) (they look very like http://cgi.ebay.co.uk//300388440707 http://cgi.ebay.co.uk//300388440707 so may be the same thing) work perfectly will under Ubuntu (at least on 10.04 and 11.04). So as long as the bluetooth stack doesn't eat too much of that small chunk of RAM and network speed is not a big issue you could use the PAN or DUN profiles for networking on the cheap, tethering to a phone or a desktop/laptop with bt and PAN/DUN support. The official site doesn't say anything about power but as the image only shows USB and screen connections I assume it runs off the power a USB connection can provide, so it could probably run nicely off a pair of AA or AAA batteries. I can think of a number of play projects for monitoring (attach a cam, mic, temperature probe, and so on via USB) or display (attach a small LCD screen and/or a beeper and you've got a portable status monitor for some other project). Something like this could be great fun for a nerd like me to spend a bit of time playing with. A bit like an Arduino for a software-only person. If they do hit the market at the £15 estimated or there abouts I'd certainly buy a couple, as I'm sure would a couple of my friends.

unwind 16y ago
I assumed (from the video of Braben) that it was the other way around; it's powered by the HDMI connection to a TV. This makes kind of sense, since it's a USB host. It allows you to connect stuff like keyboards and mice, which a USB device wouldn't do. What's ... interesting about that reasoning is that according the Wikipedia, HDMI sources at most 50 mA at 5 V, which is 10% of what a USB root port is expected to deliver (500 mA). Perhaps it will require a power supply, unless you can find a power-efficient keyboard. Shouldn't be impossible I guess, keyboards are fairly passive.
- dspillett 16y ago
  But it also supports composite out - if you were connecting the display that way it would need power from somewhere else. Perhaps the connections seen at the top of it in http://www.raspberrypi.org/pcb.jpg http://www.raspberrypi.org/pcb.jpg are providing the power - it looks like they end up plugging into the USB hub (if that is the case then it must be a powered hub, but a passive hub could presumably be used if the board were getting power from elsewhere like a battery connected to those contacts). I've not watched the video yet (no speakers/headphones handy) so I could be missing something they show/say in there.
  - unwind 16y ago
    True, for composite you'd need a different power supply. I agree that the wires in the picture look like they're coming off of the USB hub, and also that the hub looks like the powered variety. So, probably they'll go with at least one, preferably many, ways to power the machine externally. I hope they leave HDMI only as an option though, since it's incredibly neat. Oh, and I agree with others that they should look hard at integrating WiFi onboard.
sedachv 16y ago
There are 802.11 USB adapters in the same form factor: http://www.tigerdirect.ca/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=7047590&sku=U12-41385 http://www.tigerdirect.ca/applications/SearchTools/item-deta... It should be possible to power this thing with power over ethernet.