9 ms·

$25 PC priced like a textbook, works with old analog TVs

65 points by ukdm 15y ago

6ren 15y ago
With 700MHz ARM11 cpu (Broadcom BCM2835), if they had 1GB of RAM, it would be pretty close to a mainstream device (1GB is about $10 now, though they're using low power ram on the device). See also: Demo: Raspberry Pi running Quake 3 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2932910 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2932910 ----- Raspberry Pi - The alpha boards are here http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2880507 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2880507 ----- Raspberry Pi $25 PC goes into alpha production http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2822255 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2822255
Ein2015 15y ago
Where do I get $25 textbooks?
- dman 15y ago
  Used on amazon.
  - tsm 15y ago
    I wish. http://www.amazon.com/Artificial-Intelligence-Modern-Approach-3rd/dp/0136042597/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1314887857&sr=8-1 http://www.amazon.com/Artificial-Intelligence-Modern-Approac...
    - andyking 15y ago
      Won't the second-hand price of this particular book be pushed up by the numbers of people after it for the free Stanford AI class that uses it?
      - fuzzythinker 15y ago
        The price drop after the class is over may be higher than the increase.
        dman 15y ago
        Tracking price and availability of used books might be interesting to plot against course difficulty ramp up.
    - Malcx 15y ago
      Look to the international editions. These are often shipped from India - quite thin paper but the same content: http://www.abebooks.com/products/isbn/9780136042594 http://www.abebooks.com/products/isbn/9780136042594
- yardie 15y ago
  The same place you get 50 cent antibiotics and $1 DVDs. If you are in the US, UK, CA, or western europe no need to apply. The publishers have decided you can pay more and will charge you thusly. Or try to get one of the international students to give you theirs. Makes you laugh internally to know you spent $100s of dollars on engineering textbooks while the internationally student sitting next to you has the same one in paperback and probably paid $10 for it. And that's if their government scholarship doesn't include the book stipend.
  - oacgnol 15y ago
    Buying international versions was one trick I wish I had learned when I was just starting college. It would have saved me a lot of money over time for the same content.
    - yardie 15y ago
      You used to be able to do so through Amazon but the publishers caught on fairly quickly. I managed to get a bio book that way, my ex-gf bought her organic chemistry books ($$$) this way as well. The next semester they were no longer visible even when searching by ISBN.
- handelaar 15y ago
  At places selling textbooks to schools, not to university students.
reemrevnivek 15y ago
$25 for a textbook? If only! I spend $50-$300 per class for engineering textbooks. Also, the analog port is, I believe, only available on the $35 version of the Raspberry Pi. It also works with HDMI and DVI (the latter through an adapter), so you don't need to go scrounging for an analog TV.
- colanderman 15y ago
  I suspect $25 for a textbook is more common in non-Western countries, which would likely be a great market for these things as well.
- qxb 15y ago
  I think the comparison is supposed to be with high / secondary school textbooks, which are cheaper than university ones. Raspberry Pi is a charity "to promote the study of computer science and related topics, especially at school level" and the device is aimed, in part at least, for use in teaching programming to children.[1] [1] http://www.raspberrypi.org/?page_id=2 http://www.raspberrypi.org/?page_id=2
  - nitrogen 15y ago
    If only that were the case... When I was in high school, replacing a lost Calculus textbook would have cost $120.
- corin_ 15y ago
  The $25 textbook reference is based on children at school, not young adults in universities. I don't know about America, but in England $25 is a pretty good estimate for textbooks used by 8-18 year olds.
- obarthelemy 15y ago
  I think both the analog port and the hdmi port are available on both versions (model A and model B, shades of the BBC micro). THe only difference between the 2 is the amount of RAM (128 vs 256) and the IO (1 USB vs 2USB + Ethernet). Be aware that the B's 2 USB + ETHERNET are internally connected to the Broadcom's single USB port though... you're not adding bandwidth, just ports.
gravitronic 15y ago
There's a second story here. Want to build this board yourself? You can't. Try to find information about this Broadcom BCM2835 chip. It only leads back to the Raspberry Pi (and a teardown of the roku 2 media player). Broadcom has not released even a 1-page summary datasheet on this chip. The only specs released are in relation to the Raspberry Pi. I work for a small tech company that would LOVE to be able to use this chip and as of today it's impossible to even get the datasheet unless you are in "the club" of trusted broadcom customers (or their employee, as one raspberry pi creator is apparently?) Will this chip ever be sold to the public?
- pointyhat 15y ago
  Looking at Broadcom's part numbers, it's not a "current" product but it seems to fit in the same series of numbers as their 3G baseband processors and mobile multimedia processors. I get the feeling it's a new mobile multimedia processor (judging by the HDMI+ARM+3d graphics supprot) which is being conveniently repurposed. I reckon it'll be on the market soon enough but don't expect to be able to get anything out of Broadcom unless you want volume. Even Farnell don't carry their parts.
  - gravitronic 15y ago
    Sounds congruent to what we've experienced in the past. Even worse is attempting to get customer support from them when you find massive problems in their part but you only ship a few thousand a year... It just irks me that while the Raspberry Pi in itself is a great product that will be a minor revolution, its impact could be so much greater if this chip was available to all developers. I guess I should shut my mouth, at least the second product to get the chip is a somewhat philanthropic effort and not another streaming media box.
    - pointyhat 15y ago
      Sounds like any large vendor :) I agree with you. I'll put my RMS hat on here, but I'm concerned that it's a 100% proprietary platform for education. The old BBC Micros that we had here in the UK were made out of standard bits and had schematics so you could strap what the hell you liked to them (or modify them). They were replaced with utter proprietary crap from Research Machines and it has been like that ever since. We need some open hardware as well if you ask me.
asolove 15y ago
In the last few weeks I've tinkered with the idea of doing hardware hacking. This and the plug-computers look like they have an interesting future. Where do you start to learn to hack real hardware? (I can do Arduino stuff, but seems like there is a big jump I don't know how to make.)
- Palomides 15y ago
  what sort of "hack real hardware" do you want to do?
  - asolove 15y ago
    I was going to say something else, but I thought, people should just say their dreams, even if they sound crazy, and maybe they'll find someone who can make it happen. So here goes: I have a particular dream to open up an Android tablet; get plan9 running on it so I can share my screen, peripherals, files, and programs across a local network; and hack a keyboard onto the back so I can code while standing on the subway. Rough silly mockups here: http://electriceloquence.net/articles/re-imagining-mobile-hacking http://electriceloquence.net/articles/re-imagining-mobile-ha...
    - loup-vaillant 15y ago
      The keyboard on the back is a terrific idea. Just a nitpick: I'm begging you, if you can, straighten those dammed keys. http://www.loup-vaillant.fr/articles/better-keyboards http://www.loup-vaillant.fr/articles/better-keyboards
      - asolove 15y ago
        This is an excellent point. In the process of doing research I came across these ideas. The difficult part is it's easy to find and disassemble split "ergonomic" keyboards with staggered keys. But I can't find a straight keyboard that uses two separate control boards, and I don't think I'm going to be able to make my own control boards anytime soon...
bugsy 15y ago
OLPC has a $100 PC, India has a $10 PC, and now these guys have a $25 PC. What do they all have in common? They all have in common that NONE OF THEM EXIST. Yes, that's right. These projects get announced as if they are factual existing devices, with announcements using verb tenses suggesting they are currently in production and available. But then looking for details we find that no one is sure what the form of the device will be, or what parts will be involved because they are not developed products. That is a deceptive practice. And you know what, people who resort to such deceptive practices aren't the sorts of persons that can manage to deliver the goods. edit: wow, downvotes, that is awesome. When downvoting, please also respond with a web page where I can purchase OLPC for $100, the India PC for $10, or this one for $25. Thanks.
- CrazedGeek 15y ago
  The OLPC XO-1 was designed for third-world markets: the only way you could acquire one in the US (and possibly other countries?) was by paying $200, which both got you one and sponsored one for a third-world child. (My cousins actually have one, so I know they exist.) They stopped this deal a year or two ago, though. The India PC was never $10 outright, IIRC: it was $10 after some rather massive subsidies. The Raspberry Pi literally went into alpha production a week ago, and software support is in its very early stages. Expecting to be able to buy it right now is a little silly.
  - mbrubeck 15y ago
    OLPC's Give 1 Get 1 program actually cost each donor US$400, of which $200 paid for a donated laptop and $200 paid for a laptop for the donor. I don't know whether they ever eventually got the price close to $100. I know this because I own an OLPC XO-1 that I acquired through the G1G1 program. See also http://www.olpcnews.com/countries/usa/olpc_xo_laptop_sale.html http://www.olpcnews.com/countries/usa/olpc_xo_laptop_sale.ht...
- soapdog 15y ago
  I have an OLPC XO-1, I used it every week. It is my favorite laptop. I have very good net access with it and use this little gem for my server maintenance needs... cool little thing. If OLPC would do another give-1-get-1, I would pick three. Now, I want do a little bulk order of Raspberry Pis when they are available and see what I can do with them for my community. About the downvotes, you COULD buy an OLPC for $200 during the give 1 get 1 phase. I got mine, if you were truly interested in these projects, you would knew that. You're just a flamer...
zenijin 15y ago
Personally I think this is fantastic. I wish I could've had something to tinker with when I was younger, without fear of getting in trouble for messing it up. I don't have kids of my own, but I'll probably buy these for my nieces and nephews, hopefully get them into it young. I'll likely buy a couple of these for myself, too, to use as media PCs.
nitrogen 15y ago
What's to stop some consumer electronics manufacturer from buying Raspberry Pis and building them into a device? I'd actually like to do that myself, but if they're selling the boards at cost, that wouldn't be sustainable.
- loup-vaillant 15y ago
  While the 25$ model certainly costs them, the 35$ one may not. Plus, if they have massive commands, they may be able to invoke some economy of scale.
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]
- obarthelemy 15y ago
  Nothing. It would actually be welcome. There's a small margin built into the product, so it's nit like the foundation is losing money of sales. Plus, for the more charitably inclined, I understand there will be a buy 1 give 1 program, and a slightly pricier Pi with an inbuilt donation (same specs)
donnaware 15y ago
Can you say vaporware?

65 points by ukdm 15y ago

6ren 15y ago

With 700MHz ARM11 cpu (Broadcom BCM2835), if they had 1GB of RAM, it would be pretty close to a mainstream device (1GB is about $10 now, though they're using low power ram on the device). See also: Demo: Raspberry Pi running Quake 3 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2932910 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2932910 ----- Raspberry Pi - The alpha boards are here http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2880507 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2880507 ----- Raspberry Pi $25 PC goes into alpha production http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2822255 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2822255

Ein2015 15y ago

Where do I get $25 textbooks?

dman 15y ago
Used on amazon.
- tsm 15y ago
  I wish. http://www.amazon.com/Artificial-Intelligence-Modern-Approach-3rd/dp/0136042597/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1314887857&sr=8-1 http://www.amazon.com/Artificial-Intelligence-Modern-Approac...
  - andyking 15y ago
    Won't the second-hand price of this particular book be pushed up by the numbers of people after it for the free Stanford AI class that uses it?
    - fuzzythinker 15y ago
      The price drop after the class is over may be higher than the increase.
      - dman 15y ago
        Tracking price and availability of used books might be interesting to plot against course difficulty ramp up.
  - Malcx 15y ago
    Look to the international editions. These are often shipped from India - quite thin paper but the same content: http://www.abebooks.com/products/isbn/9780136042594 http://www.abebooks.com/products/isbn/9780136042594
yardie 15y ago
The same place you get 50 cent antibiotics and $1 DVDs. If you are in the US, UK, CA, or western europe no need to apply. The publishers have decided you can pay more and will charge you thusly. Or try to get one of the international students to give you theirs. Makes you laugh internally to know you spent $100s of dollars on engineering textbooks while the internationally student sitting next to you has the same one in paperback and probably paid $10 for it. And that's if their government scholarship doesn't include the book stipend.
- oacgnol 15y ago
  Buying international versions was one trick I wish I had learned when I was just starting college. It would have saved me a lot of money over time for the same content.
  - yardie 15y ago
    You used to be able to do so through Amazon but the publishers caught on fairly quickly. I managed to get a bio book that way, my ex-gf bought her organic chemistry books ($$$) this way as well. The next semester they were no longer visible even when searching by ISBN.
handelaar 15y ago
At places selling textbooks to schools, not to university students.

reemrevnivek 15y ago

$25 for a textbook? If only! I spend $50-$300 per class for engineering textbooks. Also, the analog port is, I believe, only available on the $35 version of the Raspberry Pi. It also works with HDMI and DVI (the latter through an adapter), so you don't need to go scrounging for an analog TV.

colanderman 15y ago
I suspect $25 for a textbook is more common in non-Western countries, which would likely be a great market for these things as well.
qxb 15y ago
I think the comparison is supposed to be with high / secondary school textbooks, which are cheaper than university ones. Raspberry Pi is a charity "to promote the study of computer science and related topics, especially at school level" and the device is aimed, in part at least, for use in teaching programming to children.[1] [1] http://www.raspberrypi.org/?page_id=2 http://www.raspberrypi.org/?page_id=2
- nitrogen 15y ago
  If only that were the case... When I was in high school, replacing a lost Calculus textbook would have cost $120.
corin_ 15y ago
The $25 textbook reference is based on children at school, not young adults in universities. I don't know about America, but in England $25 is a pretty good estimate for textbooks used by 8-18 year olds.
obarthelemy 15y ago
I think both the analog port and the hdmi port are available on both versions (model A and model B, shades of the BBC micro). THe only difference between the 2 is the amount of RAM (128 vs 256) and the IO (1 USB vs 2USB + Ethernet). Be aware that the B's 2 USB + ETHERNET are internally connected to the Broadcom's single USB port though... you're not adding bandwidth, just ports.

gravitronic 15y ago

There's a second story here. Want to build this board yourself? You can't. Try to find information about this Broadcom BCM2835 chip. It only leads back to the Raspberry Pi (and a teardown of the roku 2 media player). Broadcom has not released even a 1-page summary datasheet on this chip. The only specs released are in relation to the Raspberry Pi. I work for a small tech company that would LOVE to be able to use this chip and as of today it's impossible to even get the datasheet unless you are in "the club" of trusted broadcom customers (or their employee, as one raspberry pi creator is apparently?) Will this chip ever be sold to the public?

pointyhat 15y ago
Looking at Broadcom's part numbers, it's not a "current" product but it seems to fit in the same series of numbers as their 3G baseband processors and mobile multimedia processors. I get the feeling it's a new mobile multimedia processor (judging by the HDMI+ARM+3d graphics supprot) which is being conveniently repurposed. I reckon it'll be on the market soon enough but don't expect to be able to get anything out of Broadcom unless you want volume. Even Farnell don't carry their parts.
- gravitronic 15y ago
  Sounds congruent to what we've experienced in the past. Even worse is attempting to get customer support from them when you find massive problems in their part but you only ship a few thousand a year... It just irks me that while the Raspberry Pi in itself is a great product that will be a minor revolution, its impact could be so much greater if this chip was available to all developers. I guess I should shut my mouth, at least the second product to get the chip is a somewhat philanthropic effort and not another streaming media box.
  - pointyhat 15y ago
    Sounds like any large vendor :) I agree with you. I'll put my RMS hat on here, but I'm concerned that it's a 100% proprietary platform for education. The old BBC Micros that we had here in the UK were made out of standard bits and had schematics so you could strap what the hell you liked to them (or modify them). They were replaced with utter proprietary crap from Research Machines and it has been like that ever since. We need some open hardware as well if you ask me.

asolove 15y ago

In the last few weeks I've tinkered with the idea of doing hardware hacking. This and the plug-computers look like they have an interesting future. Where do you start to learn to hack real hardware? (I can do Arduino stuff, but seems like there is a big jump I don't know how to make.)

Palomides 15y ago
what sort of "hack real hardware" do you want to do?
- asolove 15y ago
  I was going to say something else, but I thought, people should just say their dreams, even if they sound crazy, and maybe they'll find someone who can make it happen. So here goes: I have a particular dream to open up an Android tablet; get plan9 running on it so I can share my screen, peripherals, files, and programs across a local network; and hack a keyboard onto the back so I can code while standing on the subway. Rough silly mockups here: http://electriceloquence.net/articles/re-imagining-mobile-hacking http://electriceloquence.net/articles/re-imagining-mobile-ha...
  - loup-vaillant 15y ago
    The keyboard on the back is a terrific idea. Just a nitpick: I'm begging you, if you can, straighten those dammed keys. http://www.loup-vaillant.fr/articles/better-keyboards http://www.loup-vaillant.fr/articles/better-keyboards
    - asolove 15y ago
      This is an excellent point. In the process of doing research I came across these ideas. The difficult part is it's easy to find and disassemble split "ergonomic" keyboards with staggered keys. But I can't find a straight keyboard that uses two separate control boards, and I don't think I'm going to be able to make my own control boards anytime soon...

bugsy 15y ago

OLPC has a $100 PC, India has a $10 PC, and now these guys have a $25 PC. What do they all have in common? They all have in common that NONE OF THEM EXIST. Yes, that's right. These projects get announced as if they are factual existing devices, with announcements using verb tenses suggesting they are currently in production and available. But then looking for details we find that no one is sure what the form of the device will be, or what parts will be involved because they are not developed products. That is a deceptive practice. And you know what, people who resort to such deceptive practices aren't the sorts of persons that can manage to deliver the goods. edit: wow, downvotes, that is awesome. When downvoting, please also respond with a web page where I can purchase OLPC for $100, the India PC for $10, or this one for $25. Thanks.

CrazedGeek 15y ago
The OLPC XO-1 was designed for third-world markets: the only way you could acquire one in the US (and possibly other countries?) was by paying $200, which both got you one and sponsored one for a third-world child. (My cousins actually have one, so I know they exist.) They stopped this deal a year or two ago, though. The India PC was never $10 outright, IIRC: it was $10 after some rather massive subsidies. The Raspberry Pi literally went into alpha production a week ago, and software support is in its very early stages. Expecting to be able to buy it right now is a little silly.
- mbrubeck 15y ago
  OLPC's Give 1 Get 1 program actually cost each donor US$400, of which $200 paid for a donated laptop and $200 paid for a laptop for the donor. I don't know whether they ever eventually got the price close to $100. I know this because I own an OLPC XO-1 that I acquired through the G1G1 program. See also http://www.olpcnews.com/countries/usa/olpc_xo_laptop_sale.html http://www.olpcnews.com/countries/usa/olpc_xo_laptop_sale.ht...
soapdog 15y ago
I have an OLPC XO-1, I used it every week. It is my favorite laptop. I have very good net access with it and use this little gem for my server maintenance needs... cool little thing. If OLPC would do another give-1-get-1, I would pick three. Now, I want do a little bulk order of Raspberry Pis when they are available and see what I can do with them for my community. About the downvotes, you COULD buy an OLPC for $200 during the give 1 get 1 phase. I got mine, if you were truly interested in these projects, you would knew that. You're just a flamer...

zenijin 15y ago

Personally I think this is fantastic. I wish I could've had something to tinker with when I was younger, without fear of getting in trouble for messing it up. I don't have kids of my own, but I'll probably buy these for my nieces and nephews, hopefully get them into it young. I'll likely buy a couple of these for myself, too, to use as media PCs.

nitrogen 15y ago

What's to stop some consumer electronics manufacturer from buying Raspberry Pis and building them into a device? I'd actually like to do that myself, but if they're selling the boards at cost, that wouldn't be sustainable.

loup-vaillant 15y ago
While the 25$ model certainly costs them, the 35$ one may not. Plus, if they have massive commands, they may be able to invoke some economy of scale.
deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
obarthelemy 15y ago
Nothing. It would actually be welcome. There's a small margin built into the product, so it's nit like the foundation is losing money of sales. Plus, for the more charitably inclined, I understand there will be a buy 1 give 1 program, and a slightly pricier Pi with an inbuilt donation (same specs)

donnaware 15y ago

Can you say vaporware?