Ever since the Raspberry pi shipped, credit-card sized computers have been coming out the woodwork. As expected, now there are projects on vWorker (ex RentACode

Ever since the Raspberry pi shipped, credit-card sized computers have been coming out the woodwork. As expected, now there are projects on vWorker (ex RentACoder) asking for engineers to design such computers with state of the art specs with a maximum bid of $499. I can't make this shit up! $499! At least toss us a bone and add a zero so we don't laugh quite so hard! [citation needed] I'm thinking it would cost at least $150-$200 to prototype, per PCB revision. If it was design only, I wouldn't trust a random freelance designer to get it working first go. I remember one weird case where bunch of EEG units acted weird, well noisy. The highly experienced MSEE couldn't explain it, because it wasn't the high sensitivity input amp or anything on the board. I eventually figured out it was the off-board battery, and it turned out to be the impedance would climb causing a noisy EEG, as the battery was wearing out in fairly short time from abuse (excess low discharge in SLAs will damage them). Perhaps a few extra capacitors might have help. It would be the same for these A10/A13 clones, weird glitches can crop up, and even with an experienced engineer, the design could require a PCB revision and a new prototype.