Nerds assemble! Raspberry pi close to launch date.

RomanNose · 27 Feb 2012 at 20:06

Ladies and gentlemen, set your alarms!
Posted on February 27, 2012 by eben

The Raspberry Pi Foundation will be making a big (and very positive) announcement that just might interest you at 0600h GMT on Wednesday 29 February 2012. Come to www.raspberrypi.org to find out what’s going on..

http://www.raspberrypi.org/archives/716
Will be waking up one hour early and turning over to my tablet to check the news. I don't think it will be launched on Thursday, as production finished today. So maybe monday but they might have got quick shipping. Anyway, it's close and I have multiple things I can use it in. A lot of people expect that it is going to be used as a UAV platform as it has enough power to do video processing among many other things. So that's what my first project will hopefully involve. Cannot wait as it's very powerful for its size and most importantly it runs linux.

RomanNose · 27 Feb 2012 at 20:13

Ahleckz said:
What is it?

Very cheap computer that runs linux, sold for £15 or £25. 800Mhz which is several magnitudes more powerful than current systems such as arduino. Also very low wattage as well.
Can be used in Classrooms and its small enough to be used in anything that moves. It will be like utopia if they replace every windows computer in ict and change it for one of these, they have caused so much damage to our youth. We need more programmers, not office monkeys.

RomanNose · 27 Feb 2012 at 20:21

sigma said:
I've not really looked much into it. Will we be able to reprogram any of the electronics on it?

Not really sure what you mean, it's just one package that can run linux. So I guess the answer is yes but I think some of the broadcom chips are a bit locked up. It has a gpio header so it will be used for I/O stuff.

remy87 said:
How about running XMBC on it, having one of these dangling from behind a TV in every room streaming from a file server.
Drooling.

Will be quite possible, I think it will be a while for proper hardware acceleration though.

RomanNose · 27 Feb 2012 at 20:39

sigma said:
Apologies, I meant can we program the on-board chips.

A bit like the Ardunio board.

Well not really. It can be used for arduino like stuff but it would use a linux driver and a library for a language. Take java, it could have a library for the raspberry pi and could be used practically the same way as arduino by using GPIO. It can pretty much be used in the same arduino is currently used, and I would imagine people will program in many different languages that have libraries for it.
So all you will need to get is something liek this
http://www.raspberrypi.org/archives/411

RomanNose · 27 Feb 2012 at 21:34

rogan said:
dammit, im at work, theres definately no one i can convince to get up at that hour for me

It's going to be an announcement as they said they will say when it is being released at least 24 hours before. So no need to worry, I imagine they will release at a reasonable hour probably out of work hours.
Remember they have another domain that it will be sold, the raspberry pi website will probably crash on launch but the shop won't.

RomanNose · 28 Feb 2012 at 07:47

danza said:
Surely most/all of the first batch would have already been bought up for use in educational/commercial applications?

First batch is for hobbyists as you can only order one at a time.

RomanNose · 28 Feb 2012 at 20:12

RomanNose · 29 Feb 2012 at 07:07

I am annoyed at it being a launch, probably gone now completely.

RomanNose · 29 Feb 2012 at 07:13

Most people thought it was going to be an announcement. Not the actual launch lol.
Wait, they are not selling yet. When will it open?

RomanNose · 29 Feb 2012 at 07:27

godinman said:
Same!

I'll be getting one of these, what...erm, can I do with it tho?

People say it's good for learning programming etc, why is this? Just because it's a simple PC or...?

Very cool tho.

Because it's linux!
Damn this is annoying, here is the actual link uk.farnell.com/jsp/bespoke/bespoke7.jsp?ICID=I-RASP-HPBLOF-0015&bespokepage=farnell/en_UK/promotions/raspberryPi.jsp

RomanNose · 29 Feb 2012 at 08:53

I know people all around the world trying to get one, maybe linux on the desktop might succeed this year.

RomanNose · 29 Feb 2012 at 10:42

We just want something better. Windows is not bad, but it linux is thousands of times more secure. Because of foss and permissions. My mum and grandad use linux with no problem I think the pi will make people much more interested in linux.

RomanNose · 29 Feb 2012 at 14:49

Hardware acceleration.

RomanNose · 29 Feb 2012 at 15:13

Loads lined up such as UAV, ssh server, web server.

RomanNose · 29 Feb 2012 at 15:51

400ma at 5v I think, very efficient.

RomanNose · 29 Feb 2012 at 17:19

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2108045/Revolutionary-22-Raspberry-Pi-working-PC-just-add-screen-keyboard-mouse.html
Massive fail, they got the memory wrong and they called it a wi-fi gizmo.

RomanNose · 29 Feb 2012 at 17:56

desires said:
People are working on a simple media os, so basically you turn it on and it iwll be like a google tv or apple tv. That would be well worth it for £25. I'm going to wait until it gets a case and has proven media playing capabilities with a decent GUI. I've always ummed and arred over AppleTV for £99 but always backed out due to the price. If a cased version of this comes out and i can get a working media os on it for less than £40 then it would be an instant buy!

Yep they are porting XBMC which is a very polished product with loads of plugins. Should be pretty damn good if it can play 1080p smooth.

RomanNose · 29 Feb 2012 at 19:35

desires said:
This is a joke right? You've got guests over and you're going to show them a PCB? They won't be coming over to yours again that's for sure.

It's a good talking point if they don't know about it. Spreading the word about it may mean an extra child gets one and becomes the next Bill gates

. Talk about it as much as possible, every kid should have one.

RomanNose · 29 Feb 2012 at 20:06

Basically I want to get one on this xD.

RomanNose · 29 Feb 2012 at 20:43

Boycey0211 said:
So do I, but I remeber looking into it ages ago and the CAA restrictions on what counts as a UAV were pretty strict. May have another look and see if its still viable, as i'd love to have a crack at that

Actually it's not too bad. Commercial UAV is very strict but they are fine with hobbyists. Only restrictions are, fly on 2.4ghz or 5.8ghz, under 300ft and with a spotter. So in reality you won't have many problems.