back to article 75,000 Raspberry Pi baked before August

RS Components, one of two distributors for the Raspberry Pi, says the 75,000 of the tiny computers are burbling through the manufacturing supply chain and will be ready for release “in July to August”. Speaking at a press event in Sydney today, ANZ Country Manager Jeremy Edward said many buyers of the computer come from within …

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        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: That's why they call it a "development board"...

          "Then why is it being sold to members of the general public and not only to developers? Why were the first boards handed out to school children?"

          I can't speak for the Foundation, but I'd hazard a guess that it's because there are members of the public who (a) are not software developers, (b) are aware that the Pi isn't a finished product, but (c) are tech-savvy enough (with Linux, computers, etc.) still want to have a go at tinkering with it.

          Case study: I'm not a programmer (beyond a certain level of scripting), and I know full well the Pi isn't a polished product (I mean, it comes without a case or any peripherals - what more alerting do you need? neon signs?), but I have ten years of Linux experience and jumped at the chance to get a small, dirt-cheap unit I could tinker around with (and maybe do something useful with, though that's a bonus).

          And as for the schools: I think you may find that at this stage, the dev boards are generally going to the computing/electronics clubs, where the kids are interested and/or more capable of coping with the Pi's current "quirks". (Certainly, if the Scout troop showcased on the RPi site is anything to go by.)

          I see the point you're trying to make, but it seems to me the situation is a bit less black/white (devs/public) than you may be suggesting.

    1. Pete 2 Silver badge

      a credible offering or a pig in a poke

      It's the Mark 1. We know (some through experience and some by learning from the mistakes of others) all about "Mark 1"'s.

      Although I doubt if they planned it like this, but the RPi people seem to have got the hacker community to do the beta-testing for them. Discovering the real-world problems is always a necessary task and one that's usually devolved to the early adopters who, through the powers of marketing, seem to be happy to spend their money on unproven stuff in return for the bragging rights of "I was in at the beginning".

      [Disclaimer: sometime between now and (hopefully) christmas (hopefully 2012) I'll get to the top of the list and be invited into the RPi store, too.]

      What should be happening now is that the professional designers will be looking at all the criticisms and feedback. They'll be tearing apart the initial designs and looking for improvements. With some luck, the current run of Mark 1's will be superceded by faster, cooler (in all senses), more reliable boards using up-to-date chips with more memory, peripherals and a better layout (you really don't want I-O on all sides of the board) that may cost more but be generally better suited to mass-use.

      Depending on when that happens, I may grab a Mk 1 when the time comes - or I may get the opportunity to buy a Mk2 when the current design gets obsoleted.

  1. Mage Silver badge
    Linux

    Ardunio no good for Linux

    Pi doesn't really make sense as a Media Streaming box. More sense as Embedded system running Linux on battery. If mains or car electrics is available a micro ITX for media might be more flexible.

    If you want a volume low power low cost Media on TV solution you are going to use ARM, ST20, MIPS SoCs and DSP especially for that.

    In one sense the HDMI is redundant until there are cheap 3" to 5" HDMI touch screens with 4:3, 16:9 and 3:1 form factors for cheap embedded GUI. Like a simulating a radio Dial on portable radio or home media IR remote with optional WiFi, Or CNC control panel

    1. parityerror

      Re: Ardunio no good for Linux

      The Roku uses the same chipset, BCM2835 so it can't be such a bad choice for a media streamer.

      But if you want that you buy a Roku. If you want to tinker you get a Pi.

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Devil

    Having ordered mine from Farnell Ireland at 9am on the day, it arrived last week.

    Works fine on an HP Touchpad microUSB power supply.

    Nice little chipset for hacking at. Not a general purpose PC - I have a desktop, netbook, work laptop, touchpad etc. for all that.

    <- Someone mentioned that the devil icon looks like a car, possibly a Mazda 3?

  3. Allan George Dyer
    Paris Hilton

    Frustration:

    The feeling experienced, when, on finally receiving your email from RS with the one-time code to enter the Pi order website, you mess up the checkout process and can't restart.

    Anyone got a good book to read while I'm waiting for a code reset?

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Crap codec support

    Cheap media centre? Don't make me laugh. Not until they provide the driver blobs to access the hardware MPEG2/MPEG4 decoding that the internal GPU can do. The provided H264 is not enough - most of the world uses MPEG2 for DVB, DVDs use MPEG2, people have xvid/divx collections. Media centres need to do this kind of stuff.

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    JUST MAKE MORE OF THEM!

    It's called supply and demand.

    Typical British company - doesn't know how to make money, even for charity!

    : )

    .

  6. godanov
    Happy

    NEED

    I so want a dozen of these things.

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