Okay, someone claimed I was wrong about the AVR and so I presumed they meant ATmegas. Same party claimed Farnell and RS Solutions were the manufacturers. Seems someone is very loyal to the Raspberry Pi, but not well informed.
This is all a tempest in a tea pot. If they are fun, use both and LEARN by comparing. Speculative comparison of computer chips in terms of value is really rather useless.
The Pi uses a 700 MHz ARM11 core, embedded in an SOC made by Broadcom:
The SoC is a Broadcom BCM2835. This contains an ARM1176JZFS, with floating point, running at 700Mhz, and a Videocore 4 GPU. The GPU is capable of BluRay quality playback, using H.264 at 40MBits/s. It has a fast 3D core accessed using the supplied OpenGL ES2.0 and OpenVG libraries.
It's nothing to do with the AVR.
RS and Farnell *are* manufacturing the boards:
Three years later, were just going into mass production through licensed manufacture deals with Elenment 14/Premier Farnell and RS Electronics although its just the beginning of the Raspberry Pi story.
Looking at the Raspberry Pi web site might be a good idea:
Strangely enough when Eben Upton first had the idea of a small cheap computer for kids back in 2006 he kicked off with a design based on the Atmega644. Did he move away from the atmega due to the onslaught of the Arduino, or because it's more politic to use a Broadcom chip as he works for them, or because of the historical connection to Acorn and the BBC computer, or because he wanted Linux on there?
Whilst I agree that comparing Props and ARMs is mostly pointless there is one major area here where they can be compared. Parallax and Raspberry Pi both have education as a primary motivation. So the question might be for example "If you have an 8 year old in the house and you want to get that child interested in computers/programming/electronics/engineering then which device might be the most captivating and easiest entry point, A Pi or a Prop?
Of course given the price of these things I would hope they are both available.
...or because it's more politic to use a Broadcom chip as he works for them...
I think I read that they used that since the team were all completely familiar with the broadcomm parts, and could easily make a complete system out of the parts they were familiar with.
there is one major area here where they can be compared. Parallax and Raspberry Pi both have education as a primary motivation. So the question might be for example "If you have an 8 year old in the house and you want to get that child interested in computers/programming/electronics/engineering then which device might be the most captivating and easiest entry point, A Pi or a Prop?
This is the key point. Right now, neither stands a chance, as there exists no software that could be interesting to the target market. [the current HARDWARE is interesting to hardware guys of itself].
The key is the next step: Folks have to come up with software that is interesting to kids so they play with it. Most discussions about education kids miss this important point. People learn by play, and younger the target, the less formalized play must be.
Video games brought PCs to the masses, driving advances in graphics and processing power. Maybe the same will apply here?
The PI comes with a simple game which young kids can modify. Educational software will become available quite quickly, I would think, just as it did with the BBC computer, many years ago.
Around here, 8 year olds seem to take well to Angry Birds on an iPad or just about any game on a Wii. But trying to get them to comprehend electricity, logic, binary number systems and so on seems a bit premature. They have yet to acquire true typing abilities and even essays in their native languages are rather simple.
Everyone is proposing the hardware platform. Does anyone have a real curriculum proposal that is appropriate for primary school? Parallax has provide excellent beginner material for both the Basic Stamp and the Propeller and spend thousands of hours visiting schools. They seem to have some knowledge of what are realistic methodologies and economic barriers.
I am just a bit doubtful that bare board components are going to be successful in introducing computers to such young people unless they have a very special teacher with vast amounts of patience and resources. Just the fact that wires come loose and components get lost is enough to exhaust the patience of most teacher in a set of five or six kids.
I feel that having them start with a Linux based Netbook and having it integrated with their regular school work is a better entry point. The original EEEpc had the Linux OS set up so that when a child did something unpredictable and disasterous, it could be completely wiped and reset by a few keystrokes at boot. Games, references, and basic functions were all available in a multitude of languages. And the keyboard was appropriate for small hands.
Well sure if you limit those being taught to 8 year old's you're gonna have a problem teaching them no matter what you have and forget about abstract ideas like current, amperage, binary, etc.
Move it up 4-5 years and its different. Then they can play with the PicAxe(dirt cheap and easy to use) to get the rudiments of hardware and software or a RadioShack Electronics Learning Lab for the electrical side of things. Arduino is another good option once they get some experience or the Raspberry with the appropriate software.
Of course you won't reach a lot of kids, that's just a given, especially the short attention span duffers destined to be fast food processors and layabouts or the dolts who use the IPAD. But the bright and curious, you will and that's what you want.
@rod1963?
You are very realistic about what children can learn and at what age. I did start with electronics at 12 (back in 1960). But these days there is quite a bit more of the abstract to learn. A child needs to acquire much more to deal with digitial electronics than communication via Morse Code or telephony.
I firmly believe that children need to learn early how to do and submit homework via computer. But what is inside and lower levels of DIY assembly and programing should come later and as you pointed out - not for all.
The Raspberry Pi website claims that 4 out of 5 inquiries are NOT for educational use, and yet they continue to put forth that people should donate a Raspberry Pi by paying double. I get all sorts of mixed messages in terms of what their real mission is from reading their news releases.
At best, I think the Raspberry Pi might be deployed to play video in department store at the point of sale. Or maybe make a good cash register that plays an advertisement while you wait in line. Several of the ubiquitous game machines have been able to adapt to Linux for several years as a first computer for children. Sony even encouraged it, while M$ has blocked such creativity.
If you really want to get a feel for the motivation behind the Pi have a listen to Eben's presentation on video here : http://www.raspberrypi.org/page/2
A child needs to acquire much more to deal with digitial electrons than communication via Morse Code or telephony.
I'm not sure I know what you mean there. Electrons are electrons despite the existence of facebook and angry birds. In my mind Morse code and IP packets are conceptually the same.
I firmly believe that children need to learn early how to do and submit homework via computer.
I firmly believe that that is probably the worst use of computers in education. What we are aiming at here is imparting into young minds the concepts of computer, computing, programming, control, algorithm etc etc. Using a computer as a substitute for paper and pen does none of that.
I just don't understand all those Loopy comments. Why doesn't he look at the web site before pontificating about the project?
It doesn't really matter who gets them, initially. Most people who are currently buying them will be parents, and will probably get their kids playing with them, as well as using them themselves, and will get their kids' schools using them.
Well, I'll capitulate and post no more. I find it a bit odd that you presume I haven't visited the Raspberry Pi website. I just take away a different impression from it and it seems to be rapid fire news release campaign and I care not to keep up with such day-to-day changes. In February, the link I provided claimed' (see above) it was being made in Asia; as of May 1st it seems that now Farnell and RS Solution are or will be the manufacturers.
Since they have been taking orders and promising delivery for quite some time, it is a rather late change in manufacturers. I'm not sure what that entirely infers. But it seems to imply that these businessmen have all along be 'pre-selling' the concept and hoping the money will be adequate. I feel the educational aspect is just verbiage.
On other fronts, all this talk of small Linux platforms has motivated me to drag out my Asus wl500gp wireless router that has "Oleg the Russian's" Linux firmware installed and to revive playing with that. This is just one of many examples of good small Linux boards at bargain prices. Of course, no video and no keyboard - but other features and aspects.
I guess part of my being jaded is that I did try to order a PandaBoard from Digikey and they cancelled my order due to my being in Taiwan and not an actual business. I'd really like a small board with wifi for an free roaming robot, possibly with USB video. The Raspberry Pi is probably too limited for that, though a BeageBoard might just do it.
Regarding educational utility, the Propeller Educational Kit is quite good - as is 'What's a Microcontroller". Just because something plays sophisticate games doesn't mean it has educational value for beginners. In fact, back in 1969, when I took Fortran, the university specified 'no games' as people used vast amounts of time just playing them rather than learning anything.
I am sure there are some bright people that will figure out a way to use the Raspberry Pi, but I will pass.
My mention of electrons was a typo, meant to be electronics. By all means, attack petty things rather than establish meaning. I am hard put to see how Morse Code can be equivalent to IP addresses, ASCII or EBDIC would be a more appropriate analogy. But you guys know all that, right ;-)
Why do I think the PandaBoard and the BeagleBoard originate from the same people? Take a look at the mailing address on the cover page of each's documentation. But it seems the Raspberry Pi as yet has NO techical spec document to compare.
I've roasted, toasted, and generally pummeled - all in good fun.
I will admit there has been a lot of chopping and changing in the Pi story as
they stumbled into problems and found solutions. But, hey, Eben and the team
are not business men but rather academics with an idea. Yes, they wanted to
manufacture in England, yes they switched to Asia due to costs and yes they
finally gave up tackling the manufacturing and supply chain issues altogether by
getting RS and Element14 on the job. Sounds like an excellent solution to use
experts to handle things that you have limited experience of. For sure it ends
up getting made in Asia anyway, RS and co. just farm the work out to suppliers
they already work with I bet.
"these businessmen" as you see are not business men at all but rather founders
of a charitable organization with a remit to make their educational ideas a
reality.
I am hard put to see how Morse Code can be equivalent to IP addresses,
ASCII or EBDIC would be a more appropriate analogy.
When I said Morse code and IP packets (not addresses) are conceptually the same
I was simple referring to the idea that they are a means of coding messages
in a digital form for sending down some communications channel. They have a lot
of concepts in common: digital, code, signalling, bandwidth, noise, error handling etc etc.
But it seems the Raspberry Pi as yet has NO techical spec document to compare.
Sadly like many things now a days, they did publish the schematics recently though.
Raspberry PI hasn't been "taking orders"!. Everyone who registers with RS or Farnell is put on a list. As boards are delivered to them, people who are in the registration queue are told that they can place an order. Customers are dealt with by registration date.
I actually ORDERED mine from Element 14, maybe 6 weeks ago. I was emailed a notice a few days ago to expect mine to be shipped end of May or early June.
So how do I order one? I went to Element14 website and it just asked for email address for further info. Do they let you know when you can actually place an order?
So how do I order one? I went to Element14 website and it just asked for email address for further info. Do they let you know when you can actually place an order?
Yes, you will get an email. You should get updates on production etc. by email, also.
I called their USA sales office and spoke to someone. I then placed my order over the phone. I don't think I was billed yet, but do have an order in.
You have probably just registered. You will get ordering details when they have one available for you - it will be a few weeks if you have just contacted them.
Very young people = more frags for me. Let 'em play, and learn crushing defeat!
Of course, in 2 weeks, they'll be handing me back my @$$
Then they'll grow up to haunt forums like this....
Nahh, just increase their latency until it's an even match. We used to run a server called "house of pain", where I did exactly that! When they complained (and they would), the message was simple: "It's the house of pain!" and nothing else was said.
"Order Update from RS
This week there’s more good news on availability of Raspberry Pi’s from RS and Allied Electronics. Our next shipment of 4,000 boards is on route to us, and we’ll be shipping them out direct to customers as soon as they arrive in our warehouse. This means we have been able to invite the next 4,000 people in our queue into the Raspberry Pi online store to place their orders.
We know that still leaves many of you in the queue wanting to know when you can place your order for a Raspberry Pi. Happily we’re making good progress with volume production quantities, and that will allow us to invite the next 75,000 people in the queue to place their order over the next few weeks so we can deliver your Pi’s during June and into July.
We will be keeping our promise to invite people to order in line with when you first registered with us, so no-one will lose their place in the queue as we move into volume production. We will also continue to invite people to order only when we know we will be receiving deliveries so that we give you a guaranteed delivery date and fulfil your order. There will be more news on this next week, so please bear with us while we finalise these arrangements.
For those not in the first 75,000 we will continue to keep you updated and will invite you to order as soon as we possibly can."
I ordered on "day one" from Newark/Element 14, for delivery in the U.S. and just got a confirmation type email stating delivery during the week of June 18... Keep your hopes up!
Give it six months and there will be a shedload of R-Pi boards on e-bay. Our school took a look and decided to wait. Like most schools we have plenty of PCs with programming software on. It is unclear as to what extra the R-Pi really offers. And as has been mentioned before here, the headline price is something of an illusion. A bit like advertising the price of a car with no wheels.
Comments
This is all a tempest in a tea pot. If they are fun, use both and LEARN by comparing. Speculative comparison of computer chips in terms of value is really rather useless.
RS and Farnell *are* manufacturing the boards: Looking at the Raspberry Pi web site might be a good idea:
http://www.raspberrypi.org/
Whilst I agree that comparing Props and ARMs is mostly pointless there is one major area here where they can be compared. Parallax and Raspberry Pi both have education as a primary motivation. So the question might be for example "If you have an 8 year old in the house and you want to get that child interested in computers/programming/electronics/engineering then which device might be the most captivating and easiest entry point, A Pi or a Prop?
Of course given the price of these things I would hope they are both available.
I think I read that they used that since the team were all completely familiar with the broadcomm parts, and could easily make a complete system out of the parts they were familiar with.
This is the key point. Right now, neither stands a chance, as there exists no software that could be interesting to the target market. [the current HARDWARE is interesting to hardware guys of itself].
The key is the next step: Folks have to come up with software that is interesting to kids so they play with it. Most discussions about education kids miss this important point. People learn by play, and younger the target, the less formalized play must be.
Video games brought PCs to the masses, driving advances in graphics and processing power. Maybe the same will apply here?
Everyone is proposing the hardware platform. Does anyone have a real curriculum proposal that is appropriate for primary school? Parallax has provide excellent beginner material for both the Basic Stamp and the Propeller and spend thousands of hours visiting schools. They seem to have some knowledge of what are realistic methodologies and economic barriers.
I am just a bit doubtful that bare board components are going to be successful in introducing computers to such young people unless they have a very special teacher with vast amounts of patience and resources. Just the fact that wires come loose and components get lost is enough to exhaust the patience of most teacher in a set of five or six kids.
I feel that having them start with a Linux based Netbook and having it integrated with their regular school work is a better entry point. The original EEEpc had the Linux OS set up so that when a child did something unpredictable and disasterous, it could be completely wiped and reset by a few keystrokes at boot. Games, references, and basic functions were all available in a multitude of languages. And the keyboard was appropriate for small hands.
Move it up 4-5 years and its different. Then they can play with the PicAxe(dirt cheap and easy to use) to get the rudiments of hardware and software or a RadioShack Electronics Learning Lab for the electrical side of things. Arduino is another good option once they get some experience or the Raspberry with the appropriate software.
Of course you won't reach a lot of kids, that's just a given, especially the short attention span duffers destined to be fast food processors and layabouts or the dolts who use the IPAD. But the bright and curious, you will and that's what you want.
You are very realistic about what children can learn and at what age. I did start with electronics at 12 (back in 1960). But these days there is quite a bit more of the abstract to learn. A child needs to acquire much more to deal with digitial electronics than communication via Morse Code or telephony.
I firmly believe that children need to learn early how to do and submit homework via computer. But what is inside and lower levels of DIY assembly and programing should come later and as you pointed out - not for all.
The Raspberry Pi website claims that 4 out of 5 inquiries are NOT for educational use, and yet they continue to put forth that people should donate a Raspberry Pi by paying double. I get all sorts of mixed messages in terms of what their real mission is from reading their news releases.
At best, I think the Raspberry Pi might be deployed to play video in department store at the point of sale. Or maybe make a good cash register that plays an advertisement while you wait in line. Several of the ubiquitous game machines have been able to adapt to Linux for several years as a first computer for children. Sony even encouraged it, while M$ has blocked such creativity.
If you really want to get a feel for the motivation behind the Pi have a listen to Eben's presentation on video here : http://www.raspberrypi.org/page/2
I'm not sure I know what you mean there. Electrons are electrons despite the existence of facebook and angry birds. In my mind Morse code and IP packets are conceptually the same.
I firmly believe that that is probably the worst use of computers in education. What we are aiming at here is imparting into young minds the concepts of computer, computing, programming, control, algorithm etc etc. Using a computer as a substitute for paper and pen does none of that.
It doesn't really matter who gets them, initially. Most people who are currently buying them will be parents, and will probably get their kids playing with them, as well as using them themselves, and will get their kids' schools using them.
Since they have been taking orders and promising delivery for quite some time, it is a rather late change in manufacturers. I'm not sure what that entirely infers. But it seems to imply that these businessmen have all along be 'pre-selling' the concept and hoping the money will be adequate. I feel the educational aspect is just verbiage.
On other fronts, all this talk of small Linux platforms has motivated me to drag out my Asus wl500gp wireless router that has "Oleg the Russian's" Linux firmware installed and to revive playing with that. This is just one of many examples of good small Linux boards at bargain prices. Of course, no video and no keyboard - but other features and aspects.
I guess part of my being jaded is that I did try to order a PandaBoard from Digikey and they cancelled my order due to my being in Taiwan and not an actual business. I'd really like a small board with wifi for an free roaming robot, possibly with USB video. The Raspberry Pi is probably too limited for that, though a BeageBoard might just do it.
Regarding educational utility, the Propeller Educational Kit is quite good - as is 'What's a Microcontroller". Just because something plays sophisticate games doesn't mean it has educational value for beginners. In fact, back in 1969, when I took Fortran, the university specified 'no games' as people used vast amounts of time just playing them rather than learning anything.
I am sure there are some bright people that will figure out a way to use the Raspberry Pi, but I will pass.
My mention of electrons was a typo, meant to be electronics. By all means, attack petty things rather than establish meaning. I am hard put to see how Morse Code can be equivalent to IP addresses, ASCII or EBDIC would be a more appropriate analogy. But you guys know all that, right ;-)
Why do I think the PandaBoard and the BeagleBoard originate from the same people? Take a look at the mailing address on the cover page of each's documentation. But it seems the Raspberry Pi as yet has NO techical spec document to compare.
I've roasted, toasted, and generally pummeled - all in good fun.
I will admit there has been a lot of chopping and changing in the Pi story as
they stumbled into problems and found solutions. But, hey, Eben and the team
are not business men but rather academics with an idea. Yes, they wanted to
manufacture in England, yes they switched to Asia due to costs and yes they
finally gave up tackling the manufacturing and supply chain issues altogether by
getting RS and Element14 on the job. Sounds like an excellent solution to use
experts to handle things that you have limited experience of. For sure it ends
up getting made in Asia anyway, RS and co. just farm the work out to suppliers
they already work with I bet.
"these businessmen" as you see are not business men at all but rather founders
of a charitable organization with a remit to make their educational ideas a
reality.
I like the Asus wl500gp router idea. Me, I have been using these
http://www.isee.biz/products/processor-boards/igepv2-board No so cheap but damn
nice boards with a temp spec down to -40C
When I said Morse code and IP packets (not addresses) are conceptually the same
I was simple referring to the idea that they are a means of coding messages
in a digital form for sending down some communications channel. They have a lot
of concepts in common: digital, code, signalling, bandwidth, noise, error handling etc etc.
Sadly like many things now a days, they did publish the schematics recently though.
Yes, you will get an email. You should get updates on production etc. by email, also.
You have probably just registered. You will get ordering details when they have one available for you - it will be a few weeks if you have just contacted them.
Count me in!! That is one of the greatest games of all time. Use one Pi to play on, and another one to serve up the game, sweet!
Re: Very young people.
It's not appropriate yet for the vast majority of them. Older kids can jump right in though. They do with Linux now.
This first round of adopters will very likely build out easier to learn on things others can use.
Very young people = more frags for me. Let 'em play, and learn crushing defeat!
Of course, in 2 weeks, they'll be handing me back my @$$
Then they'll grow up to haunt forums like this....
Things are beginning to develop..........
"Order Update from RS
This week there’s more good news on availability of Raspberry Pi’s from RS and Allied Electronics. Our next shipment of 4,000 boards is on route to us, and we’ll be shipping them out direct to customers as soon as they arrive in our warehouse. This means we have been able to invite the next 4,000 people in our queue into the Raspberry Pi online store to place their orders.
We know that still leaves many of you in the queue wanting to know when you can place your order for a Raspberry Pi. Happily we’re making good progress with volume production quantities, and that will allow us to invite the next 75,000 people in the queue to place their order over the next few weeks so we can deliver your Pi’s during June and into July.
We will be keeping our promise to invite people to order in line with when you first registered with us, so no-one will lose their place in the queue as we move into volume production. We will also continue to invite people to order only when we know we will be receiving deliveries so that we give you a guaranteed delivery date and fulfil your order. There will be more news on this next week, so please bear with us while we finalise these arrangements.
For those not in the first 75,000 we will continue to keep you updated and will invite you to order as soon as we possibly can."
http://www.raspberrypi.org/
Looks like you'l soon be able to make up your own minds as the flood gates open........................
(I've still not been notified... but I live in hope...)
Dave
-dan
dgately
Cheers
Richard
OBC
Pi and Propeller look to me like a useful marriage ...
T o n y
Mine is due here about 11:30am tomorrow. Probably will be 2-3 weeks before I will have time to even do much more then open the box. lol