The OLPC PC at $400 came into being when the lowest price for a laptop was $1200 if i recall correctly. The OLPC is the reason we have cheap laptops and netbooks, and started the progression toward tablets. The OLPC did have the buy one give one, to get started, as this was before kickstarter and crowd funding. The OLPC was the first stand alone with flash instaead of a hard disk. In a few years, we may see the OLPC Qi display on more devices, but sofar it is the most awesome display, and I've only seen it on OLPC.
The RPi is an awesome linux node for the price. ITs a bit slow for a workstation, but you can't beat it for the price. Its prefect for a linux workstation for under $40. It rocks for $5.
The RPi is not so good for embedded/realtime.
The arduino is not so good ate realtime, or multitasking, although you can do these if you app is not very demanding, but anything more than trivial start to be a challenge.
The prop is wicked awesome at bit banging. The prop is excellent for realtime and embedded similar to the way that the arduino and RPi are not. Loaded with forth, one could concievably avoid the workstation altogether, however in practice, most of us are used to a giant workstation and don't easily switch to programming with a smart phone or tablet as terminal.
Some of use are looking at prop + the RPi Broadcomm chip on a single board. It would likely be more expensive than prop quickstart & RPi purchased separately (due to lack of economy of scale), but it could be worthwhile for certain projects.
I'd just have to say that Parallaxians are mostly about optimal hacking, with some actually commited to computer education projects either professionally, by being a parent, or by volunteer work.
So many board choices for the optimal hackers! Also a lot of dynamic changes if what's avalable. And one must seek out who has got their engineering and design right for their particulary desires. I locked on the Cubieboard_1 as it had more DRAM plus SATA at the time when Raspberry Pi was struggling in delays during pre-release. Just about no other board included the SATA and that really sold me on going over to it.
I guess I just have never really wanted to participate in the educational/charitable mission of the Raspberry Pi. Participating in a community of mostly new novice Linux users seemed a distraction to me personally -- still does.
I simply have my own educational mission in teaching ESL is is demanding, chaotic, and tiring. So I don't need two. And my views ar charity are that it works best in smallness -- face-to-face in a community and allowing the reciepients to not be exposed to public display. Industry may economically benefit from economies of scale, but I thing that human society may benefit from smallness -- just the opposite.
But again that is all just me.
Each is free to explore, educate, and be charitable in their own way. I will try to tolerate everyone else's point of view.
Heater... try not to take me so seriously. That might fry your brain. I am not a threat to Britain, Raspberry Pi, or all you hold dear.... such as your nostagia for the resources and platforms of your early days of computers.
The Pi Zero at $5 USD is simply non-existent in Taiwan at this point in time. So I go with alternatives that are best for me.
And since the preamble for the Pi Zero in the link at the beginning of this thread asserts the Raspberry Pi Foundation is on a mission to drive down the cost of computer hardware, I truly hope that will take on driving down the cost of HDMI video, or at least the cost of HDMI to VGA adapters. Personally, I have felt new learners and their parents would be happier with working with a retired VGA, rather than the latest in TV. Schools may also have an abundant supply of VGAs. I simply don't own any HDMI displays, and see no reason to buy one.
But once again, I am being the contraian. None of the small Linux boards have directly resolved the hidden cost of having only an HDMI interface ready to go.
Don't bother thinking about Prop + the RPi Broadcom chip on a board.
It can't be done because Broadcom will not sell you the SoC. Not unless you want to buy some 10's of thousands of devices.
Someone with the idea of wanting to make some product based on a Raspi SoC pops up on the Rapi forums every now and then. And as far as I know that is the situation still.
Some guys did actually design such a board some years back and folded when whatever supply of devices they had dried up.
Besides that, if you could get the chips, I believe getting such a board made in small quantities would be prohibitively expensive. As it stands you can get a Propeller on a Pi format board for £15. https://shop.pimoroni.com/products/propeller-hat which includes a little bread board.
My feeling is that it would be better to make such a Propeller board for the Pi without the breadboard, the EEPROM (Load to Prop RAM on boot up) and perhaps even the XTAL(Get the clock from the Pi GPIO). This would be a lot cheaper and more attractive.
This whole good at / not good at real-time thing rather depends on what your real-time requirements are. real-time does not necessarily mean fast bit banging. It only means meeting upper bounds on some timing requirement. real-time covers a vast application space some of which the Pi can do where the Prop cannot, thanks to huge amounts of RAM, processing power and perhaps network capability.
Well, consider a VoCore (with OpenWrt Linux) + Propeller as economically feasible. I really like the board as an alternative as it does have wifi on-board. I still suspect it would only be a DIY board, never feasible as a production collaboration. It seems that the VoCore requires 1/3 the power of a Raspberry Pi, but I may be looking at the wrong numbers 200ma with wifi vs. 600ma.
For a teenie-tiny Linux - OpenWrt on just about everything, including the Raspbery Pi is quite pleasant to consider. There are even Python and Forth packages available in opkg.
I did find a very nice 32bit RTC clock solution that could work with the Propeller much better than all the 8bit RTC clock chips that everyone attempts to use. It might be the best for the Raspberry Pi as well.
Just wanted to post to insure Heater doesn't lose his sanity.
Far as I know, Ebon is back at Broadcom, and Liv is still working there as her sole source of income.
http://www.tuxradar.com/content/interview-eben-upton
"EU: I think it’s really important that if you wanted to be sustainable, that’s the thing, I think this idea that charity doesn’t scale - we wanted to be a charity, we are a not-for-profit. But the money that gets made gets ploughed back in. I don’t take a salary - I’m lucky enough not to have to take a salary. "
So, if anyone wants to continue to slate the Upton's as ripping off the RPi foundation or somehow misappropriating a Charitable Foundations coffers, please put up your actual facts.
We get enough of this unsourced, character assasination type stuff in the news, from politicians, internet already.
Just to show that is was possible to buy a pi zero And I got it for £4 (and then some extra for the propeller hat, pi zero extension kit and shipping). Had most of the stuff from the extension kit laying around, but since being delegated to a small corner of the living room it's been difficult to find stuff :depressed:
It looked like I was one of the last to get one from pi hut before they sold out. This will be put (together with the propeller hat) on one of my larger robots and it looks like I will have some time to play with that around new year (if I can get off my Smile that is)
It is actually wonderful to see that it will indeed integrate so easily with a Propeller_1.
What Heater and I have to say to eachother is mostly about might right to have my own opinions expressed without being harrassed. I'd love to be able to go back into the Parallax Forums and review how it all got started. I can only present my side as I best recall.
The is no harassment going on here. You of course have your right to express your opinions. We like to see the world from different points of view. It can be interesting to find out why people feel the way they do about things.
I do have to object to your repeated insinuations of dishonesty in the ranks of the Raspberry Pi Foundation and of their feathering their own nests from the proceeds. Such statements are not opinion, they are slander. You don't have to go very far back into your posting history if you have forgotten already.
I also feel a desperate, perhaps irrational, urge to correct erroneous statements. The "crowd-funding" of the Pi as a recent example.
The is no harassment going on here. You of course have your right to express your opinions. We like to see the world from different points of view. It can be interesting to find out why people feel the way they do about things.
I do have to object to your repeated insinuations of dishonesty in the ranks of the Raspberry Pi Foundation and of their feathering their own nests from the proceeds. Such statements are not opinion, they are slander. You don't have to go very far back into your posting history if you have forgotten already.
I also feel a desperate, perhaps irrational, urge to correct erroneous statements. The "crowd-funding" of the Pi as a recent example.
It was crowd-funding in the general sense. Though they may have by-passed using an established crowd-funding organization which charges heffty fees, they pre-subscribed to huge amounts of sales, then held an auction where the original run were sold at prices far beyond sensible values to seed the organization.
You keep escallating this and seem to enjoy doing so. This is the second time you have libeled my good name with the claim of slander. I would be extremely careful with that type of threat.. You happen to reside in Finland where libel is criminal and you can be expected to actual do six months or two years in jail for your assertions that I have actually slandered Raspberry Pi.
I have turned to Parallax and ask for a policy decision that may banish both of us from the Forums.
As far as slander and libel, a court of law would have to decide such issues at great expense to both of us.
I repeat.... I have slandered know one. And you have libeled me in asserting such.[/b] There is no going back from what you have said. And many of your other allegations are contrived.
In my opinion, the fact that you appeared bored and consider argument on the Parallax Forums as a way to relieve such is wrong and selfish. It is time for you become much more mature in your participation herein.
If anyone would with to chat about Pi and it's usefulness connected to other Parallax products, feel free to open a new thread.
Any further deviation from topic such as witnessed above can not be tolerated. Please value the good nature of this forum, and if you feel that comments toward you are inappropriate, please contact moderators for support. But PLEASE do not throw stones back and forth here. That is not constructive, it spoints the threads for everyone else, and above all- this is not the place for such nonsense.
Comments
The RPi is an awesome linux node for the price. ITs a bit slow for a workstation, but you can't beat it for the price. Its prefect for a linux workstation for under $40. It rocks for $5.
The RPi is not so good for embedded/realtime.
The arduino is not so good ate realtime, or multitasking, although you can do these if you app is not very demanding, but anything more than trivial start to be a challenge.
The prop is wicked awesome at bit banging. The prop is excellent for realtime and embedded similar to the way that the arduino and RPi are not. Loaded with forth, one could concievably avoid the workstation altogether, however in practice, most of us are used to a giant workstation and don't easily switch to programming with a smart phone or tablet as terminal.
Some of use are looking at prop + the RPi Broadcomm chip on a single board. It would likely be more expensive than prop quickstart & RPi purchased separately (due to lack of economy of scale), but it could be worthwhile for certain projects.
Right tool for the right job, as always.
I'd just have to say that Parallaxians are mostly about optimal hacking, with some actually commited to computer education projects either professionally, by being a parent, or by volunteer work.
So many board choices for the optimal hackers! Also a lot of dynamic changes if what's avalable. And one must seek out who has got their engineering and design right for their particulary desires. I locked on the Cubieboard_1 as it had more DRAM plus SATA at the time when Raspberry Pi was struggling in delays during pre-release. Just about no other board included the SATA and that really sold me on going over to it.
I guess I just have never really wanted to participate in the educational/charitable mission of the Raspberry Pi. Participating in a community of mostly new novice Linux users seemed a distraction to me personally -- still does.
I simply have my own educational mission in teaching ESL is is demanding, chaotic, and tiring. So I don't need two. And my views ar charity are that it works best in smallness -- face-to-face in a community and allowing the reciepients to not be exposed to public display. Industry may economically benefit from economies of scale, but I thing that human society may benefit from smallness -- just the opposite.
But again that is all just me.
Each is free to explore, educate, and be charitable in their own way. I will try to tolerate everyone else's point of view.
Heater... try not to take me so seriously. That might fry your brain. I am not a threat to Britain, Raspberry Pi, or all you hold dear.... such as your nostagia for the resources and platforms of your early days of computers.
The Pi Zero at $5 USD is simply non-existent in Taiwan at this point in time. So I go with alternatives that are best for me.
And since the preamble for the Pi Zero in the link at the beginning of this thread asserts the Raspberry Pi Foundation is on a mission to drive down the cost of computer hardware, I truly hope that will take on driving down the cost of HDMI video, or at least the cost of HDMI to VGA adapters. Personally, I have felt new learners and their parents would be happier with working with a retired VGA, rather than the latest in TV. Schools may also have an abundant supply of VGAs. I simply don't own any HDMI displays, and see no reason to buy one.
But once again, I am being the contraian. None of the small Linux boards have directly resolved the hidden cost of having only an HDMI interface ready to go.
It can't be done because Broadcom will not sell you the SoC. Not unless you want to buy some 10's of thousands of devices.
Someone with the idea of wanting to make some product based on a Raspi SoC pops up on the Rapi forums every now and then. And as far as I know that is the situation still.
Some guys did actually design such a board some years back and folded when whatever supply of devices they had dried up.
Besides that, if you could get the chips, I believe getting such a board made in small quantities would be prohibitively expensive. As it stands you can get a Propeller on a Pi format board for £15. https://shop.pimoroni.com/products/propeller-hat which includes a little bread board.
My feeling is that it would be better to make such a Propeller board for the Pi without the breadboard, the EEPROM (Load to Prop RAM on boot up) and perhaps even the XTAL(Get the clock from the Pi GPIO). This would be a lot cheaper and more attractive.
This whole good at / not good at real-time thing rather depends on what your real-time requirements are. real-time does not necessarily mean fast bit banging. It only means meeting upper bounds on some timing requirement. real-time covers a vast application space some of which the Pi can do where the Prop cannot, thanks to huge amounts of RAM, processing power and perhaps network capability.
For a teenie-tiny Linux - OpenWrt on just about everything, including the Raspbery Pi is quite pleasant to consider. There are even Python and Forth packages available in opkg.
I guess that the Propeller Hat is already 'the' solution.
http://shop.pimoroni.com/products/propeller
I did find a very nice 32bit RTC clock solution that could work with the Propeller much better than all the 8bit RTC clock chips that everyone attempts to use. It might be the best for the Raspberry Pi as well.
https://www.maximintegrated.com/en/products/digital/real-time-clocks/DS1672.html
Just wanted to post to insure Heater doesn't lose his sanity.
Far as I know, Ebon is back at Broadcom, and Liv is still working there as her sole source of income.
http://www.tuxradar.com/content/interview-eben-upton
"EU: I think it’s really important that if you wanted to be sustainable, that’s the thing, I think this idea that charity doesn’t scale - we wanted to be a charity, we are a not-for-profit. But the money that gets made gets ploughed back in. I don’t take a salary - I’m lucky enough not to have to take a salary. "
So, if anyone wants to continue to slate the Upton's as ripping off the RPi foundation or somehow misappropriating a Charitable Foundations coffers, please put up your actual facts.
We get enough of this unsourced, character assasination type stuff in the news, from politicians, internet already.
It looked like I was one of the last to get one from pi hut before they sold out. This will be put (together with the propeller hat) on one of my larger robots and it looks like I will have some time to play with that around new year (if I can get off my Smile that is)
What Heater and I have to say to eachother is mostly about might right to have my own opinions expressed without being harrassed. I'd love to be able to go back into the Parallax Forums and review how it all got started. I can only present my side as I best recall.
The is no harassment going on here. You of course have your right to express your opinions. We like to see the world from different points of view. It can be interesting to find out why people feel the way they do about things.
I do have to object to your repeated insinuations of dishonesty in the ranks of the Raspberry Pi Foundation and of their feathering their own nests from the proceeds. Such statements are not opinion, they are slander. You don't have to go very far back into your posting history if you have forgotten already.
I also feel a desperate, perhaps irrational, urge to correct erroneous statements. The "crowd-funding" of the Pi as a recent example.
Is that asking too much? Is that "harassment" ?
By way of amusement, for those who have not seen it before: https://xkcd.com/386/
What a brilliant picture. What you have there is "Linux coprocessor" for you Propeller board!
It was crowd-funding in the general sense. Though they may have by-passed using an established crowd-funding organization which charges heffty fees, they pre-subscribed to huge amounts of sales, then held an auction where the original run were sold at prices far beyond sensible values to seed the organization.
You keep escallating this and seem to enjoy doing so.
This is the second time you have libeled my good name with the claim of slander. I would be extremely careful with that type of threat.. You happen to reside in Finland where libel is criminal and you can be expected to actual do six months or two years in jail for your assertions that I have actually slandered Raspberry Pi.
I have turned to Parallax and ask for a policy decision that may banish both of us from the Forums.
As far as slander and libel, a court of law would have to decide such issues at great expense to both of us.
I repeat.... I have slandered know one. And you have libeled me in asserting such.[/b] There is no going back from what you have said. And many of your other allegations are contrived.
In my opinion, the fact that you appeared bored and consider argument on the Parallax Forums as a way to relieve such is wrong and selfish. It is time for you become much more mature in your participation herein.
If anyone would with to chat about Pi and it's usefulness connected to other Parallax products, feel free to open a new thread.
Any further deviation from topic such as witnessed above can not be tolerated. Please value the good nature of this forum, and if you feel that comments toward you are inappropriate, please contact moderators for support. But PLEASE do not throw stones back and forth here. That is not constructive, it spoints the threads for everyone else, and above all- this is not the place for such nonsense.
Thread closed.