kickstarter - PINE - $15 64bit quad core clone
prof_braino
Posts: 4,313
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/pine64/pine-a64-first-15-64-bit-single-board-super-comput?ref=category_popular
What do you think? Is there any niche for this?
I got the $19 unit with 2G ram and gigbit ethernet
What do you think? Is there any niche for this?
I got the $19 unit with 2G ram and gigbit ethernet
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Comments
They mention a LCD display, but it's missing from the images - MPU Modules are quite plentiful these days, with ever-decreasing prices, but something with a well-integrated and bezel-provided LCD, is of much more interest.
I think the LCD is just another attachment, like the camera, that one would find on a generic tablet (for which this chip was intended).
I'm sure it will turn out to be just another flash in the pan like the raspberry pi continues to be, for past three years.
The electrical connection to the LCD is relatively easy, but proper mounting & a bezel is something that needs tooling.
1) No mention of Debian. Only Ubuntu. That's only a small detail by why do that?
2) When people talk about "Learn to program in languages like ...JSON, HTML", all I hear is incompetence.
3) Only 1GB RAM or 2GB for an extra $10. Why oh why make a 64 bit machine with out a big pile of RAM?
4) No SATA.
Anyway, they don't need our help, they made their funding goal five times over.
@braino, I can't tell if your making a joke or not. A "flash" is the opposite of something that "continues". Which is it?
The Pi has sold 8 million or so units and demand has yet to drop off. It's been around for over four years and shows no sign of going anywhere soon. That's an eternity in todays electronics world. Many revisions and major improvements have been made to the Pi in that time. Support has been staggeringly good, software, hardware, and documentation. A whole industry has grown up around providing add on boards, cases, all sorts of stuff. Even Microsoft provides an OS an support for the Pi (God rest our souls).
Certainly the Pi performance may be lagging behind recent offerings. Certainly the the Pi can almost be beaten on price, not quite yet. But it is what it is, it has been a massive success, it lead the way, created that market for cheap hobbyist ARM computers, and now many others are following.
Hardly what anyone would call a "flash in the pan".
It is a mad dog world...
Neither the Pi Zero @ $5.00 USD nor the PINE A64 @ $19.00 USD any longer exist. Both are in 'out of stock' limbo.
We have simply fallen for the 'to be continued' hook.
At first glance, even more expensive and still available PINE A64 bundles look pretty good, but no SATA interface. Something that I really like. I have doubts that full potential will be achieved with mass storage on SDcards or USBsticks. So there is a performance bottleneck.
Ironically, the Raspberry Pi set out to be the new educational leader in a race to the smallest and cheapest. That posed a threat to the established leaders. Now, we have others taking up the challenge to dethrown the Raspberry Pi (which also lacks SATA).
Every dog will have its day. Arf, arf -- woof, woof. Love the mutt you already possess, and you will learn much.
It is all a King of the Hill scenario.... lots of wow and new contenders. But I strongly urge people to consider learning more with what they have rather than frequently rotating platforms.
The real question is do I need another for for learning/development or am I just collecting for the sake of bragging rights?
Dazzle, dazzle, dazzle. The "New World Order" is chaos and constant change. A difficult environment for teaching beginners.
The $59.00 USD bundle is about the only one I'd personally consider. Free shipping makes in similar to a $30.00 Orange Pi plus shipping to Taiwan.
No idea about the Pine. Except that one cannot say something no longer exists when it has never existed in the first place
There was no "race" by virtue of their being nothing similar at the time. No threat to "established leaders", the Pi was the leader that, as you point out, many others are following.
You are right, we don't need any more boards like that. Still, it's a growing market, there is room for more. Competition is good.
Why do you keep doing that Loopy?
When something ends up being high demand, that offering price is going to go up, and that's what we are seeing. There is no evidence at all, whatever of any intent to bait and switch. The Foundation established a price of $5. They met that price, and they offered and sold at that price too.
You, on the other hand, like many others, may or may not see that price. This depends on what it costs to get it to where you are in the world, who is reselling the devices, what value they may have added and a whole bunch of other things having absolutely nothing to do with the intent to sell the Zero at $5.
Surely you don't expect all the people distributing, selling, adding value to, etc... to work for free do you?
Of course not.
Once this initial demand has run it's course, getting these things for $5 won't be a big deal, just like getting a Pi for it's price isn't a big deal.
But that's a low price!
If you want ANYTHING else?
That has to be paid for, and your higher price will reflect that.
**There is an awful lot of very sour grapes appearing regularly. I find it fascinating! "flash in the pan", "bait and switch", "too successful to be for education", and on it goes.
Face it, the Pi Foundation hit a home run. That's all this is.
Lots of people targeted that space and did not hit a home run. Is it that hard to give credit where credit is actually due?
Apparently it is. Again, fascinating. Really.
http://www.inc.com/encyclopedia/loss-leader-pricing.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bait-and-switch
I am merely point out that modern marketing with the internet -- which is really more an advertising media than an education media at this point, is constantly taking down one established product while launching a new product... dethrowning the previously percieved value. And this is making education less effective.
It may take years to teach a student everything about the basics of computers and electronics on one platform. But when the student or their parents desire to constantly switch to a new one, a lot of time and effort is wasted.
I don't care which product or textbook, one uses for teaching -- as long as it is not fundamenally flawed or loaded with hidden costs. And the planned course is allowed to stay with the pre-determined resources.
But I am wary of 'the new and latest' distracting from the construction of any good syllabus and curriculum. Arduino is the worst offender at this point. There appear to be over twenty Arduino platforms that are supposed to teach equally well, but each is somewhat different, and many have non-genuine clones
How is a teacher supposed to teach a class when everyone has a different textbook and/or a different hardware platform?
These cheapest and latest deals are not providing the classrooms with all the same platform. So a teacher that tells the parents that they are using Raspberry Pi in class will end up with 3 variations. A teacher that says Arduinos is even worse off.
And suddenly parents who are requested to go back and buy the right board are upset with the schools and teachers for a problem that the producers of boards and textbooks create.
Publishers of textbooks are guilty of creating a new edition every year, just to demolish reuse of a hand-me-down textbooks. And they too claim a noble educational mission.
Ethics and commitment to the community are thrown out the window when sales and marketing come into play. Even Oxford and Cambridge press do these things.
But Parallax still offers the BasicStamp2 manual and the Propeller Manual v1.2 in a stable format with stable hardware. That is something that allows a teacher really develop a good course and parents to have access to buying school supplies that fit a tight budget.
Sure industry has to make a profit to pay for innovation. But schools and teachers used to have a good social contract with parents, textbook publishers, and teaching material suppliers -- that made education affordable and efficent.
That social contract has been crumbling away as consumerism and sales and a need for perpetual growth of national Gross Domestic Product have become all important.
I am just being an advocate for reviving a good societal socal contract with education for all.
"The Internet" is not an atomic entity. We don't assign intent to "The Internet", because of this. We do assign intent to people using the internet.
What you are seeing is we are now interconnected and we now have access to competing intent. This is a generational thing, IMHO.
You asked how to teach a class when everybody has a different text book or hardware platform.
Here is the hard truth: Perhaps you just don't.
I mean that. We are in a time and place where a formal class quite simply doesn't work optimally for everyone, and the result of that is more differentiation on how people learn, what they learn on, things they learn, etc...
You mention things like, "the community", to which I reply, "which one?"
There are many communities, they all talk, they share, except when they don't, and they all have their own goals, values, tools, etc...
Now, I do agree with longer term stable having value. But, it's not the only means to a good end. For those who appreciate that value, it's all good. The only real worry is having enough appreciation for that value out there. So long as that's true, everyone involved is happy.
But, it's a big world out there. lots of ways to do stuff.
Prior to the Internet, we had more centralized and mutually recognized authorities. This was a direct artifact of how communication happened. Many, who got online and I'll include myself in that group as I was on fairly early on before the Web, very quickly realized the high value was communication and the ability to form community, work together, etc...
This remains true, and it remains true despite there being a lot of marketing and advertising on the Internet happening today.
See the various schools opening up course materials, sharing, collaborating? See the various people out there experimenting with different ways to reach people? That's all good, and yes, it competes directly with the "pre Internet" vision of established, best practice education.
I'm extremely pleased to see that happen.
Why?
Because anyone, anywhere, can learn something they want to learn and do so on their terms for their reasons.
Beautiful thing.
And, by the way, something the Pi is enabling big. That's part of the "home run" bit. They put out a useful device, cheap, that people can do all sorts of stuff with. That, combined with the nature of the Internet and it's impact on how we can learn, information access, etc... is huge!!
This won't be something the education establishment has any real control of, nor should they. What they can do is co-opt it, and participate where it makes sense and for those people to whom it makes sense for, great! For many others, who cares really?
Welcome to a new age Loopy. It's no where near over, and I suspect we are just now seeing how wild of a ride this is all going to be.
You may well be right about marketing, advertising, the internet, the Arduino etc, etc.
I was only correcting the incorrect statement that the Pi Zero does not exist.
But whilst we are here, I would say, never mind educational institutions, or parents etc, etc. Enabling youngsters to buy full up computers, that run a real OS, that can be programmed in most languages you think of and provides tons of other tools with their pocket money is worth more to their education in computing than anything that has come along since the Commodore 64.
The Pi Foundation is a non-profit charity. What more of a social contract do you want? Certainly a vast improvement on the profiteering that has been going on in institutionalized education for decades.
People learning less -- in my opinion -- is not a beautiful thing. Becoming Pavlovian consumers is even more dismal. The rich are getting richer, bottom-line poverty seems to be reduced (as it does create more markets and more consumerism); but those in the middle appear to be moving downward.
Hard truths are not fixed truths, but challenges that really require evalution. Acceptance is not always the wisest choice.
Okay, the "Pi Zero" exists, and the $5 USD "Pi Zero" has been sold in limited quantities... so far.
A non-proift charity is not necessarily a 'good social contract'. Marriage is a social contract, and I think we can all admit that has varied success.
Non-profit just means the assest cannot be transfered to a for-profit if one quits business -- but salaries and expenses can benefit the management in lavish life-styles regardless of the actual success or failure of charitable works to which it may not be held accountable -- and real achievements might in any event be done by unpaid volunteers that could do just as well working for a school district or educational department of a university.
Volunteers are charitable nomads, that may achieve much more for the world than the organizations they serve. Non-proft organizations tend to have a long history of locking on the cash flow and existing long after their mission is achieved because the organization doesn't desire to disban and seek new mode of charity.
+++++++++++++
"Nevermind educational institutions or parents"
Computers is NOT the only purpose of education. This is a myopic view from computer geekdom -- a 'one-trick pony' approach to acquiring knowledge. There is a tendency to 'take a gamble' on what one's child's future might be by supporting the child's obsessions.
Educational in general operates in a four phase framework with some very useful societal goals.
A. Elementy school -- verify basic abilities to learn, provide an environment to develop social awareness beyond the family.
B. Middle school -- deal with puberty and the fact that the brain changes the way learning is acquired and hormonal changes lead to a shift in social structure, more awareness of social status. Also try to extend what was learned in Elementry school. Attempt to guide students toward a postive self-image and an integrated position in society
C. High school -- introduce subject materials that will prepare for an optimal path in life -- either higher education or immediate entry into a working enviroment. Continue to support participation in society as the norm.
D. Higher education -- For the willing, provide a course of study that they desire to pursue as a live-long learning process with potential for career enhancement.
It certainly isn't all about computers and technology. Many need only learn word processing, email, a database, and a spreadsheet. If more is needed later, they can augment what they know.
If fear much of the education paradigm I see in microcontrollers is driven by compulsive consumerism with a belief that greed is great, and socially isolated individual's prospering thorough extrees of agression and selfish rewards as their main goals. That won't get one into medical school or prepare one for the clergy.
A New Age or A New Dark Age?
Those people may and often do take many different paths to their ends, arguably as worthy as any ends are.
Let them. We are better for it far more than we aren't.
The other hard truth here is we don't teach experience and passion, but we can enable people to persue both.
But we can teach that espoused motives are not always true motives... for some they are just a tool to make people buy. The world is full of predators, and some even don't know they are being predatory -- they just justify their predatory behaviors as hard truths.
I will get back to everyone in 8 hours. Otherwise, I this will just turn into rebuttal after rebuttal.
Calm down and think about where you really desire the world to go and what you hope your children will have.
Then and only then, try to evaluate the role of the education and the need for a computer techonology focus in their future.
all-
The OP question was: What do you think? Is there any niche for this?
Should the question have been: What do you think about the kickstarter - PINE - $15 64bit quad core clone?
:-)
Thanks for posting this, I will probably go for the full monty.
My favourite OS happens to be Android so for less than the cost of dinner/drinks with my lil lady, this looks very cool.
Looks a OK to me. Capabilities and price are fine. I love the 64 bit idea. The whole campaign look legitimate.
It's not what I'm looking for though. It's not a bold enough vision. Not enough RAM for a 64 bit machine, 8GB would be better. No SATA for that fast SSD I want attached. I'd jump at the chance to get a properly spec'ed 64 bit ARM board for two, four or more times the price.
If having to choose between a Pi and a Pine I'd go with the Pi. Proven design, well documented, lots of support, huge community of potential problem solvers on tap. Unless I had an urgent need for a performance boost or some other feature the Pine has.
Like those Americans that like to buy "Made In the USA", being British I will stick with the home grown Pi made in the rainy hills of Wales
Can you please stop making insinuations of wrong doing or bad intent by those of The Raspberry Pi Foundation. All this "benefit the management in lavish life styles" nonsense and much else you have said in the past. This is all unfounded and you do it every time the Pi is mentioned.
There's a good chap.
I have not said anything about the use of computers in education. Mostly I think it'a complete waste of time and money. I don't want to debate that here.
What I did say is "worth more to their education in computing". I think computing/programming should be in the curriculum. Just teaching kids how to make simple games can be a lot of fun and it makes connections to many other topics in their minds. They might get curious and enthusiastic about maths, for the graphics they want, or physics for that motion they want, or story telling for atmosphere, or art, or music, and so on. Playing with robotics can stimulate an interest in electronics or engineering. Learning how to program is good training in logical thinking. It's not that they should all grow up to be programmers, but the organizational skills, the resource management etc are all useful in many other careers and activities in life.
Programming is a fundamental part of the modern world, that should be taught as much as newtons laws, electricity and magnetism, chemistry etc,
And most seriously I think we owe our kids an awareness of the technology that dominates our lives and allows others to dominate us more and more. That is to say algorithms. Don't let them grow up ignorant of the dangers and powerless.
Never mind all that word processing, email, spreadsheet stuff. Those are all trivial to pick up, if and when needed, given a solid foundation in the technology. Besides all of those skills are pretty much as obsolete as the FAX machine already.
I agree with Heater that 64 bits might as well have more RAM, but 64-bit/2GB beats the Pi's 32-bit/1GB every day of the week.
I see this as not a great maker/IoT device (either the Pi Zero or CHIP, when they are available, are better for this and use significantly less power), but more as a cheap, replaceable main computer. I'm using a Pi2 for that now out of obstinate choice, but the lack of RAM really does constrain things.
I also like the "mostly made in the UK" of the Pi, and now would be a great time to upgrade the Pi2 RAM, include a RTC, and separate the ethernet from the USB. Without that, I may just jump ship.
Interesting. As far as I can see none of these machines make cheap replacement desktop computers. They are not up to it. Indeed I don't think that is their aim.
Hence the lack of RAM and SATA.
When you "jump ship" where will you land?
So far, I've found 32GB micro SD is plenty for a tablet. I think I'm going to use these as a headless linux box for compiling prop projects, and then as the linux node when the project is running. It will be handy to plug in a monitor for diagnostics when needed.
I found the RPi B to be not quite useable as a PC, and the RPi B to be ALMOST useable as a PC, but one would need patience and low expectations. I'm curious how much close this PINE close to being a usable PC. Of course, when one is used to an overclocked i7, a tablet just won't cut it. Still, each of these may have uses.
in any case, I think a box of RPi's and PINE's is WAY more fun that my dad's Apple II and my brother's Commodore 64 were back in the day
What distros have you tried, and have you considered using a smaller distro?
Even the RPi 2 needs to run more of a stripped down Linux. Played with TinyCore 75MB a bit, and it was blindingly snappy as its all in RAM, however didn't load it too much.
In other words, your opinion is the only one that will be tolerated and we owe our kids the tyranny of heavy handed promotions and heavy handed public realtions ruling their classrooms.
Be a good chap and tolerate that others have opinions that might oppose yours as still have a vision for the common welfare of children and their education.
A 'for-profit' venture such as Parallax is not excluded from doing charitable work and even giving away its assets for charity, it merely doesn't escape taxation of income.
Parallax offers free texts and free software to all that use it. And Parallax is free to pay expenses and provide salary to employees that are providing services in a charitable or educational manner. It merely doesn't go into the public and seek revenue as charitable contributions.
Originally, I dismissed the Raspberry Pi merely on be naive in terms of engineering and design. That evolved into me being shamed and smeared for not caring about children, so I returned in kind. I have been working as an educator for 20 years and there is far more to education and good educational outcomes that you imagine.
This has all been invasive of Parallax Forums as Raspberry Pi seems to insist it has a right to tout itself here as a primer partner of Parallax products. All very presumtive and very aggressive. Even Arduino has not gone that far.
Net result is my dislike and contempt for it merely grows. I have no reason to applogize or support such a product. My doubts about non-profit charitable organizations remain.
And FYI, I have participate in several non-profit charitable organizations - including and not limited to one that was a member of the United Way that is primary a PR machine for corporate America. I have also had to work as a Chairman of the Board of Directors of one and contend with the internal challenges of people within the organization seeking to divert cash flow into their own hands rather than keep it being used for mission of the organization. It isn't easy, especially when members of the Board might actually conspire against the mission of the organization.
I simply would rather support a simple and honest for-profit educational support enterprise than a starry-eye non-proft charity in the murky world of greediness.
Take it or leave it as you please.
Time to reset opinions and move on to subjects new.