Raspberry Pi: $25 computer the size of a thumb drive!

[lost_soul]

I found out about this http://www.raspberrypi.org/ tiny Linux computer. It looks like a very cool project for hobbiests. The device is capable of playing 1080P video in hardware, has HDMI, audio, OpenGL, etc.

 

They've already shown it playing Quake 3 on a large monitor in 1080P with 4x AA! On such a tiny device, that is unbelievable. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e_mDuJuvZjI

 

Sure it only gets about 20 FPS in such high resolution, but he said there is still optimization to be done and it would run MUCH faster on a 4 inch display. I was thinking a cool idea would be to take an old gaming handheld from the 80s or 90s, remove all the guts, and rebuild it with one of these motherboards and a modern LCD screen. It could also be used as an always-on computer that never sleeps and draws almost no power. This device runs the same software stack as my desktop machine (Debian), so I would already be familiar with it. Now if somebody wants to put together a case with an LCD, keyboard and an AA compartment, I'll pay three times as much for that.

 

I wonder how powering it works. They say it uses 5 volts, but if you power it from AA batteries, what happens when your AAs start going dead and the voltage drops off? Would the device shut down automatically, or does there have to be some circuitry to switch off when power drops too low? What about the fact that 4 AAs gives you (1.5 volts X4)? 4 rechargeable AAs will give about (1.2 volts x4)

Edited October 31, 2011 by lost_soul

[SiyahParsomen]

Sounds crazy. I wonder if it'll become widespread.

[Ladro]

It's the new Arduino!

 

I like A LOT this project.

 

I'll buy it, sure. So it's the power of smartphone that you can always take with you, without the blob (even if at this point, this gadget has some blob in the bios for the GPU to load) of the existent phones. Basically the uses for this picopc are

incredible. You can use as pico-server, pico-console to play games, pico Hometheatre, pico PC to attache to any monitor or viewer, pico whatever!

It's far better then the past pogoplug stuff, this is a complete pico PC, not only a micro server, and it works also with 4 batteries!

 

I hope this will gain a lot of success.

[jdude]

I've seen this before but I still think it's amazing. I would definitely get this is if was on the market. It could be revolutionary. People could bring their tiny affordable computers to school and the schools would only need to provide monitors, keyboards, mice and possibly networking. I suppose if smartphones can operate at the complexity they do (but at substantially higher costs) than a tiny computer like this shouldn't be a surprise, but it's still amazing and exciting.

[lost_soul]

I'm also glad that they went with SD as the storage medium... mostly because I already have a 16 GB SD card sitting here.

[jaxa]

I would definitely get this is if was on the market.

 

It will be on the market, probably late this November. Also, there is a Model B: increases RAM from 128 MiB to 256 MiB, adds a 100 Mb Ethernet port and an additional USB port for $35.

 

Inb4: So does it run TDM?

[demagogue]

Hell for <$40 I would think about getting it. Combine this with a pocketsized display and it's like a handheld device, but better because you have so much more control on configuring it and the applications you want to use.

[jaxa]

And if you absolutely can't figure out anything to do with it at launch, you can just hook it up to the TV with the HDMI, plug in a hard drive and a peripheral input device, put in an Ethernet cable and call it a Net-enabled Blu-ray rip player.