Raspberry Pi for free - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: DavidDLC
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: March 08, 2013, 04:12:21 am
content: Check this out:http://www.elektor.com/news/1000-raspberry-pi-boards-for-free.2425383.lynkx

author: Bored@Work
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 08, 2013, 05:42:58 am
content: The want you to do some twitter spam. You have to tweet something like #BluePiss with some fantasy, or let's call it lie, what you gonna do with it should you win.Funny how keen RS is about doing this game, but still in principle refuses to sell to the general public in my country.

author: amyk
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 08, 2013, 06:35:55 am
content: I hope I'm not the only one who thinks the idea a "limited edition" of some mass-produced consumer product is worth anything more than the regular one is insane.

author: MikeK
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 08, 2013, 01:37:40 pm
content: Maybe not insane, but definitely retarded.

author: amspire
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 09, 2013, 06:04:38 am
content: I think the thing about a Raspberry Pi is it is not that cheap, and if free ones can be given to the right designers, they build something that uses a dedicated Raspberrry Pi and end up buying more.I am happy playing around with a TPLINK WR703N or an upgraded WR702N. (Don't buy the WR702N unless you know what you are doing - it is useless without a hardware upgrade). Install the OpenWRT O/S. Half the price, includes 802.11 b/g/n WiFi and powerful enough for building into home-made hardware.

author: MikeK
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 10, 2013, 01:26:17 am
content: I think it's pretty cheap? I don't see any other solutions with Ethernet, USB, and video for less than twice the price. The Beagle stuff is much more expensive.(I just thought the limited edition release was silly.)

author: tylerl
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: March 10, 2013, 01:32:44 am
content: Quote from: amspire on March 09, 2013, 06:04:38 amSure, the Pi costs $12 more than the WR703N, but with 21 GPIO pins, 2x the processing power, 16x the RAM, HDMI/composite out and Audio, and an SD card slot, it's not really in the same class as the TPLINK device. The WR703N has a few uses for sure, but for most of the things you'd use a Pi for, the WR703N would not suffice.A more appropriate comparison would be the Beagle Bone, which has similar specs, but costs $89 instead of $35. So in that sense, yes the Raspberry Pi isreallycheap.

author: amspire
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 10, 2013, 02:28:57 am
content: Quote from: tylerl on March 10, 2013, 01:32:44 amI can't argue with any of that. Not everyone can get a Pi for $35. I think in Australia we can get it shipped from England for $38 from RS and from Element14, it is $45 (cased) plus postage. Element 14 have a $36 bare board in their catalog but zero stock.The thing is most of the time I would like an embedded processor, I do not need video or audio. I probably would like WiFi that the Pi does not have. The WR703 has WiFi, is lower power and smaller. In many cases, it does enough for the task.I find it annoying that the Raspberry Pi is such a useless design for embedding in hardware with ports poking out all over the place. The USB port and Ethernet port are not even in line! It would have been much better if they made the board slightly larger and had the Ethernet, USB, HDMI,Audio, and Video ports along one edge.A typical embedded usage might be a device that might use a microcontroller for real time functionality, and then a WR703 or Pi to do data collection, user interface.Sure if I want to make an entertainment center, the Raspberry Pi looks beautiful - except for the lousy connector layout. I am also sure that in many cases a Pi can replace the microcontroller for real time management of the hardware, but I prefer to design the hardware along with a microcontroller that costs a few dollars to provide the main functionality. I like keeping the microcontroller functionality as simple and trouble free as possible, and I do not like the microcontroller trying to also manage Ethernet, web servers and the rest of the overhead full linux kernel.I am generalizing and the big mass of other software that comes along, so I know you can come up with an example that is perfect for the Raspberry Pi.

author: jh15
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: March 10, 2013, 05:00:33 am
content: Isn't the pi a non profit thing? And any extra money is good to float the effort.