Beta Raspberry Pi PCs Draw Big Bids On eBay | Hacker News Reader

Beta Raspberry Pi PCs Draw Big Bids On eBay

techcrunch.com

27 pointswiradikusuma20 comments

The big bids are just cashing in on the hype that has been build up over this.

I'm also eager to get one, but I think it's at least an year until it will be in a usable state as a product.

This would be a perfect in-laws replacement computer. With some Linux and Chrome on it, it would make a decent browsing computer. This is basically the price-point I would expect for a Chromebook box. Just add the old peripherals and you're done.

Right now though it seems to target more of an Arduino enthusiast.

After it gets a proper box and some official OS support (say, some Ubuntu Raspberry Pi edition) it might have a chance to go mainstream.

Speaking of mainstream, Flash might be a bit of a problem.

Without support for Flash I'm not sure this could realistically be considered a "browsing computer", especially for less-than-technophiles!

Maybe not right now, but maybe soon HTML5 will be more widely adopted to make flash much less important for everyday browsing.

The iPad doesn't support Flash and plenty of less-than-technophiles use it as an everything computer.

What does the "don't have flash" stub look like? Does the ipad recognize embedded flash and show a friendly explanation or is that left to the site?

It's left to the site to detect the missing plugin.

If the site doesn't have a helpful explanation, there is a blue lego piece with a question mark on it. I cant remember if there is anything else.

I disable plugins in Chrome and only run Flash as-needed, mostly for video and occasionally for something like the Facebook photo uploader. Life without Flash is certainly possible today.

The reason prices are so high is because it is a charity event.

"All the money raised from this auction will be put straight back into the Raspberry Pi Foundation, and will be used to fund its charitable activities."

Argh I'm so looking forward to the production version getting released.

I wish they didn't post so many of these updates as it's making me sad that I probably won't be able to buy one for at least a year

Does anyone else think that this is because of entrepreneurs with Raspberry Pi-utilizing ideas that are eager to begin working with it?

More likely to be press trying to be the first to write a hands-on article about it.

I fall to that camp. Just curious, can anyone recommend any good starter, practical, book on single board computers and/or micro-controllers from the perspective of programmer?

EDIT: I even think of attending university majoring in electrical engineering, but I think it's overkill (I'm a BCompSc).

I don't know about books, but there are some similar single chip computers out there. You may want to take a look at the beagleboard and the beaglebone. I think the difference in both of those is a slightly higher cost, and slightly less good gpu (if they have a gpu at all, I am not sure).

I would just get an arduino and start messing around. While electricity is black magic to me, the programming end of microcontrollers is pretty easy to understand.

Rather than the beagleboard and other related systems, I'm now recommending the Trimslice (http://trimslice.com/web/) heavily. Picked one up a couple months ago and I absolutely love it. It's become my go-to ARM dev box.

Trimslice is significantly more expensive though.

If you're a complete noob like me and still have difficulty reading electronics diagram, or sketchy on how transistors work, then get a cheap hackable arduino until you're ready for the more adventurous stuff.

HD video might be out of reach, but you can output to TV (see gameduino). Processing is limited, but you can ship processing to a server via ethernet (see nanode). Storage is limited, but you can have SD card shields (or use a remote server). Or how about radio control (see nanode RF http://http://nanode.eu/)?

Plus an arduino might be a nice companion with a Pi/Beaglebord/Trimslice for remote sensors or remote control. or maybe Lilipad arduino for wearable computing apps.

Very slick indeed! Do you know anything like this but more "customizable" (e.g. build to order)? Essentially I want something like Pi but with more RAM and HDD.

Those look pretty cool. Pity about the price tag, though you do get a pretty powerful processor for it.

Why so cynical!??? Surly these are just philanthropists supporting the Raspberry Pi foundation and their charitable work? :)

No, it's just people who appreciate the work of the Pi people and can afford to support them.

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