He started a computing REVOLUTION–then the shortage hit [video]
youtube.com
youtube.com
I asked Kagi for highlights and Claude 2 for interesting points. I kept Claude's (it was a superset), and edited the result. It probably would have been better quality and taken me less time to edit down the Youtube transcript.
At least this is probably NOT copyright infringing [citation needed]
Raspberry Pi faced severe supply shortages due to pandemic disruptions and increased demand. Raspberry Pi's median OEM orders 3000 boards per year. If they did not prioritize them, they would have severely impacted many small businesses. Raspberry Pi has resisted raising prices significantly despite shortages. Upton says profiting would have been a "betrayal of trust." Upton understands the Pi community is upset about the shortages, with some vowing never to use Raspberry Pi again, but still feels he made the right call. Raspberry Pi expects supply to recover in 2022, with potential to produce 10 million units this year if needed. The Pi Zero 2 could return permanently soon since it doesn't have much industrial demand yet. Raspberry Pi co-founder Eben Upton named the company after fruit-inspired tech companies and the "rudest" fruit that makes a raspberry sound. Raspberry Pi has sold over 50 million units to date. Upton estimates over half go to industry now. Upton credits Raspberry Pi's industrial success to its popularity with hobbyists who bring it into their professional roles. Upton doesn't plan to add niche features to the main Pi line (like AI) since they only benefit a minority of users. Raspberry Pi now makes all its products at Sony factories. Sony recently acquired a minority stake in Raspberry Pi. Upton is interested in RISC-V for microcontrollers but feels Arm still dominates high-performance applications needed for Pi. Raspberry Pi sees opportunities for AI cameras utilizing Sony tech. The only core Pi feature added since the Pi 1 is WiFi/Bluetooth. Upton is very selective about hardware changes. Raspberry Pi joined the RISC-V Foundation but has no plans to switch from Arm currently. In early 2022, Raspberry Pi production fell to its lowest level since 2015, around 750-800k units a quarter. Even in bad quarters, they still produces 10K units/day, but demand swallows up supply. Upton met legends who created pivotal computers like BBC Micro and Acorn. He wants Pi to inspire someone the same way one day. Upton is reluctant to spend much time on Raspberry Pi 5 while shortage persists, but they are starting to think about it. Upton wants to continue improving Pi's PCIe capabilities
The following I typed by hand, like our ancestors did before the times of Covid:
2019 and 2020 they were making 7MM units, backlog was .5MM; 2021 backlog jumped to 4.5MM; and in 2022 production dropped to 5MM.
The Linux kernel has fastpath optimizations for every generation of Intel Multimedia Acceleration Instructions (MMX to SSE), and a lot less for ARM, even today.
Lots of those ARM optimizations were written by Nokia 15 years ago.
Eben is bothered they can't control the Google TPU using the Compute Module 4.
I hope this is my first and last video summarizing post...