Is the Raspberry Pi real at that price? - Page 3

monkeys

level

Software,


http://elinux.org/RPi_Hardware
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raspberry_Pi
http://www.broadcom.com/products/BCM2835
http://dmkenr5gtnd8f.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/BCM2835-ARM-Peripherals.pdf
http://www.smsc.com/index.php?tid30%0&pid13%5
http://www.hynix.com/products/mobile/view.jsp?info.ramKind28%&info.serialNo=H9TKNNN2GDMPLR&posMap=MobileDDR2

You should find something there, all it takes is to look.



Not necessarily you, but there are several posters in this thread who
have a vested interest is selling similar products, and they seem to be
the ones questioning the project.

I would think those folks would *benefit* from the stated goal of
wanting to promote interest in "tinkering"!

On a sunny day (Tue, 06 Mar 2012 17:34:37 +1100) it happened keithr



I dunno.
I am retired, and am very critical of this so called 'educational' thing.
There is no educational aspect in it any where.

Some closed source toy with closed binary drivers, hardly any I/O,
missing keyboard, missing power supply, and missing a good book that explains
computahs, electronics basics, programming basics, no display, not even
a decent housing, how long will it live with 'kids' who put it on the table
next to the metal ballpen or whatever, static discharges from rubber shoes,
It is all hype.
Press will publish any release you send them, including flying cars
and what not.
So what age group is this targeted at?
Do they even have a soldering iron, some scope? You NEED that.
And the youngsters that DO have access to that stuff will likely get a board
with chips that have full documentation so they can get the maximum out of their
toy.
This strawberry pie has had far too much media exposure,

The Microchip PICs were and are extremely popular with the younger generation
because they have decent datasheets, are easily programmable, and
are available almost everywhere locally.
As Don pointed out there are small boards with PICs too that run Linux for those
that want that (for many projects you do not need a top heavy multitasker).
PICs are cheap too.
Look here for some projects I did with PICs:
 http://panteltje.com/panteltje/pic/index.html
Some are not so simple, some if not all require a PC, if only for programming.

Now let's look at the strawberry or whatever cake.
That Broadcom chip is actually a media player chip.
If you just install Linux and perhaps run the X server, then forget about the
media player
aspect, because  ***X runs at a fixed H and V resolution***.
Let's get a bit technical, after all this is a design group, many Linux
enthusiast are here
too.
I recorded (with Linux and MY software) last night some DVB-S2 HD movie from
Germany ZDF
via satellite:
 -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 16006144000 Mar  6 00:58 spy_game_2001_german.ts

Now let's look at the format this is transmitted in, and what is in there:
panteltje10: /video/satellite # mediainfo spy_game_2001_german.ts
 General
ID                               : 3F3
Complete name                    : spy_game_2001_german.ts
Format                           : MPEG-TS
File size                        : 14.9 GiB
Duration                         : 2h 41mn
Overall bit rate                 : 13.2 Mbps

Video
ID                               : 6110 (0x17DE)
Menu ID                          : 11110 (0x2B66)
Format                           : AVC
Format/Info                      : Advanced Video Codec
Format profile                   : Main@L4.0
Format settings, CABAC           : Yes
Format settings, ReFrames        : 5 frames
Duration                         : 2h 41mn
Bit rate                         : 11.2 Mbps
Width                            : 1 280 pixels
Height                           : 720 pixels
Display aspect ratio             : 16/9
Frame rate                       : 50.000 fps
Resolution                       : 24 bits
Colorimetry                      : 4:2:0
Scan type                        : Progressive
Bits/(Pixel*Frame)               : 0.244
Stream size                      : 12.6 GiB (85%)

Audio #1
ID                               : 6120 (0x17E8)
Menu ID                          : 11110 (0x2B66)
Format                           : MPEG Audio
Format version                   : Version 1
Format profile                   : Layer 2
Duration                         : 2h 41mn
Bit rate mode                    : Constant
Bit rate                         : 256 Kbps
Channel(s)                       : 2 channels
Sampling rate                    : 48.0 KHz
Resolution                       : 16 bits
Video delay                      : -1s 263ms
Stream size                      : 295 MiB (2%)
Language                         : German

Audio #2
ID                               : 6121 (0x17E9)
Menu ID                          : 11110 (0x2B66)
Format                           : MPEG Audio
Format version                   : Version 1
Format profile                   : Layer 2
uration                         : 2h 41mn
Bit rate mode                    : Constant
Bit rate                         : 192 Kbps
Channel(s)                       : 2 channels
Sampling rate                    : 48.0 KHz
Resolution                       : 16 bits
Video delay                      : -1s 216ms
Stream size                      : 221 MiB (1%)
Language                         : qaa

Text #1
ID                               : 6130 (0x17F2)
Menu ID                          : 11110 (0x2B66)
Format                           : Teletext
Language                         : German

Text #2
ID                               : 6131 (0x17F3)
Menu ID                          : 11110 (0x2B66)
Format                           : DVB Subtitles
Language                         : German

Menu
ID                               : 6100 (0x17D4)
Menu ID                          : 11110 (0x2B66)
List                             : 6110 (0x17DE) (AVC) / 6120 (0x17E8) (MPEG
Audio, deu) / 6121 (0x17E9) (MPEG Audio, mis) / 6122 (0x17EA) (AC-3, deu) / 6123
(0x17EB) (MPEG Audio, qaa) / 6130 (0x17F2) (Teletext, deu) / 6131 (0x17F3) (DVB
Subtitles, deu) / 6170 (0x181A) ()
Language                         :  / deu / mis / deu / qaa / deu / deu /

------------------------------------
That is the transport stream for this transmission.
You will notice (perhaps) that the format is 1280 x 720 @ 50 fps progressive.
If you want to play this in X with for example mplayer, EVEN if it has all the
codecs,
then theoretically the X server would have to refresh frames as 50 Hz IN SYNC
with the video.
That is for a MEDIAPLAYER, and that is one thing they claim it can do.
Unfortunately X does NOT sync to the video framerate, so it will NORMALLY tare
frames
and drop frames at random, even if you add a modeline for 50 Hz.
The fact with MEDIAPLAYER chips is that the CHIP does the grabbing of the next
frame from memory, decodes it,
displays it, and then grabs the next frame.
I am sure this chip can do that, but can the standard Linux that comes with this
thing
support that feature?
To give some idea what the actual problem is here, read this thread please:
 http://linuxtv.org/pipermail/vdr/2008-July/017347.html

So, as far as I can see, and that is not far in this case as most of that stuff
is closed
source, as a MEDIAPLAYER this thing is not very usable.
And you cannot FIX it because it is closed source.
It seems to come with Fedora Linux, now that is RatHead (had to drop that one on
you) Linux,
and it will be incompatible with the rest of the universe by design anyways,
I'd love to be proven wrong, but the above issue make it a nono for me,
it already is a nono for the simple fact that PICs are more suited for small
projects,
can be programmed in asm, close to the hardware, and then are faster, boot
faster,
more reliable than Linux for simple control operations like, as some person
mentioned,
controlling things around the house or some robotics or what not.

The ONLY reason I would want a strawberry cake would be a REAL multimedia player,
or if it actually had WiFi.., as that would add to the spectrum of what you can
build in a few days, but I already have several Linux boxes, some far more
advanced
than that hype thingy, so,
And then to teach kids about electronics, maybe Winfield's The Art of
Electronics is a bit
too high a level for them to start, give them some transistors and an Ohm meter,
some batteries, LEDs, the works.
To teach them about PROGRAMMING give them a laptop or PC.
maybe the OLPC.








 

On Tue, 06 Mar 2012 11:16:40 GMT, Jan Panteltje



Electronics is a bit


 But do NOT teach them the stupid term "computah".

 > The Microchip PICs were and are extremely popular with the younger
 > generation [..]

I was waiting for someone to bring this up...

They Has Hell Weren't.

As someone who was of the 'younger generation' when the PICs and Stamps
came out, I can tell you they were never seriously interesting to us.
No, the excited approvals of a hand-held grandkid doesn't count-- we're
talking about the self-taught 10-14 year-olds. Sure the chips were
cheap(er)-- the programmers weren't, and fuck the guys running garage
businesses that sold them on the other side of the country. 100
fauxBASIC programming steps? Erase-Program-Run cycles? Tiiiiiinnnnnyyyyy
memories? Harvard architecture? All of those were show-stoppers and
classified them as junk. A 10 year old hand-me-down VIC20 was a better
deal!

On a sunny day (Wed, 07 Mar 2012 00:14:29 +1100) it happened Chris Baird



That is bull.
Parports were common in those days,
 http://www.covingtoninnovations.com/noppp /
I added some 10 cent parts to make i tsuitable to program PIC18
 http://127.0.0.1/panteltje/pic/jppp18 /

There are very few PICless people posting here.
the small PICs should be programmed in asm (16F84 was very popular).
Kids did it all the time.

There are some who cannot program and nveer will learn,
those run things like eclipse and java today and are responsible for the slow
bloat of the world.
They look down on teh littel cute micros.
Learn to work with the tools you have, the 8051 was Harvard too,
found in almost everything,
There was also the 8052 AH BASIC, a 8051 with BASIC in ROM..
Was not a very good basic, but I still have a box with that that I build in the
eighties.

You sound like a C++ or java cripple.

On a sunny day (Tue, 06 Mar 2012 16:31:55 GMT) it happened Jan Panteltje



Or if you are further away:
 http://panteltje.com/panteltje/pic/jppp18 /
hehe

 > That is bull. Parports were common in those days,
 > http://www.covingtoninnovations.com/noppp/ I added some 10 cent parts
 > to make i tsuitable to program PIC18
 > http://127.0.0.1/panteltje/pic/jppp18 /

So... how many 10-14 year-olds are allowed to wave a soldering iron near
their mother's PC serious-work computer? Amiga computers were also more
popular back in my day-- where was the PIC development software for
them? I personally had a Commodore64-- its GPIO was 8 bits of TTL.
Oh wait, how were you supposed to program the actual code for PICs
again? Where's a 14 year-old going to get the money to buy an MSDOS machine?

As the 'hand-held grandkid' comment alluded too, PICs & etc. /weren't/
hacker-kid-friendly unless they lucked-out and found adult assistance.

 > There are very few PICless people posting here. the small PICs should
 > be programmed in asm (16F84 was very popular). Kids did it all the
 > time.

By themselves? I think not. If you didn't have a nerd Uncle, you were
out of luck.

The Raspberry Pi is like 25 years too late for me... If I were 13 today,
I'd be salivating at the thought of getting one I can dedicate to
learning Python on, costing less than a Nintendo 3DS video game that my
fat (10yo..) brother cries for every month. I can learn with it! :D
(Just don't let Mum find out it can view pictures and play movies. ;)

How many 10-14 year olds have no computer of their own?

On Wed, 07 Mar 2012 11:03:23 GMT, snipped-for-privacy@puntnl.niks (Nico Coesel)



Notebook + cell phone + game console.

On Wed, 07 Mar 2012 07:53:02 -0500, Spehro Pefhany



  Get on the bus ten years ago, and nobody had a cell...  maybe one or
two, and a few had a non-connected MP3 player.

  Get on a bus these days, and nearly every passenger has a cell, many
have their faces stuffed into them, and next to none have additional MP3
players because their cell does that too.  This includes any kid over
about 11 yo.

On Wed, 07 Mar 2012 07:53:02 -0500, Spehro Pefhany



Saw a couple of 3&5YOs in a store the other day.  Each had buds in the ears
and a tablet in the paw.

Of course a brighter 13 year old then yourself would just us his/her PC to learn
Python on...

Boo

AFAIK this document is useless because its far from complete.



Maybe its the people that create hardware & software for SoC based
systems for a living and know about the pitfalls? In my experience
proper documentation is key to be able to do something usefull with a
SoC. So far the RP can run Linux. But what if you want to control
something with it and need to write your own drivers to do that?

monkeys

level

the

Software,

just


Useless advertising blurbs



Nothing of interest there, either.



More useless blurbage



"file damaged and could not be repaired"



Don't know what use that is...



Why do I need to know about a memory module?



Nope.  Nothing interesting *AT*ALL*.


certainly


I think you're putting words in people's mouths.  I don't see anything here
worth the hype it's already gotten.  I predict a failure.  Over-hype often
does that.

>http://dmkenr5gtnd8f.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/BCM2835-ARM-Peripherals.pdf



   It opened OK for me.  205 pages of text & graphics.



>http://www.hynix.com/products/mobile/view.jsp?info.ramKind28%&info.serialNo=H9TKNNN2GDMPLR&posMap=MobileDDR2

Michael A. Terrell Inscribed thus:



Works fine for me as well !

Are you still fixing audio interface transformers and debugging TI's DSP
serial port DMA and what-not?  Or have you moved on to a different
employer by now?

"Fixing"?  I never repaired any. ;-)



Yep.  Back to real work.  Still TI processors (though not the dinky ones), and
ADI, and NXP, and Atmel. ;-)

Ha, good point!



I've moved as well; more wideband analog (with digital thrown in as
needed), less narrowband RF-focused stuff.

I'm sure my former employer still thinks their product is going to
completely capture much of the market of your former employer, though.
:-) I was never entirely convinced of that, but -- assuming they
actually get around to releasing it (like many small companies, I don't
think we ever actually had a product release even close to the original
schedule) -- it could be reasonably successful in venues where the ISM
bands are quite crowded.  (Your guys getting a 900MHz version out was a
good move, IMO.)

---Joel