10 million Raspberry Pi's sold...

Thinking is unnecessary these days. The media exists to tell you the answer without recourse to thinking.

I would suggest that 10 million sales indicates a lot of people *are* thinking.

I wonder what proportion are being used for anything interesting/useful (FVVO)

One data point... I have one of the original B units which I have used as a server for development work on embedded targets. After that I bought a pi2 which I have yet to use and when they finally became available locally I bought two of the pi zeros which I have yet to use.

So that is 1 in 4.

I have 8. 5 of 1B. one B+ and 2 RPi2B. Two weather stations, 3 webcams, one on fr24 feed, one logging fr24 feed and one monitoring the other 7. My eldest son has 4, also all in use.

What I find interesting is that they seem to have *no* presence on the second hand market - and there's plenty of cheap tat that does.

They're either doing something or sitting waiting for someone to get round to it.

I was definitely tempted to get one, but have so far refrained on the basis that lurking here has taught me lots about what they *could* do but hasn't yet resulted in a solution to a problem I actually need solving

IIRC a fairly high proportion of the Spectras and other '70s low cost microcomputers got used once or twice before being parked at the back of the wardrobe and never used again. I wonder if the RPi's record is any better.

Some wealthy acquaintances of mine had a Sinclair ZX81 on display, perhaps as a symbol of modernity, but never used it. I must confess that when I realized theirs had the newer ROM, I waited until they weren't looking, and swapped the chip for the one in mine that had the earlier buggy code.

I have two 1Bs One hangs from the back of my TV and runs XBMC/Kodi/ OSMC or whatever they are calling it this week. I have little intrest in it apart from watching the content.

The other pi has 160GB of spinning rust attached, and its primary function is to manage my phone system with RASPBX/Asterisk. it also serves as a useful NAS. It has the potential to do some home automation if I ever get round to connecting something to the eight relays I have provided.

What problems do you need solved?

Well one calls for a fast processor and a good bidirectional sound card to do real time audio signal processing.

Currently using an old PC chassis.

Another needs around 30 A to D inputs to create a USB style output. That looks like a PIC chip ultimately.

And some custom circuit board design

So why can't an rPi do that? Can you not find a suitable USB sound card? Or is the processor not fast enough?

Not sure if this is two things or one thing. Why can't the rPi do 30 ADC inputs? That's a custom design no matter what I'm pretty sure. You don't state a sample rate or resolution, but I can't imagine a Pi that can't do this. Sounds like a perfect job for the rPi Zero.

actually a PC chassis turned out to be cheaper. There's a lot of old PCS out there being given away.

And they ciome with a suitable sound cxhip already

Because it doesn't have 30 pins.

That's a custom design no matter what I'm pretty sure. You

No point. pI doesn't have any A to D, so has to be a custom solution. 40 pin PIC chips exist that do all that with onboard USB UART.

My problem is that I know a friendly PC supplier, and he has dozens of traded in X64 PCS from the XP era that he scraps or sells for peanuts.

That

You could do it with these, but I expect your solution is cheaper!

but I expect your solution is cheaper!

thats only 8 A->D : I need 24! And another box with around 10.

One of the PICS is perfect. PIC16F1718 28 a to ds and a uart

You can stack four of them, though.

Ok, that's a low bar, free hardware. Basically every solution that requires you to spend money loses on that one.

Lol! Obviously you don't know how to interface ADCs to a processor. You don't need 30 pins to communicate with 30 ADC.

??? How do you measure an analog voltage with a UART?

Yeah, I had an old XP machine that I used for that sort of stuff for a while. But it takes up so much space and uses so much power that it took a trip to the basement and has not been back upstairs since. The rPi may cost more than free stuff, but it is much more useful to me as I don't have room for boat anchors.