New Pi...

So, the possibility of a B++ can't be discounted completely then? :-)

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J B Good

Yes, it pretty much can. Eben has stated that this is the "final evolved version" of the Raspberry Pi Model B.

I'm sure they (the Foundation) aren't sitting back and twiddling their thumbs though, give it a few years and you may well see a Model C or Master :)

2017 is suggested.

Mine has been happily encased in one of these -

since I first got one in March. Hard to beat for C$3.50 each.

Isn't airflow a problem...?

James

...

LOL! I don't know if everyone will get the Apple reference. But Samsung probably understand your logic.

James

It may not be important so don't feel you have to explain but I have to say I don't understand those two paragraphs. The term "sort start" is unknown. I haven't heard of the mechanism by which the Pi's USB ports could switch to higher current. (E.g. in Linux is it automatic based on detection of need or by a user ticking a box.) And it sounds as though power input to a USB port can provide some higher current for other USB-powered devices ... but I am not sure if that's by intention with some clever power management circuitry (to automatically detect whether to send or receive power on each port) or just a potentially dangerous consequence of the way they are wired.

James

It's a typo for "soft start". It limits the current surge from the host.

This is the B+ only.

And if someone writes the application that lets you tick a box, then you can do it via a GUI.

Until then, have a read of:

The hub doesn't (as far as I know) do the power negitiation thing - if it did, and it talked back to Linux, then Linux could instruct the system to give it more power and log the fact, but this is a $35 computer we have...

All 4 power pins on the 4 ports are connected together, so if one USB device puts 20 volts back up its power lines, it's going to fry all of them but hopefully not fry the Pi as the Pi has some protection...

You could help stop this by providing individual power and control to each USB socket, but it's a $35 computer ...

Gordon

Pi's run just fine in sealed boxes. They're designed to be OK up to 85C and beyond that they'll underclock themselves to reduce power usage.

My recent experiments with a Pi in the new Pimoroni Coupé case with an IO board directly on-top (virtually no airflow through it) had it get to 53C at the end of a day in a warm office room with no AC.

Gordon

I _might_ be ready to 'Take The Plunge' by then. :-)

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J B Good

But that is the whole point; it is NOT a plunge. It is a small wave, not much money and it Just Works. (but get a good SD-card and power supply). I plugged it in to my old Apple screen, and I got a nice install menu, the whole install was done in less than an hour; around 10 minutes of which was active screen time.

It still has that apple screen, a year and a half later. And yesterday I ordered 3 more, for small stuff around the house.

-- mrr

I think perhaps it's more a question of the time that he'll give to playing with it, rather than the cash he'll give to obtain it.

Maybe someone could package the RAM chips so you could stack two or make a package with two chips.

Have you seen how the RAM chip sits on-top of the SoC? You'd need to unsolder the existing RAM chip, then have a BGA carrier to sit on-top of the SoC with 2 BGA pads to sit each of the 2 RAM chips - plus maybe some glue logic to sort addressing, etc. I know people did unsolder the RAM on the Rev 1 board to upgrade to 512MB, but I feel that's maybe just going a bit far...

But then, I remember a 3rd party add-on for Sun 3's where you removed the

68000 processor and MMU, plugged in the expansion board into the CPU & MMU sockets, plugged the processor & MMU into the board and an extra 8MB (count them ;-) of RAM

Stuff like that wasn't uncommon back then (20+ years back), so who knows...

Gordon

In those days I upgraded different machines by soldering DIL DRAM chips on top of existing rows, with one pin bent sideways for the extra RAS or CAS line. That was comparatively very easy.

The Raspberry Pi Foundation could sell the Raspberry Pi with 1GB RAM using this RAM-package with two chips and glue logic.

I don't know how the RAM-package sits on-top of the SoC. Is there any picture of this? I thought they just snapped on, but now it seems one has to solder them.

There is a good diagram of the how these sort of chips are chips fit together on the Wikipedia page for PoP devices.

I can't see the Foundation even considering designing a memory carrier board and logic to control it - it would be far too expensive and price point is one of their fixed objectives with the Pi.

See:

If you look at a Pi side-on, you can see the 2 separate chips.

Gordon

There wouldn't necessarily be any logic required. The two die each have a separate chip enable which can be brought out to separate pins as long as the CPU supports this. Likely the chip maker has demand from others and this may already be in the works.

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Rick