R Pi 0

And the official announcement for the Raspberry Pi Zero

26 Nov 15 17:48, you wrote to David B:

AG> Got mine this morning from W.H.Smith (UK newsagent for non-UK

AG> There were none left by lunchtime at my local W.H.Smiths.

the article i read said there were only 10000 in the initial giveaway on the magazine cover...

)\/(ark

"So let me ask you a question about this brave new world of yours. When you've killed all the bad guys, and when it's all perfect, and just and fair, and when you have finally got it exactly the way you want it, what are you going to do with the people like you? The trouble makers. How are you going to protect your glorious revolution from the next one?"

- The twelfth Doctor

... Make my day - try to pick up someone else!

Got mine this morning from W.H.Smith (UK newsagent for non-UK readers).

There were none left by lunchtime at my local W.H.Smiths.

--
Andrew Gabriel 
[email address is not usable -- followup in the newsgroup]

I like the idea of a $5 embedded computer. I'm interested in that, but no hurry to get it. I don't even have a rPi 2 yet. It will be interesting to see where people use these. At $5 the useful applications will be very widespread.

Also interesting is that the clock speed is even higher than the rPi 2.

--

Rick

It might had been better with micro-HDMI instead of mini-HDMI.

It should have some way of generating analog stereo sound.

The micro-USB should support USB-device, but maybe it doesn't.

That's almost hard to believe. I think a sense of wonder is called for!

given the spec. What would we have thought of such a prospect in the

19xx's? A computer taped as a cover gift to the front of a magazine. The realms of science fiction, perhaps.

There have been other manufacturers recently snapping at the RPi's heels in terms of value but this, AFAICS, completely trounces them all.

Also amazing is that the units are made in the relatively high-wage UK rather than in the far east.

One thought: the tiny, slim form factor of the PiZero would make it much better than previous RPi models as a partner with a touchscreen display.

James

Indeed. You now have the capability of a very advanced HMI that's easily programmable and a fraction of the cost of commercial ones.

Hmmm. pygame anyone :)

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W J G

No DSI connector though.

I suspect there's a reason for that. Look at the underside of the Pi Zero and compare it with the underside of the Pi 2. The Pi Zero has 12 through-hole pins (the shields of micro USB and mini HDMI). The Pi 2 is covered in through-hole parts (ethernet, USB, GPIO, composite) and a pile of SMD parts underneath too (micro SD, passives, power control).

The manufacturing of the Pi Zero is much simpler. I wouldn't be surprised if it's entirely robotic. There are also test points on the bottom of the Pi Zero so manufacturing test is probably robotic too.

Theo

Fond memories of ICL?

1900 was when the hardware was designed, and 2900 is when the software will be ready.

Wrong: 1900 - released in 1964 (same year as the IBM S/360) and, unlike the IBM, all 1900 programs were effectively in-memory virtual machines (all registers were the first few words of a program, all program addresses zero bases in the image, unlike the S/360 where, prior to MVS, all programs had to be compiled for the hardware address range it ran in.

ICL's George 3 was probably the most advanced OS until Multics and OS/400 appeared.

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martin@   | Martin Gregorie 
gregorie. | Essex, UK 
org       |

I used all the OS/360 versions before MVS but I don't remember that. Compile/assemble was followed by linkedit step which created a relocatable module.

I've only briefly used S/360 and/or S/370 (OS/MVT with SPFFY) but I remember back in the late '60s hearing people complaining about the inflexibility of S/360s running under DOS or OS/MFT because of the requirement to link-edit programs for the memory partition they ran in.

IIRC DOS soon vanished, and was anyway only used on the smallest systems (360/30 and the like) and by 1970 I think all the bigger ones were on OS/ MVT, which worked as you describe.

I didn't like SPFFY at all, but still have a quite a soft spot for OS/400, which I used on AS/400 boxes. It was remarkably bug-free and CL, its command language, was very regular and easy to use. The only drawback on these systems was the ugly block-mode text editor and IBM's odd insistence on using RPG3 - switch to PL/1 or COBOL and life was a lot better.

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martin@   | Martin Gregorie 
gregorie. | Essex, UK 
org       |

I think you must be referring to DOS which I know nothing about. The compile-linkedit system was in PCP from the beginning and unchanged through MFT I, MFT II and MVT.

Actually, the Pi 2B for ~$35 is a better choice, due to built in capability, unless you have a very specific application.

Why exactly is the Pi 2B better? Do you understand what I mean by "embedded computer"?

--

Rick

[]

Quad core and more memory. May be faster if that matters.

--
Cheers, 
David 
Web: http://www.satsignal.eu

Only useful if you can multi-thread your application.

--

Rick

Nope. Type "top" on the command line and see how many tasks are running.