Has anyone heard of Raspberry Pi, new lowcost mini PC (Due out Feb 2012)?

I recently heard about this product from a colleague here at element14 and curious to hear if any of you have either? If you haven't perhaps your kids have?

A description from the company describes it as:

"The Raspberry Pi is a credit-card sized computer that plugs into your TV and a keyboard. It’s a capable little PC which can be used for many of the things that your desktop PC does, like spreadsheets, word-processing and games. It also plays high-definition video. We want to see it being used by kids all over the world to learn programming."

I'd be curious to hear your thoughts on the product as it sounds like a game changer in the computer world.

Here's their Twitter account and website if you'd like to check out more about it:

Twitter: https://twitter.com/#!/search/raspberry%20pi

Website: http://www.raspberrypi.org/faqs

Thanks for your thoughts and comments as always!

Nicole

Former Member over 14 years ago in reply to annasinclair610

Here's another update...

liliputing.com - Fedora Remix for RaspBerry Pi makes the $35 PC useful (video)
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dweb98 over 14 years ago in reply to Former Member

*Thanks for the link!:) I've been looking forward to the RaspBerry Pi
coming out, since I first heard of it, a few years ago. And Fedora has
been my Favorite Linux Distro for Six years now. So, this is great news
for me! I like Debian too and Debian "squeeze" for the RaspBerry Pi is
available now on their Site, http://www.raspberrypi.org/downloads.
<http://www.raspberrypi.org/downloads> I, of course, don't have a
Raspberry my self. So, I'm still waiting and hoping to get one or two or
three or four.;) Check out the Videos and the info on my Blog here...
http://donsdeals.blogspot.com/2012/02/fedora-remix-for-raspberry-pi-makes-35.html

Don *
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fustini over 14 years ago in reply to fustini

I just rewatched this video yesterday and realized that the way the program is interacting with the hardware is via the /sys filesystem. I've only done embedded programming on microcontrollers (AVR & PIC), so it is really interesting to me that the GPIO is accessible via the filesystem abstraction. This means that any programming or scripting language that runs on Linux can easily control hardware. That's pretty cool! I'm sure there will be more elegant abstractions, but I like know I can toggle an LED or turn on a motor from the command line
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ntewinkel over 14 years ago in reply to fustini

I hadn't thought of it that way, Drew - That *is* really cool! That also means we can write little GUI programs to control the GPIO lines - ie, press buttons or move sliders to do actions... could make for some pretty cool home automation possibilities
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Former Member over 14 years ago

Clearly Farnell haven't heard about it. Since the release about 2 hours ago, the farnell UK website has been almost completely DDOSed under the load.

Methinks the Farnell suits didn't really think that such a cheap bit of kit would be so exciting to the rest of the world.

Although RS haven't done any better and failed to actually put the product on sale at launch time....
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bodgy over 14 years ago in reply to Former Member

Well the Australian site was hard to get onto along with RS (including the UK site for them as well). RS haven't listed it on their Australian site as yet.

Managed to safely order one though and awaiting the 38 day lead time, or so the order page says.
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Former Member over 14 years ago in reply to bodgy

A piece on the BBC web site today http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-17190918

RS Components web site has a temporary holding page due to traffic overload!

Neither RS or Premier Farnell actually have it on sale at the moment!
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Cylon over 14 years ago

Well being an pre-existing forum member @ the Raspberry PI foundation site i hope things go well from now on.

I shudder to think if what everyone does first is Media Centre this PI. I would hate that.

I cant belive some people don't know a thing about this device. shocking.

Open your mind and get programming.
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ntewinkel over 14 years ago in reply to Cylon

I'm really happy that Premier Farnell is helping them boost production and distribution - way to step up, guys!!

Mike, I'm with you in that I would prefer to see some amazing creations and innovations coming from all the people that are buying the RaspPi - but you realize that after your comment we're expecting something brilliant from you now, eh?
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Cylon over 14 years ago in reply to ntewinkel

Well i will try my best i have to get my Python skills up to scratch first though. im hopefully going to use this for security webcams and some compilation farms maybe. But im sure the Radio controlled modelling might creep inat some point next year...

Its all so exciting, and getting back into programming is the sole reason for buying this for me. I have MAC a pc 1 16 TB server but this will be my favorite devices of choice. I also do Music production so tying with that would be great.
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