Oh the Excitement: Raspberry Pi
[Feb 25, 2012; Nerd]

It was announced today that the first batch of Raspberry Pis is going to arrive within the next couple of days. There has been quite a stir about these, so I hope they are not sold out before I can order one. Haven't been so eager to get a computer gadget for a long time.

The RPi is an ARM based credit card size Linux computer on a single board for around 20 Euros. It has some graphics acceleration, making it suitable to run a graphical desktop on it. Supposedly it can even play HD movies. It only needs a maximum of 3.5 Watts, which can be supplied by any old USB-port cell phone charger.

Apart from standard connectors like USB, Ethernet and HDMI it also features some nice GPIO, which will make this board suited for home grown hardware projects. Depending on the needs and the real time capabilities of current Linux kernels it might even be able to fully replace micro controllers for many projects. Who would want to deal with the restrictions of small controller if a full system is available for a few additional bucks?

Unfortunately orders will be limited to one per person on the first batch, so no swarm or cluster play for now.

I'm not sure if this device can draw young people away from their Xboxes and iPhones as the initiators of this project are hoping for, but it sure is a cool toy for old school nerds.

Raspberry Pi Info
Raspberry Pi Shop

 
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