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Re: Any single board computers ready for prime time?

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On Mon, 20 Jul 2015, Robert Heller wrote:

> At Mon, 20 Jul 2015 12:54:15 -0400 Michael Black <et472@ncf.ca> wrote:
>
>>
>> On Mon, 20 Jul 2015, Steve Hayes wrote:
>>
>>> On Sun, 19 Jul 2015 18:21:59 -0500, Robert Heller
>>> <heller@deepsoft.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>> At 19 Jul 2015 21:14:05 GMT ray carter <ray@zianet.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> On Sun, 19 Jul 2015 10:54:02 -0700, pureheart wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> Hi.
>>>>>> After reading up a bit on the Raspberry Pi, single board computer, I
>>>>>> wonder if anyone is using such a thing as their daily machine and how it
>>>>>> fares, if so.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> There end up to be a *lot* of SBC's out there, but specifically, I'm
>>>>>> thinking about some like:
>>>>>> Raspberry Pi 2 Banana pi Beaglebone Black Hummingboard
>>>>>>
>>>>>> One of these with a solid state drive (I assume that's what SATA means
>>>>>> in the specs of all these things....a drive connector....I'm way behind
>>>>>> on my acroynyms and still don't know what DPMI stands for w/o a look at
>>>>>> a search engine).
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Any comments?
>>>>>>
>>>>>> pH
>>>>>
>>>>> The main purpose of such devices, at least for most folks, is to provide
>>>>> a system with access to the I/O pins.
>>>>
>>>> Yes indeed. Devices like the Ardunio family and Raspberry Pi family are mostly
>>>> geared to home grown 'smart' devices, including robotics, interactive artwork,
>>>> and your classic 'better mousetrap', for all sorts of definations of
>>>> 'mousetrap'... They are being used in the classroom (at many levels!) to teach
>>>> electronics, robotics, automation, and computer programming. Modern desktop
>>>> computers are a long way from Kim-1s and S-100 machines (eg Altair 8800) and
>>>> have become closed machines suitable for boring stuff like word processing and
>>>> E-mail... These new SBCs are something of a return to those (fun) days, but
>>>> with a much more modern system and a more accessable development environment.
>>>
>>> I recall ads from computer magazines of 35 years ago for an "Anything
>>> Board" that sounds similar to the Raspberry Pi etc.
>>>
>> But those would have been running at 1 or 2MHz, had at best 64K of RAM (if
>> that much), probably had no video interface, likely only a monitor in ROM
>> (though depending, perhaps Microsoft BASIC in ROM), and lacked any long
>> term storage or operating system, and cost a good penny.
>>
>> The later Raspberry Pi (with the quad core CPU), is around fifty dollars,
>> runs a full Linux, has video out, at least 512megs of RAM (I think more)
>> and so on.  Except better computers are out there, it would be an
>> extremely good computer for the money.
>
> A bare Raspberry Pi 2 Model B board is $35, Add about $15 for the micro SD
> card, $10 each for the case (optional) and power supply...
>
>>
>> The Raspberry Pi wsa intended as a programming platform, not a single
>> board computer.  The company thought of it in terms of a "modern Commodore
>> 64", except it runs full Linux and thus can run quite a few prgramming
>> langauges.  It was cheap because they could make it cheap, but good enough
>> to run a full Linux.  Most of the uses we hear about came after it was
>> released, because it was a cheap single board computer.
>
> But it also has those nifty 40 I/O pins (Pi 2)...
>
I'm just pointing out the original purpose.

I suspect those I/O pins are there because the cheap "microcontrollers" 
(what are they called now when they have such massive CPU on board?) 
intended for cellphones and the like  happened to have them.  They are
using a microcontroller intended for specific purposes.  I think if the IC 
didn't have those controller pins, the Raspberry Pi would do without.  I 
admit it is useful thing, when I got my KIM-1 in 1979, one reason I 
learned from it was because I could wire up some LEDs and other things to 
the I/O connector and control them.

   Michael

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Thread

Any single board computers ready for prime time? pureheart@pacbell.net - 2015-07-19 10:54 -0700
  Re: Any single board computers ready for prime time? Robert Heller <heller@deepsoft.com> - 2015-07-19 14:00 -0500
  Re: Any single board computers ready for prime time? Keith Keller <kkeller-usenet@wombat.san-francisco.ca.us> - 2015-07-19 12:27 -0700
  Re: Any single board computers ready for prime time? ray carter <ray@zianet.com> - 2015-07-19 21:14 +0000
    Re: Any single board computers ready for prime time? Robert Heller <heller@deepsoft.com> - 2015-07-19 18:21 -0500
      Re: Any single board computers ready for prime time? Steve Hayes <hayesstw@telkomsa.net> - 2015-07-20 05:15 +0200
        Re: Any single board computers ready for prime time? Michael Black <et472@ncf.ca> - 2015-07-20 12:54 -0400
          Re: Any single board computers ready for prime time? Robert Heller <heller@deepsoft.com> - 2015-07-20 12:28 -0500
            Re: Any single board computers ready for prime time? Michael Black <et472@ncf.ca> - 2015-07-20 13:44 -0400
              Re: Any single board computers ready for prime time? Robert Heller <heller@deepsoft.com> - 2015-07-20 17:03 -0500
                Re: Any single board computers ready for prime time? The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> - 2015-07-21 00:28 +0100
    Re: Any single board computers ready for prime time? Marc Haber <mh+usenetspam1118@zugschl.us> - 2015-07-20 07:55 +0200
  Re: Any single board computers ready for prime time? William Unruh <unruh@invalid.ca> - 2015-07-20 09:12 +0000
    Re: Any single board computers ready for prime time? pureheart@pacbell.net - 2015-07-20 13:48 -0700
      Re: Any single board computers ready for prime time? ray carter <ray@zianet.com> - 2015-07-20 21:35 +0000
      Re: Any single board computers ready for prime time? Robert Heller <heller@deepsoft.com> - 2015-07-20 17:03 -0500
        Re: Any single board computers ready for prime time? The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> - 2015-07-21 00:30 +0100
          Re: Any single board computers ready for prime time? Robert Heller <heller@deepsoft.com> - 2015-07-20 20:12 -0500
        Re: Any single board computers ready for prime time? Unknown <dog@gmail.com> - 2015-08-07 12:07 +0000
        Re: Any single board computers ready for prime time? pureheart@pacbell.net - 2015-08-14 21:26 -0700
          Re: Any single board computers ready for prime time? Robert Heller <heller@deepsoft.com> - 2015-08-15 08:21 -0500

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