Hi Chris,
On 17-04-13 23:03, Chris Testa wrote: > I think I have a way to define what a raspberry pi is. It's not a > microcontroller, and it's not exactly a desktop computer... it's a > System on a Chip, SoC. The essence of a SoC is it's system bus, that > connects many useful IP cores like processors, memory controllers, > DMA, cache, JTAG, SPI, I2C, UART, etc. in a multi-master addressable > system on a single integrated circuit. (...) > The Raspberry Pi uses a stripped down, older ARM SoC technology, > that's why it's $35. It may not make an iPhone5, but it could go > toe-to-toe with the iPhone1. Either way, it's the first "open" SoC > for under $50 and that's why it's a huge deal. And a very cool > platform to build on. I've got one. I think that for the hardware-guys and the "maker community" (as it seams to be called thesedays) it's exactly this "halfway a computer, halfway a microcontroller" appoach that make it very usefull. We have had small computer-systems for some time now. It roughly started with the "plugcomputers" from about two years ago (sheevaplug, guruplug, ...) . I also have a couple of pogoplug devices that I have reflashed with archlinux and I use them as "generic" computing platforms. They are usefull as -say- a router, mini file-server or a webcam server; but if you need to have a bit more extensive interfacing with "the real world" (read: hardware), a device like the pi or the beaglebone surely provide more options. The only thing I would like to see on the raspi is access to the GPU, also for non-graphical applications. To bad the GPU doesn't support OpenCL (a framework to write application that can use all CPUs, GPUs or DSP processors, even for generic computing problems). 73 Kristoff - ON1ARF ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Precog is a next-generation analytics platform capable of advanced analytics on semi-structured data. The platform includes APIs for building apps and a phenomenal toolset for data science. Developers can use our toolset for easy data analysis & visualization. Get a free account! http://www2.precog.com/precogplatform/slashdotnewsletter _______________________________________________ Freetel-codec2 mailing list Freetel-codec2@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freetel-codec2