D
David Brown
Guest
On 09/03/2022 18:35, Rick C wrote:
It\'s possible to do some googling and look at prices for small embedded
Linux boards - including the Pi range (which includes \"lite\" and \"zero\"
variants). Prices are similar at the low end, varying a little
depending on hardware details. More \"professional\" or \"industrial\"
cards are, of course, more expensive - but come with more support, or
physical testing, or commitments to long-term availability.
There are plenty of competitor cards now. But the Pi opened the market.
It would have been a success if it had been 10% more expensive - a solid
margin for profit. It would still have been /much/ cheaper than
alternatives of the time.
What made it a success was the involvement of Broadcom, and the
marketing as an educational tool. At the time the Pi was conceived, you
couldn\'t get any information on any Broadcom device unless you were
planning on buying 100,000 devices a year. They made (amongst other
things) system-on-a-chip devices for set-top boxes and that kind of
thing. These were ideal for a small, cheap Linux card, but completely
out of reach for small developers. The Pi concept was developed by a
group that included a high-ranking Broadcom employee, who persuaded the
company that this would be a great marketing opportunity. This is what
lead to Pi being realisable at a much lower price point than other
embedded Linux cards at the time, which used chips such as Freescale
i.mx devices.
You get a Pi 3 for $35 - that\'s not at all bad, compared to the first Pi
for $25 a decade ago. You get a lot more variants now, including \"Zero\"
boards for $10 - $15, up to Pi 4 with 8 GB ram for $75.
I can\'t answer for Musk, but I really don\'t think it\'s fair to say the
Pi was introduced and advertised at an artificially low price. It was
as low as they could manage, but not lower.
No. That\'s why I said \"it\'s probably not impossible\", but certainly it
hasn\'t been achieved before. (And if the Vortex folk manage it, that\'s
great.)
It all depends on what you are doing with the device. I don\'t want to
go into Windows vs. Linux wars (I use Windows /and/ Linux, and need both
for my work, and each has its pros and cons). But you can do more with
Linux on a small system than you can with Windows. There\'s nothing
wrong with having a small machine for running Windows - these days small
form-factor machines are fine for most purposes. However, the minimum
level of computing power (processor power, ram, disk space) needed to do
something useful with Windows is a lot higher than the minimum needed
for Linux.
Most people these days have more Linux machines than Windows machines -
they just don\'t realise it. \"Geek\" is about what you do with the
machine, not what OS it has - I am a geek whether I use my Windows PC or
my Linux PC. My mother-in-law is not a geek, though both her desktop
and her laptop run Linux and she hasn\'t seen Windows for a couple of
decades.
However, these kinds of small computers are not aimed at everyday use as
a main PC by a non-geek. They are aimed at people who know what they
are doing - or are learning to know what they are doing. Very few
people use Pi\'s as a main PC, and very few will use Vortex-based cards
as a main PC (Windows or Linux).
It\'s possible to do some googling and look at prices for small embedded
Linux boards - including the Pi range (which includes \"lite\" and \"zero\"
variants). Prices are similar at the low end, varying a little
depending on hardware details. More \"professional\" or \"industrial\"
cards are, of course, more expensive - but come with more support, or
physical testing, or commitments to long-term availability.
There are plenty of competitor cards now. But the Pi opened the market.
It would have been a success if it had been 10% more expensive - a solid
margin for profit. It would still have been /much/ cheaper than
alternatives of the time.
What made it a success was the involvement of Broadcom, and the
marketing as an educational tool. At the time the Pi was conceived, you
couldn\'t get any information on any Broadcom device unless you were
planning on buying 100,000 devices a year. They made (amongst other
things) system-on-a-chip devices for set-top boxes and that kind of
thing. These were ideal for a small, cheap Linux card, but completely
out of reach for small developers. The Pi concept was developed by a
group that included a high-ranking Broadcom employee, who persuaded the
company that this would be a great marketing opportunity. This is what
lead to Pi being realisable at a much lower price point than other
embedded Linux cards at the time, which used chips such as Freescale
i.mx devices.
You get a Pi 3 for $35 - that\'s not at all bad, compared to the first Pi
for $25 a decade ago. You get a lot more variants now, including \"Zero\"
boards for $10 - $15, up to Pi 4 with 8 GB ram for $75.
I can\'t answer for Musk, but I really don\'t think it\'s fair to say the
Pi was introduced and advertised at an artificially low price. It was
as low as they could manage, but not lower.
No. That\'s why I said \"it\'s probably not impossible\", but certainly it
hasn\'t been achieved before. (And if the Vortex folk manage it, that\'s
great.)
It all depends on what you are doing with the device. I don\'t want to
go into Windows vs. Linux wars (I use Windows /and/ Linux, and need both
for my work, and each has its pros and cons). But you can do more with
Linux on a small system than you can with Windows. There\'s nothing
wrong with having a small machine for running Windows - these days small
form-factor machines are fine for most purposes. However, the minimum
level of computing power (processor power, ram, disk space) needed to do
something useful with Windows is a lot higher than the minimum needed
for Linux.
Most people these days have more Linux machines than Windows machines -
they just don\'t realise it. \"Geek\" is about what you do with the
machine, not what OS it has - I am a geek whether I use my Windows PC or
my Linux PC. My mother-in-law is not a geek, though both her desktop
and her laptop run Linux and she hasn\'t seen Windows for a couple of
decades.
However, these kinds of small computers are not aimed at everyday use as
a main PC by a non-geek. They are aimed at people who know what they
are doing - or are learning to know what they are doing. Very few
people use Pi\'s as a main PC, and very few will use Vortex-based cards
as a main PC (Windows or Linux).