Thursday, March 31, 2016

Raspberry Pi


Despite the mouth watering image above, the title of this post is not a typographic error (A.K.A. typo). Specifically I wanted to talk about the Raspberry Pi 3, which has just recently become available.

This little 3.3 X 2.2-inch (8.382 x 5.588 cm) printed circuit board packs quite a wallop. Since its launch in 2012, the Raspberry Pi has undergone seven revisions and at $35 this RPi 3 has an amazing set of capabilities:

  • 1.2GHz quad-core ARM Cortex-A53 processor
  • Broadcom VideoCore IV graphic processor
  • 1Gb SDRAM
  • 802.11n wireless LAN
  • Bluetooth 4.1
  • micro-SD slot
  • 10/100 Mbps Ethernet connection
  • HDMI/Composite video connection
  • HDMI/Headphone audio connection
  • 4 USB ports

Let me put this price into perspective with the following chart:


A lot of the early prices shown are merely projections of the cost of 1GB RAM, one really couldn't build such a system for any price back in the 1950s, 1960s, or 1970s. Interestingly, just the cost of 1GB RAM in 2005  would have been more than 4 times the current cost of an RPi3. 


So, have fun computing and do it quickly before the price drops and/or the capabilities go up, again!

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