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!
