News Raspberry Pi computer, is it rational?

[tl8]

Looks like my timing is right so far

This distributed batch is still going to be the first 10k boards. The rest of us normal folk will still have to wait for them to start production.

 

[Notebook]

Great progress this week on moving towards deliveries and mass production…

Together with the Raspberry Pi Foundation we’ve successfully completed compliance testing and certification work for CE, FCC and C-Tick.
This means we are now starting to ship our share of the first 2000 boards that arrived in the UK last week.
We have opened our dedicated Raspberry Pi Store to those lucky people who were first in the registration queue to place their orders.
Now that the Raspberry Pi boards are compliance certified we have triggered our manufacturing processes to move into volume production.
As new batches of Pi’s become available over the coming weeks we’ll be inviting the next in-line into the Raspberry Pi Store to place their orders.
The next batch is already in production so we’re expecting more deliveries shortly and we’ll continue to keep you updated via our regular email and online FAQs.
And while we’ve been compliance-testing the boards, a number of engineers have been road-testing the product! You can see some first reviews of the Raspberry Pi at DesignSpark.com including Raspberry Pi and Custard. As the anticipation continues to build, our Pi Perspectives are getting lots of attention too – these are the views and opinions of leading academics and scientists across industry and education.

With any luck, by the time you read your next weekly update, the first Raspberry Pi’s will be out in the world. Thanks for your continued patience and please rest assured that your Pi will be on its way as soon as we can bake it!




RS Components

Marvellous.

N.

 

[Artlav]

So, it's a month before the queue gets to me, then a month for our snail mail to deliver it, which will be late in june. With some bad luck, right after i depart westwards, so add one month more.

Thus, no Spaceway for RPi until July-August at least

On the bright side, by that time all the starting bugs in the software would be exterminated.

 

[Notebook]

Yea, but just think if you were building a Sinclair calculator...

http://www.vintage-technology.info/pages/calculators/adverts/sincsciadv.htm

What sort of idiot would buy that?

N.

 

[Artlav]

Yea, but just think if you were building a Sinclair calculator...

http://www.vintage-technology.info/pages/calculators/adverts/sincsciadv.htm

What sort of idiot would buy that?

I'm afraid you totally lost me here. What was you referring about?

 

[Notebook]

My apologies, its just when I was a lad I sent off for one of Mr Sinclairs calculator kits, built it, the LED displayed lots of very bright "888888888". It then went very quiet...

Hopefully nothing like that will happen with the R-Pi

N.

 

[streb2001]

I have been trying to understand just how this tiny bare board is going to encourage modern kids to learn programming. Personally I am very keen to get one, I think mainly because it makes me wistfully nostalgic for the days of the Sinclair MK14 and ZX80 (for those of you old enough to remember them!) I am not sure what I will actually do with it though...

I noticed on the BBC news video clip that they were running this on it:

http://scratch.mit.edu/

I have spent rather too much time playing with this in the last few days. It is a very clever and fun way of introducing the ideas of object-oriented, event-driven programming. I can see this as a good way of getting some children interested in writing software.

But on a Raspberry Pi?

 

[jangofett287]

Scratch is one of my fav programs as well. I'm currently developing a tile based dugeon crawler for it, and I'm being hampered by slow speeds and an inability to pass and return variables natively with function calls. (the broadcast block)

 

[streb2001]

I don't think it is intended for large applications! It is certainly slow and would benefit from a Scratch script compiler. It is a disadvantage of the system that the only way to pass parameters between blocks (methods?) is by setting global variables.

Once you get the hang of OOP and events you might be better off with VB or something else that can be compiled into a native app.

 

[Linguofreak]

But on a Raspberry Pi?

Part of the point of using the Raspberry Pi for this is that it's cheap, so schools can afford a bunch of them.

 

[streb2001]

I can see the "it's cheap" argument but factor in the cost of a monitor, keyboard, mouse, power supply, case, SD card and speakers then it starts to look like the price of a cheap laptop or netbook. The case is necessary since the bare board is rather vulnerable and anything not nailed down in a school environment will sooner rather than later get broken or go "missing".

Assuming that schools can afford a class set of all this, there is then the problem of where to put them. They would need a permanent location ie. a free classroom because it would be totally impractical to assemble and disassemble them at the start and end of lessons. Teacher's nightmares are less scary than this!

So, great idea in theory IMO. I am a teacher by the way so I speak from some experience.

 

[tl8]

If you have ordered (registered) by now, you should get it before the end of June.

E14 has over 100,000 pre-orders to date.

 

[Notebook]

From RS .

Another week of great progress on Raspberry Pi!

Our initial batch of 700 Raspberry Pi’s has been shipped out to the first people in our queue (those who registered up to 6:01 am!) We invited these customers onto our special Raspberry Pi online store, and they've now received their order (including some of the essential accessories required) and are busy testing the capability of their Pi.

We're also seeing first user reviews of Raspberry Pi being posted on DesignSpark. Raspberry Pi and Custard looks at whether the Pi lives up to the hype, and our series of Pi Perspectives considers the wider impact of the Raspberry Pi phenomenon. Go to DesignSpark and see the reaction the first shipment of Raspberry Pi has created.

Our second batch of Raspberry Pi's is currently being put together, and we're expecting it in next week. We'll be inviting the next 4,000 people in our queue to come into the Raspberry Pi store and place their order very soon. Volume production is also progressing well, and we have secured chipset supplies to support the huge demand for Raspberry Pi. We really appreciate your patience while we fine-tune the manufacturing process. It's important we get the quality and reliability right, as we want everyone to enjoy their Pi’s.

The really good news is that, within a few weeks, the batch volumes will substantially increase, allowing us to serve Raspberry Pi's to many more people. We'll keep you informed on progress, and hope to be contacting all of you shortly with news on when you can get your Raspberry Pi.




RS Components Ltd

N.

 

[Notebook]

Well...

Dear Customer

This week there’s more good news on availability of Raspberry Pi’s from RS and Allied Electronics. We’ve invited the next 4,000 people in our queue into the Raspberry Pi online store to place their orders. The second batch of boards are on their way to us, and we’ll be shipping those out direct to customers as soon as they arrive in our warehouse.

Many of you want to know when you can place your order for a Raspberry Pi. We’re making good progress with volume production quantities, and that will allow us to invite more people in to the store and place their order. There will be more news on this next week, so please bear with us while we finalise these arrangements. We will be keeping our promise to invite people to order in line with when you first registered with us, so no-one will lose their place in the queue as we move into volume production.

In the meantime keep up-to-date with the latest information regarding Raspberry Pi by visiting DesignSpark. Find out what happened when some initial Raspberry Pi users met-up to discuss using the board as an open-source tool. Read the latest blog from one of our DesignSpark members, an ICT tutor who has just received his Raspberry Pi. Or find out about how your board can be used as a media centre .

Thank you for your continued interest and patience.

 

[Xyon]

I want to order several of these. Gotta waiiiit...

 

[Jarvitä]

Likewise, it seems my plans for a beowulf cluster in a shoebox have been delayed indefinitely.

 

[tl8]

It looks like the last lot of the 1st 10k are being distributed. Both E14 and RS look to be doing mass production in 25k or 50k lots. Hopefully not long now.

 

[Artlav]

Purrrfect.
Got an order e-mail fro RS Components, got to their order site, started filling the delivery data...
There is no Russia in the country list!
I mean, what the heck? Even Somalia is in there.

Clarifications pending...

Meanwhile, Farnell promises a delivery date of 21/05/2012.
That one is already paid for, so i hope they have a better map.

 

[Notebook]

I got an order e-mail today as well, RS managed to find the UK...quoting 21 days delivery, we shall see,

N.

 

[Rareth]

and Microsoft gets into the act

http://www.netmf.com/gadgeteer/get-started.aspx