We often hear smartphones referred to as a “PC in your pocket”, but the recently unveiled Raspberry Pi better has the best claim to the phrase since it’s an actual computer!
Currently in prototype form, the team behind this micro computing marvel hope to sell it for the crazy-low price of just £15/$25.
Plus, it will be able to run Ubuntu 9.04 — though how well? That remains to be seen…
Given the low price the specs planned for this thing are modest, but then again, so is the size:-
- 700MHz ARM11 processor
- 128MB of RAM
- USB 2.0 port
- MicroSD card slot
- HDMI out
That’s all there is to this Raspberry Pi: there’s no hard drive, no speakers, no ethernet, no wi-fi…
You’ll need to bring your own keyboard, mouse and display since it has none of those either.
But this new-fangled Raspberry Pi device does boast an I/O slot for further expansion, opening up all kinds of use cases for the diminutive dongle-sized device.
The developers have showcased a 12MP camera attached to the board, which you can see in the image floating somewhere on this page.
‘Understanding the process of programming’
The BBC resident tech expert Rory Cellan-Jones was able to meet up with the British brains behind the scheme, David Braben, for a short interview on who this ‘£15 computer on a stick’ is for.
When is it coming?
The team behind the Raspberry Pi hope their device will be available to buy within the next 12 months.
Meeting that tight timeframe will require further development, a better prototype, and ensuring that that the various components needed can be bought and manufactured to meet the low-cost price point the team is pitching for.
I’ll be keeping my eye on this — though given the size, I might need to put my glasses on first…
raspberrypi.org via BBC