£25 pc

henryzz · 2011-12-23, 22:11

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/11/28/raspberry_pi/

What do people think to this?

Uncwilly · 2011-12-23, 22:20

Quote:

Originally Posted by henryzz

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/11/28/raspberry_pi/

What do people think to this?

Yes. Can I factor on it? I looks like the power is a simple DC in.

Tie a dozen into a switch and go!

Dubslow · 2011-12-23, 23:22

Exactly. I don't suppose anybody has any sort of benchmarks for this thing? Or is there even something to run on it besides Mlucas, i.e. factoring type stuff?

Christenson · 2011-12-24, 04:12

Great toy...put your program on your card, plug it in, and it works -- you supply 5V (the easiest way to brick the beast!). Too bad about the proprietary graphics instructions...but might be quite a DC beast, once an OS is ported to it. I'd expect perhaps half to a quarter of a Pentium IV in compute horses, but you make that up with the 1-2 watts spent powering it and the low cost and footprint. (If I don't mind the power, or driving across town to pick them up, I can purchase working P-4 PCs right now at about $50 on Craigslist, sometimes with flat panel displays, too)

As an embedded systems developer, however, the system looks familiar....I went ahead and blew perhaps $100 on a PICKIT3, which targets any microchip device I want to use, and have the DSPIC30F4011 in a 40-pin through-hole DIP on a through-hole card. Checkout took 2-3 days of last week, mostly because of an omission/comission in the documentation (a certain mux setting was reset under a certain condition, I found this experimentally). The beast is running at 120MHz, a very small program, and I watch the outputs on an oscilloscope.

Now, if it has a good networking stack, that helps a bunch....as Modbus is probably all the networking I will ever want to support on that PIC.

It's always a struggle to balance the simplicity of the system with its power. Anyone else remember BASIC, back when it had line numbers?

To make it work, the big question will be if it supports a good debugger easily. Although I learned a lot of programming without one, I consider it an essential tool.

xilman · 2011-12-24, 08:25

Quote:

Originally Posted by Christenson

It's always a struggle to balance the simplicity of the system with its power. Anyone else remember BASIC, back when it had line numbers?

Yup. I think you'll find a good number of us old farts here.

Anyone else here program in FOCAL? A much nicer language, IMAO, than Dartmouth BASIC.

Paul

henryzz · 2011-12-24, 09:28

Strikes me as a dismantled smartphone without a screen. 1W for a 700Mhz CPU sounds good if we can utilize it. I can just imagine a computer farm with 100 of them

.

xilman · 2011-12-24, 09:49

Another link http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-16316439

nucleon · 2011-12-25, 23:54

Power of ethernet is what I'm thinking to power them.

It would cut down on cabling.

You would have to have a decent size farm for it to be worthwhile. It was single core 700MHz, you'd need at least a bank of 16 of them to beat a modern quad core.

That's a whole lot of assumptions though. But giving a rough ball park of 400quid, gets similar to just buying a modern quad core.

But still it's an interesting concept.

-- Craig

henryzz · 2011-12-26, 00:49

Quote:

Originally Posted by nucleon

gets similar to just buying a modern quad core.

Yes but those 16 would be consuming a total of ~16W rather than >200W. If software got good enough for them then they could become a easily sustainable computer farm. Worth remembering less power means less heat as well.

science_man_88 · 2011-12-26, 01:37

Quote:

Originally Posted by henryzz

Yes but those 16 would be consuming a total of ~16W rather than >200W. If software got good enough for them then they could become a easily sustainable computer farm. Worth remembering less power means less heat as well.

($900/i7 before monitor?) /($25/this) = 1(i7)/36(this) could 36 of this keep up with one i7, my guess is someone's interested.

Dubslow · 2011-12-26, 03:43

I think 36 of these is closer to two i7's. On a straight clock comparison (I know, that's what nucleon's hesitant about) you'd need around 5 of these to match Intel's quads. I don't think it'll match clock per clock, but even if each ARM clock is 1/3rd of an Intel clock, that's still 15 of these to an i7 (not E series).

2011-12-23, 22:11	#1
henryzz Just call me Henry "David" Sep 2007 Cambridge (GMT/BST) 7×29² Posts	£25 pc http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/11/28/raspberry_pi/ What do people think to this?

2011-12-24, 09:28	#6
henryzz Just call me Henry "David" Sep 2007 Cambridge (GMT/BST) 5887₁₀ Posts	Strikes me as a dismantled smartphone without a screen. 1W for a 700Mhz CPU sounds good if we can utilize it. I can just imagine a computer farm with 100 of them.

2011-12-23, 23:22	#3
Dubslow Basketry That Evening! "Bunslow the Bold" Jun 2011 40<A<43 -89<O<-88 3·29·83 Posts	Exactly. I don't suppose anybody has any sort of benchmarks for this thing? Or is there even something to run on it besides Mlucas, i.e. factoring type stuff?

2011-12-24, 04:12	#4
Christenson Dec 2010 Monticello 5×359 Posts	Great toy...put your program on your card, plug it in, and it works -- you supply 5V (the easiest way to brick the beast!). Too bad about the proprietary graphics instructions...but might be quite a DC beast, once an OS is ported to it. I'd expect perhaps half to a quarter of a Pentium IV in compute horses, but you make that up with the 1-2 watts spent powering it and the low cost and footprint. (If I don't mind the power, or driving across town to pick them up, I can purchase working P-4 PCs right now at about $50 on Craigslist, sometimes with flat panel displays, too) As an embedded systems developer, however, the system looks familiar....I went ahead and blew perhaps $100 on a PICKIT3, which targets any microchip device I want to use, and have the DSPIC30F4011 in a 40-pin through-hole DIP on a through-hole card. Checkout took 2-3 days of last week, mostly because of an omission/comission in the documentation (a certain mux setting was reset under a certain condition, I found this experimentally). The beast is running at 120MHz, a very small program, and I watch the outputs on an oscilloscope. Now, if it has a good networking stack, that helps a bunch....as Modbus is probably all the networking I will ever want to support on that PIC. It's always a struggle to balance the simplicity of the system with its power. Anyone else remember BASIC, back when it had line numbers? To make it work, the big question will be if it supports a good debugger easily. Although I learned a lot of programming without one, I consider it an essential tool.

2011-12-24, 09:49	#7
xilman Bamboozled! "𒉺𒌌𒇷𒆷𒀭" May 2003 Down not across 10101000100010₂ Posts	Another link http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-16316439

2011-12-25, 23:54	#8
nucleon Mar 2003 Melbourne 5·103 Posts	Power of ethernet is what I'm thinking to power them. It would cut down on cabling. You would have to have a decent size farm for it to be worthwhile. It was single core 700MHz, you'd need at least a bank of 16 of them to beat a modern quad core. That's a whole lot of assumptions though. But giving a rough ball park of 400quid, gets similar to just buying a modern quad core. But still it's an interesting concept. -- Craig

2011-12-26, 03:43	#11
Dubslow Basketry That Evening! "Bunslow the Bold" Jun 2011 40<A<43 -89<O<-88 7221₁₀ Posts	I think 36 of these is closer to two i7's. On a straight clock comparison (I know, that's what nucleon's hesitant about) you'd need around 5 of these to match Intel's quads. I don't think it'll match clock per clock, but even if each ARM clock is 1/3rd of an Intel clock, that's still 15 of these to an i7 (not E series).