[clug] Raspberry Pi ordering starts Wednesday 0600 GMT

Alex (Maxious) Sadleir maxious at gmail.com
Wed Feb 29 05:13:14 MST 2012


As expected, the big announcement was that the R-Pi is now on sale
through electronics component distributors. Unfortunately they are
component distributors, not consumer electronics distributors and
their servers melted leaving thousands somewhat disappointed.

The good news is that these companies can take preorders where the
Raspberry Pi Foundation was not allowed to for some UK tax reason. I
think the preferred distributor for Australia is
http://au.element14.com/raspberry-pi/raspbrry-pcba/sbc-raspberry-pi-model-b/dp/2081185
for the grand total of AU$41.80 including shipping and GST. Be warned
at this time there is also a $50+ item on that site with the same name
(maybe imported from UK instead of direct from China), check the price
before ordering. It also says at the moment "Further stock available
in 38 days". So close yet so far ;)

In the future there will be bulk orders for reduced shipping overheads
and also Model A boards now with 256MB of RAM instead of 128MB.

On Tue, Feb 28, 2012 at 1:04 PM, Jason Ozolins <jason.ozolins at anu.edu.au> wrote:
> From the website, there is a starting time:
>>
>> The Raspberry Pi Foundation will be making a big (and very positive)
>> announcement that just might interest you at 0600h GMT on Wednesday 29
>> February 2012. Come to www.raspberrypi.org to find out what’s going on.
>
> Link directly to the news item:
> http://www.raspberrypi.org/archives/716
>
> Some background for anyone who's been under a non-Twitter-connected rock...
>
> Hardware:
> - Credit card sized board.
> - Broadcom GPU+ARM11 System-on-Chip
> - HDMI + composite video, audio out over HDMI connector and line level
> output.  No audio in - need a USB interface for that.
> - SDHC card reader for boot and local storage
> - only Model B variant in first batch (256MB RAM, 10/100 Ethernet and two
> high-speed USB 2.0 ports hanging off an on-board USB hub/NIC that has one
> USB2.0 link back to the SoC).
> - Power connector is microUSB; from the FAQ, a microUSB phone charger
> capable of supplying >= 700mA will drive the Model B with a couple of modest
> USB devices hanging off it.  For a bare board, it should be able to run off
> a standard 500mA USB port.
> - Unpopulated JTAG, GPIO, LCD and camera headers are all squeezed onto the
> board for the hardware hacker types.
>
> Cost: US$35, plus a promised very modest postage fee.
>
> Mad rush expected:
> First batch is 10,000 units, one per order, first come first served,
> _no_preorders_ and don't ask because they've already answered that, like a
> million times, but unlike some community-bootstrapped hardware [*cough*
> OpenPandora *cough*], they have enough startup cash that they are continuing
> to make boards more or less uninterrupted while the first batch is sold and
> shipped.
>
> In short, unless you're desperate, there will be more up for order pretty
> soon, and the quantity restrictions will be relaxed, so pretty soon you'll
> be able to mosey along and order 8 for that sub-$300 cluster you always
> wanted to build, in one simple transaction.  There were some vague hints
> about early adopter swag when people asked why the first batch of boards
> wasn't shipping directly from China, but nothing specific was mentioned.
>
> Software:
> Fedora ARM11 remix will be ready by the time the boards are delivered -
> Debian Squeeze is available now.  Later they'll be selling SD cards with
> distributions, but the hardware was ready before the distro, so the first
> batch will rely upon community-spirited mirror hosting and BitTorrent to get
> the distros out. A big list of Debian mirrors is at:
>
> http://elinux.org/RPi_Community
>
> and once the Fedora remix is finalised, that should turn up there too.
>
> GPL: The Broadcom GPU boots the ARM11, so there needs to be a binary blob on
> the SD card, but AFAIK the Debian distro itself doesn't contain encumbered
> binaries.  Think of the binary SD card blob as like a non-free BIOS that
> happens to live on the same SD card that the Debian distro is on, instead of
> in flash on the motherboard.  There's no restriction about distributing
> Debian media along with a non-free piece of hardware, and this is basically
> the same...
>
> Case: Coming soon, but not now.
>
> Breakout board for GPIOs: Coming soon...
> http://www.raspberrypi.org/archives/411
>
> FAQ: http://www.raspberrypi.org/faqs
>
> --
> Jason.Ozolins at anu.edu.au         ANU Supercomputer Facility
> Systems Administrator            Leonard Huxley Bldg 56, Mills Road
> Ph:  +61 2 6125 5449             Australian National University
> Fax: +61 2 6125 8199             Canberra ACT 0200
> http://sf.anu.edu.au             Australia
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