"John Williamson" wrote in message
...
BartC wrote:
"Clive George" wrote in message
o.uk...
On 05/03/2012 00:55, BartC wrote:


"Bob Eager" wrote in message
...
Since the Raspberry Pi will be with us soon-ish (well, about six weeks
I
am told, for mine) does anyone have any interesting ideas about what
they
might do with it/them?

I'm not quite sure what the purpose of this machine is. Low cost? Once
you've added a monitor, keyboard, mouse, memory (and a PSU?), it won't
be far from the cost of a netbook. (Edit: just seen that it plugs into
a
TV. Still, you need a spare TV...)

How about for applications where you don't need a monitor, keyboard,
mouse, extra memory? Think automation, control, robots, etc.

Sure. But then maybe they don't need 1080p mpeg decoding support, and
they could have saved a few quid of licensing to these Broadcom people or
whoever supplies that technology. And I would have thought there are
enough control boards out there for this sort of stuff (where you use a
normal PC for developing the software then just download it).

Broadcomm are chip suppliers and designers based in Cambridge and supply
video and audio playback chips, as well as Bluetooth chippery.

The decoding's in the firmware, and the GPU and CPU are on one chip to
save time, space and money.

That's the standard mechanism for "ARM" processors. There are a dozen (or
more) manufactures all producing them with different "on chip" add ons for
specific purposes. Some may have as many as 30 different extra "modules"
all on chip.

tim