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pogduhog t1_jbqkncq wrote

And attach it to what exactly? You haven’t been able to buy a raspberry pi for years. I have owned every version of the raspberry pi ever made but I will think twice before buying another one even when available. They have failed on their stated goal of making computing cheap and affordable to all, 400000 Pis are still being made every month and every single one of them is sold to businesses. It was the hobbiests who made raspberry pi what it is and they couldn’t even put a couple thousand to the side for them to keep the ecosystem going. And before anyone say it’s all small businesses - I don’t believe that, I’ve seen those massive IKEA screens get stuck on the boot screen, that’s running on Pis.

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swisstraeng t1_jbqt04u wrote

Meanwhile the pi 400: "Guys? Hello? Is anyone here? You still remember me right? I'm in stock!"

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pogduhog t1_jbqtlni wrote

And how much do those cost when available? Am I going to build a £400 cluster of keyboards? The simple fact that 400s are even available suggests there are SOCs available, they have sold out to industry and that’s really all there is to it.

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swisstraeng t1_jbqu3sg wrote

pi 400? I got one for 70USD and received it today.

That doesn't excuse the shortage of regular pi of course. But it's a nice alternative.

BUT they don't have a CSI port.

But USB cameras exist.

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pogduhog t1_jbqv593 wrote

So twice the price in a useless form factor? The beauty of the original pi was the famous ‘credit card sized computer’. It’s the same SOC, they have just stuck it is a keyboard. Hobbiests wrote the majority of the guides and did all the hard work making them into off the shelf solutions for everyone else. No one is running octopi on a 400, no one is sending a keyboard to space, no one is buying them because they are not versatile. Same SOC, twice the price, far less useful. Defeats the purpose.

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swisstraeng t1_jbrnzam wrote

Yes, but the pi 400 remains a good alternative because it is the only option in stock

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pogduhog t1_jbs3qde wrote

The 400 is a good tool to learn basic programming which is admittedly what the goal set out by the foundation all those years ago.

The way I see it there are 3 primary consumer groups of pis: students, makers, and industry. 400 can work for students which is great, the other two need to share the original form factor. It was the makers who saw the potential of the pi and turned it into the richest ecosystem and best selling computer in history. They spent the money and made industry possible. I think to shun the makers for so many years in favour of industry is not right. It’s not a money issue either, makers could consume those 400000 pis a month.

If we want to talk about small business, what about all the little companies that sell pis and make this possible? What about the little companies that designed and built all the HATs and cases? Can’t imagine many people are buying those like they used to.

The competition has not been idle for all these years, there are alternatives. We will have affordable, performant risc-v boards this year. We have the rk3588 boards which are highly performant and will be the platform of choice for years to come. We have the rk3399 boards which are 100% supported in mainline and can be booted completely blob free. The software is not often not as complete as the pi but that is actually changing because they are actually available so we are developing for them.

All in all I’m just sad. I want to develop for the pi but they have decided we aren’t even worth the scraps. I want to spend my money and huge amounts of my free time to make this a better product for everyone but I can’t. I just think they have lost the goodwill of the makers and it will never be what it once was. That’s sad.

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synthdrunk t1_jbsmb85 wrote

I would want the 400 earnestly but the decision to ship it at 4gb is sucks. 8gb and I’d have a gd lab of them.

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swisstraeng t1_jbtn242 wrote

I'm gonna attempt to change the BGA RAM chip in a few weeks. Wish me luck! 200 solder balls.

I'm gonna swap the pi 400's D9WHG for a D9ZCL that's 8gigs.

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synthdrunk t1_jbttuah wrote

istr seeing that someone had and it worked no problem, not something I’d do lol. Godspeed!

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Xtasy0178 t1_jbrpzfq wrote

Yep it sucks and I can’t believe that somehow they are unable to produce more… the demand is there yet nothing is happening. It’s sad that they are letting the community down which pushed their product to what it is today

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Leprecon t1_jbrwdg4 wrote

Also similar singe board computers are easily available. Clearly this isn’t a supply chain problem.

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GhostBurger12 t1_jbqq4aj wrote

Unless a small business built the idea screen?

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pogduhog t1_jbqqgxw wrote

Then I doubt that’s a small business since there are 460 IKEA stores worldwide and it is unlikely that would be their only customer.

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GhostBurger12 t1_jbqqz8m wrote

You've been to 460 ikea locations? Or enough to know the screens aren't provided by a local business for local ikeas

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pogduhog t1_jbqro4o wrote

Do you really think IKEA would be sourcing different screens for each store to support local business? IKEA was only an example anyway, 400000 are made every month - that’s an awful lot of small businesses don’t you think? The numbers don’t add up, small business can’t be consuming nearly 5 million Pis a year, that is not small business.

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vladoportos t1_jbpv0aj wrote

Nice, next they should come up with the actual raspberry pi to stores 😀

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gazorpaglop t1_jbqdfo3 wrote

Yeah I’ve been waiting to buy a pi4 without all the extras for a while now

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msginbtween t1_jbrlvh8 wrote

I remember when they were cheap and easy to get. It’s probably been close to ten years since I first bought one. Wtf happened!?

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vladoportos t1_jbrxwq4 wrote

I'm not sure, I have read that "chip shortage," but it has been like this for years. CM4 modules literally do not exist in any shop in the world, only ebay scalpers and such for 5x the price.

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StereoBucket t1_jbsu4u0 wrote

Saw the old pi zero wireless come in stock yesterday and immediately disappear.

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caspertheghost t1_jbqltv5 wrote

Could you run a couple of these with a gps on a single pi to make a 360 camera for streetview? I have a spare 4b and could really use updated street view for my job.

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Redthemagnificent t1_jbrlk7r wrote

Theoretically, yes. In practice that is a lot of work. Depending on how accurate you want your street view to be, GPS alone might not be enough. You'd need to add inertial data as well and probably some post processing to get your trajectory down to a few meters. Otherwise each set of pictures might have 10 or 20 meters of horizontal error in their positions.

TLDR mobile mapping is hard. Source: I work in GNSS validation.

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