Raspberry Pi Zero

[Alistair MacDonald]

This is interesting. A $5 Pi. http://makezine.com/2015/11/25/raspberry-pi-announces-5-computer-model-zero/

[Brian Degger]

Is on front of sold out magpi mag. (Physical)

On 26 Nov 2015 09:48, "Alistair MacDonald" <alistair....@gmail.com> wrote:

This is interesting. A $5 Pi. http://makezine.com/2015/11/25/raspberry-pi-announces-5-computer-model-zero/

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[Dan Nixon]

I can't see the audio output being mentioned, in which case I assume they haven't added a breakout for it.

I can't remember if the DAC it uses is also on the GPIO.

I would love to see the RPi Foundation release a preview of their boards to makers before they are built, I know this probably has issues with competitors, etc. but It would stop them making really stupid mistakes which they seem to have done reliably on every Pi.

Dan

[Jon Davies]

@alistair wow, now that is cheap.
@brian I am not surprised it sold out ;)
@dan to be fair, they need to be backward compatible with all earlier mistakes.

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[Stuart Wheater]

I managed to get two TheMagPi mags, one for myself and one for Universities IoT group. At this price point, power and size, could be a bit of a game changer for IoT.

Stuart

[David Pye]

I think these are fantastic, and the price is good too.

My only concern is that in a way, running a full multitasking OS seems to add more failure points to IoT compared to ESP8266/arduino or similar.

Sure, it offers far more capability, but linux-based machines then need to be sysadmin'd, and trying to make sure things like /var doesn't fill up with logs etc, meaning your IoT device falls over seems like a nightmare!

It seems a lot of this can be fixed by mounting SD card read-only and using ramfs for scratch space might well address it though!

David

[Alistair MacDonald]

No Ethernet or wifi connectivity by default though. I guess a lot of people are using USB wifi anyway but that extra cost and hassle. At the cost I do see me considering it for more embedded project though.

  Alistair

[David Pye]

Another issue is that because it's not a real-time OS, trying to do strict timings with pins to interface with things other than I2C/SPI is difficult without kernel patches/modules....

[Iain Yarnall]

So with no USB, audio or networking, what are you supposed to do with it?  (I say no USB because you need an adapter. so why not just fit a normal usb socket?)

In fairness, if it runs Raspbian then it could in theory run the reaction game but it seems very impractical to me.

I feel like I'm missing something.

Cheers,

Iain.

[David Pye]

You could say the same about the arduino pro mini which is slightly even more expensive yet much slower and less capable.....

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[Greg Fenton]

I have ordered one with the connectors etc this morning (£10.50 with delivery) from PiMoroni.

I'll let you know if it's any good. Thinking about making a logo turtle for my youngest daughter who thinks Scratch is the best programming language ever and the zero would be a great controller for it.

Greg

[Dan Nixon]

I've seen a couple of Pi distros do this lately (having a read only file system).

Whatever the XBMC/Kodi distro is called was the first one I saw it on IIRC.

Dan

[Jon Davies]

Alistair has pointed out the absolutely glaring blatant obvious here, and why you should all stop using the IoT reference for this device.  No it is not an IoT natively.  Stop it now.

It becomes an Internet of things once it is Internetworkable.

Otherwise, someone please explain to me how on earth this is an IoT.  I will start referring to a piece of paper as an IoT otherwise, as it can tell me something is a certain temperature by visually turning brown (then black). Then I can enable data transmission by placing the paper in an envelope and posting it to some other location.

</rant>

:)

[TonyD]

At £4 a pop it's really interesting. Glad they've shrunk the footprint as well.

I've got a couple on order from Farnell, so I'll hopefully get those in a day or two.

Like Dan says its not without its design issues. Using a micro USB is a mistake IMO. Firstly it means you need an adapter cable (more cost, bigger project footprint) and secondly you can mistakenly plug in the power micro USB into the data micro USB and probably fry the thing :-/

I've been looking at minibianpi for a minimum OS, it fits easily on a spare 2GB SD-Card I got. Check it out:https://minibianpi.wordpress.com/

Tony

[Jon Davies]

I've been using Minibian for a few years.  My old House Server used to run it, and my two LMS playback endpoints run it too.  I use it in most situations as it is bare bones and I can customise it how I like.  It is also very compatible with existing Raspbian, but I suspect not fully 100%.  This means most setup guides for Raspbian will work, which is nice.

[Jon Davies]

Re: Audio
Just a thought...
HDMI supports audio, so does Mini HDMI support audio?  Does the Pi Zero therefore supply audio via the HDMI port?

[Dan Nixon]

You assume I'm always going to be connecting it to a HDMI display that supports audio, which for me at least is almost never.

I'm getting more at the fact that they had a feature that actually worked then decide themselves to remove it most likely assumptions they have dreamt up themselves.

Dan

[Alistair MacDonald]

I have seen people use HDMI to VGA and audio to utilise HDMI as a low cost audio card (that in reality the adapter is being).

You can still use a USB sound card for a few quid for one in line with the Pi audio, and £20 for a half decent one.

  Alistair

[Jon Davies]

I was going to point out/ask that the Pi Audio was some terrible hack anyway, wasn't it?

[Dan Nixon]

Terrible hack?

I don't think so, it's fed from one of the DACs on the GPIO controller, probably then into a preamp.

Dan

[Dan Nixon]

Although this is the Raspberry Pi, I wouldn't be surprised.

Dan

[Greg Fenton]

You can use pins on the GPIO for the sound output, the Pi supports it natively.

Greg

[Alistair MacDonald]

It is a hack in as much as the sound on a Spectrum was a hack. It is only half wave technically and can not be used when you need some resources including one of the timers is memory serves me correctly. It is not high definition sound, but it works for what it is intended for and more so I am not complaining.

  Alistair

[Jon Davies]

Well I don't care about whether or not the Pi Zero has an audio jack or not.  It is intended for a purpose, and people need to find out what that purpose is.  Some people complain it is lacking proper USB, some people complain it is lacking Audio, I am complaining it is lacking Ethernet, and we're all missing the point.  I don't know what the ultimate point of the Pi Zero is yet, but the designers do, and I will enjoy finding out. Maybe it's the $5 price tag?  Adding on Audio, Ethernet and USB adds to the cost, so making the base cost go up, resulting in the potential main point being missed.

If one of your gripes is that they keep making the same design mistakes, consider that this board's GPIO (and other bits?) are very likely compatible with all the other Pi's out there, so the design base is maintained for now, warts and all.

Hope the above is seen as food for thought more than a rant :)

[Iain Yarnall]

Seems like it's only useful if you've got GPIO based inputs/outputs and HDMI output to a screen and you don't need any usb devices or network.

It also seems like you'd almost need a normal Pi in order to develop then swap the card into the Zero if you don't want to buy all the other bits to make it work.

Should we almost be considering it as a non-real-time Arduino with HDMI output build it?

Cheers,

Iain.

[David Pye]

I am not sure it's intended purpose is relevant.  The designers may well not know what its ultimate purpose is either.   After all, they didn't with the original pi - it was an educational tool not a maker one....

[Iain Yarnall]

I'm more interested to know what use it is though as well as the intended purpose.

Does anyone have any projects in mind for them?  I still feel like I'm missing something here!

Cheers,

Iain.

[Greg Fenton]

I intend to use mine as the heart of a Logo Turtle using Scratch as my youngest daughter loves "developing" in Scratch.

Greg

[Alistair MacDonald]

It has just occurred to me moat of my original playing with a Pi was using an FTDI adapter connected directly to the GPIO. For this the Zero is perfect.

  Alistair

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[Stuart Wheater]

I will give the Raspberry Pi Zero I have to the Makerspace, so people can have a play.

Stuart

[Jon Davies]

>I'm more interested to know what use it is though as well as the intended purpose. Does anyone have any projects in mind for them?

^^^This. Ditto :)^^^
I'll sit back and see what happens as usual. Love to see other people's creativity take form! :)

On Fri, 27 Nov 2015 3:48 pm Stuart Wheater <stuart....@gmail.com> wrote:

I will give the Raspberry Pi Zero I have to the Makerspace, so people can have a play.

Stuart