
Inside the Raspberry Pi: The story of the $35 computer that changed the world - matt2000
https://www.techrepublic.com/article/inside-the-raspberry-pi-the-story-of-the-35-computer-that-changed-the-world/
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freedomben
I bought one of the first Raspberry Pi model Bs, before Raspbian was even
around. The device blew my mind. Sure it was super slow, barely ran a UI (tho
it did work!), and didn't have a lot of tutorials and learning resources, but
it had an RCA jack and USB, so if you had at least a TV within 20 years old
(available for $5 at almost any second hand store) and a mouse/keyboard, you
had a computer for next to nothing! It also had HDMI as well for convenience.
I do wish they'd bring back the RCA jack, but I'm sure they didn't remove it
without good reason.

I think it's easy to get excited about the cool things we cool do with the pi,
and I do. But remembering how unbelievably well they nailed their original
mission of creating a low cost hackable computer that kids and students could
afford. Something to teach the next generation who won't have access to the
early Home PCs that we did, which were very accessible. Try tinkering with
your laptop these days and you'll see how badly the world needs the Raspberry
Pi.

~~~
gruturo
If I’m not wrong the composite video out is still there in the newer pi’s.
It’s one of the pins in the headphone jack, even in the latest models.

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brutus1213
This was a very nice read. I was hoping it was going to be a book chapter .. I
really want more details on the process behind producing the Pis.

I've been an electronic hobbyist for years .. I feel there is no way I could
build the first version of the Pi today. I wish there was a detailed book on
how each part of the Pi works. It boggles my mind that just 6 volunteers did
this ... they had the right stuff indeed.

I've been playing with FPGAs to learn details of hardware. I guess I have yet
to make the leap on how to build something where I can boot up a primitive
linux distro on (with graphics and a network stack). The biggest annoyance
with FPGAs is their use of proprietary blocks .. makes it very hard to see
inside. Graphics seems to be the worst black box. Even playing with a bunch of
ARM-M boards has yielded limit success for me.

Guess I will continue to dream and fiddle :)

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vardump
So how many RPIs are hiding in your closets?

I think I've got 3x RPI1B, 2x RPI2B, 2x RPI3B, 2x RPI3B+.

Amazing little machines!

I do wish RPI4 gets USB-C ports. Well, USB3 would do.

I'd also love to have another board with very low power requirements, even
less than RPI zeros. Something between Arduino/ESP8266/ESP32/etc. and RPI
zero, but can still run Linux.

Like ARM Cortex M7 or similar. Mash one or two ultra low power M0/M1 (so that
main core can be completely switched off for low power while remaining
active), advanced DMA/DSP engine (like IMX SDMA (NXP?) or TI PRU), lots of
reconfigurable IO (fast GPIO, I2C, I2S, (wide) SPI@80MHz+, ADCs, USB 2.0
device/host, bluetooth, wifi, 100M ethernet MAC etc.).

Oh and some digital display interface would be nice as well, it's not nice to
connect displays to SPI or worse, I2C.

1 MB SRAM and maybe 16 kB low power SRAM, shared with M0. 16-128 MB low power
DRAM.

You should be able to fine grain power off any and all of the components, even
DRAM and SRAM (except for that 16 kB shared between M0 and M7).

Oh, and can I get it tomorrow? ;)

