

Raspberry Pi – a rapturous reception - grey-area
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-17196115

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billyjobob
The Chinese Linux on an ARM USB stick devices are now a lot more powerful for
the same price as the Pi. Only reason to go for the Pi is the large community
and manufacturer support. I think the makers envisioned school kids all being
given their own Pis to take home and hack on like they did with the BBC
computers their rich parents bought for them in the 80s, but in practice the
Pi seems to be mostly used as a curiousity in the classroom and doesn't do
anything they couldn't do with their existing PCs.

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jodoherty
Do any of these USB stick devices have GPIO pins? Honest question, since part
of the appeal for me was being able to interface hardware more directly.

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StavrosK
That's a huge draw for me as well. After the Pi I got some Arduinos, they are
very non-scary and really really fun to play with. Both pieces of hardware
have their uses, the Pi is much, much more powerful and standalone, but less
embedded (I use the Arduino as a USB peripheral, which you can't do with a
Pi):

[http://www.stavros.io/projects/](http://www.stavros.io/projects/)

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robinhoodexe
Rather old news (feb 2012). Still interesting though if you're into the whole
Pi world.

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CodeWithCoffee
A lot of old articles (some as early as 2011) have been popping up in the
popular list on BBC News. In the past this had been due to it suddenly being
shared on social networks although I can recall one occasion when it displayed
a list of the most popular articles from exactly one month before.

