CBC News and the Raspberry Pi

[Colin McGregor]

On Thu, Mar 1, 2012 at 10:44 PM, William Park <opengeometry-FFYn/CNdgSA at public.gmane.org> wrote:
> On Thu, Mar 01, 2012 at 08:46:22PM -0500, Colin McGregor wrote:
>> On Thu, Mar 1, 2012 at 4:52 PM, William Park <opengeometry-FFYn/CNdgSA at public.gmane.org> wrote:
>> > If they were to make ATX/mATX/ITX form factor, would the price be
>> > different?  I mean, this is for educational and development purpose,
>> > so putting it in an old computer case (motherboard replacement)
>> > would be okay, no?
>>
>> If they made the machine in an ATX/mATX/ITX form factor the price
>> would have to be different (higher). Bottom line as a printed circuit
>> board gets bigger it gets more expensive. Further on several levels I
>> don't see how this gets you anywhere, the power connector on a normal
>> ATX power supply isn't compatible with the Raspberry Pi, ditto video
>> connectors, etc...
>>
>> If I were proceeding with this RIGHT NOW my first choice would be to
>> build a custom case from scratch. My second choice would be to get the
>> likes of a 3.5" external hard drive case and  adapt that (drill holes
>> in the front of the case, run short jumper cables to the Raspberry Pi,
>> and solder in a short adapter to the power connector).
>
> I think price will be go down.  It needs special connectors and special
> case, purely because of its special small size.  If they make it in
> standard form factor, then they can put standard connectors.  And, we
> can put them in any old computers which we have plenty of.

Actually, all the connectors on the Raspberry Pi are more-or-less
standard. The power connector is one of the tiny USB ones, so
(depending on model) a spare/after-market cell phone charger will
power the Raspberry Pi. The HDMI, composite video, audio, USB, SD
card, and Ethernet connectors are all also standard stuff.

What I see as being far more likely than the Raspberry Pi changing
shape to accommodate old PC cases is one or more firms offering some
sort of commercially made case specifically for the Raspberry Pi (and
here I think the builders of those external 3.5"/2.5" hard drive cases
would have a good head start on other firms).

> William
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