[GTALUG] First new home computer for decades - Raspberry Pi 400

[Stewart C. Russell]

On 2020-11-11 1:38 p.m., Alvin Starr via talk wrote:
> 
> It looks like its actually a custom board to fit in the bottom of the 
> keyboard case.
> 
> https://www.jeffgeerling.com/blog/2020/raspberry-pi-400-teardown-and-review

It is. You can't easily fit a Raspberry Pi 4B in a case that thin, keep 
the interfaces AND stop it overheating. Like I said in the meeting: it's 
a true home computer because it has a giant heatsink. In the old days, 
the heat came from the voltage regulators (linears like 7805s aren't 
thermally efficient at all) but now, it's mostly from the CPU.

The CPU is also a new beastie that runs at 1.8 GHz instead of 1.5. Yes, 
it needs a new firmware blob to manage the CPU.

The Raspberry Pi Foundation never announce next products, so any 8 GB 
version will have to wait until the new year. Like the old home 
computers, xmas sales are everything for this machine.

(For context, World of Commodore used to take over an entire exhibition 
centre near the airport. I'm told that the December 1983 one took 
something like $6 million in sales ...)


On 2020-11-11 10:55 a.m., Giles Orr via talk wrote:
 >
 > The death of the CRT is mourned by very few indeed.

I can only think of three groups who still love 'em, but they're pretty 
niche:

1) Retrogamers who obsess over screen latency;

2) Retrocomputing types who run computers with ancient video standards 
like Amigas and the Apple IIgs;

3) The good folks in and around Elliot Lake, ON who depended on the 
yttrium extraction from the mines there. Latterly, the uranium deposits 
apparently made more money from yttrium byproducts for CRTs than any of 
the radioactive stuff.

cheers,
  Stewart