FYI a $9 Computer to Top Raspberry?

[vic555]

Cheapest PC War: CHIP can kill Raspberry Pi for $9?​

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By Josh Durso -​

http://www.inferse.com/32445/cheapest-pc-war-chip-kill-raspberry-pi-9/​

May 10, 2015​

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C.H.I.P. has arrived at just $9 per build. C.H.I.P. is an entire computer and functions in the same great way that any system you would buy at the store would, to a certain point. Obviously, as with anything this small, there are some limitations. However, the limitations are seriously outweighed by the absolute benefits that would exist to having C.H.I.P. on the market. That’s why so many people are referring to this as a Raspberry Pi killer.

The first thing that consumers will notice when it comes to C.H.I.P. is its size. It’s tiny, but don’t let that small frame confuse anyone about what’s getting packed inside. It boasts a 1Ghz R8 ARM processor, as well as 512MB of RAM. As far as storage is concerned it has 4GB of eMMC storage on deck and brings new meaning to the words small computer since it runs a version of Debian Linux. That’s significant considering how inexpensive and powerful the device is when it’s broken down.​

Comparing that to Raspberry Pi 2, which costs $35 to own – and brings a 900MHz Broadcom BCM2836 ARMv7 quad-core processor, as well as 1GB of RAM. Raspberry Pi 2 boasts support for four USB devices, as well as support for HDMI, but the added cost makes it less ideal for the type of application that a computer like this would be utilized for. Early indications are that the processor on C.H.I.P. is a little more powerful and more efficient than the Broadcom processor found on the Raspberry Pi 2. It also has a little more RAM memory. However, that doesn’t necessarily equate to a more effective piece of computing technology.​

 

[Dave Gray]

Yup looks pretty.
For "arrived", substitute "opened a kickstarter page."
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1598272670/chip-the-worlds-first-9-computer

With luck, it'll be out by December (at least, for the board itself. For variants like the HDMI adapter, they're not even positing a ship date.) Will be interesting to see if they can actually hold that price. They've blown past the asking amount -
$674,954
pledged of $50,000 goal
But going that far over your ask, has in the past been troublesome. Oh well, another cheap new toy...

 

[hecatae]

it seems to be pushing for the mobile space with the pocket chip stuff, my biggest concern is it's a (insert favourite expletive) allwinner chipset.

allwinner tend to fudge kernel sources, obfuscate code, and generally make them difficult to work with, take the banana pi for example, an allwinner chipset that is stuck on a 3.4 kernel source and has no graphics hardware support due to allwinner obfuscating code and not giving complete kernel sources.

There is no mention of whether the wifi chip is directly linked to the soc or is powered via usb, this $9 chip could have plenty of bottleneck in performance to "save costs".

 

[sigmaz]

Ahh I see now why you asked.
If I can be of any assistance let me know.

At first glance the delivered unit is a bit different that the one depicted in the original post.

 

[Dave Gray]

Nice that they silkscreened the connectors...
What is the OS? How's the graphic support? Looks like it's bolted to some sort of base?

 

[sigmaz]

The image in the first post is of the Alpha version of the C.H.I.P

I was pleasantly surprised to see the silkscreening myself!
It happily runs Debian Linux. (I'll get back to you with the version specifics)
Out of the box there is composite video pumped to the TRRS connector at 640x480.
There are other video options i.e. VGA, HDMI available via shield adaptors.
The base you see it screwed to is actually a nifty cover they came up with and sent it out with to protect the R8.
The cover is listed in the store for something like $2 so I'm glad it came with it, especially since it sells separately for almost 1/4 of the price of the machine..

 

[dziny]

I have the same complaint as about Raspberry Pi zero - a missing Ethernet port!

 

[hecatae]

but the C.H.I.P has WiFi included on the PCB

@sigmaz
could you get me, the debian version, and also, dmesg, lsusb and lspci, cat /proc/cpu and cat /proc/mem would also be nice.