• 🇵🇸antifa_ceo ( antifa_ceo@lemmy.ml ) 
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    31
    ·
    7 days ago

    When Raspis first came out they were genuinely a massive innovation in having small computers people could learn on or build hobby projects from very cheaply.

    Over the years this has changed as they have gotten expensive to the point of being out of this price range these days. There are cheaper alternatives.

    I still think they are pretty cool pieces of technology for what they are but probably more niche than they used to be now.

        • I’ve learned a lot from the pi too! I think its a great little machine, but also it looks like the BeagleBoard beat it to market by about four years, so maybe it wasn’t the pi itself that was so revolutionary and more the cultural movement around it

  • comfy ( comfy@lemmy.ml ) 
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    5
    ·
    7 days ago

    I managed to get one second-hand from a friend who had upgraded. It was my first entry into self-hosting and running 24/7 automations, like public media archival scripts. Due to the popularity and forum support, it was pretty low-friction which allowed me to dive in easily without a mentor or excessive barriers. I had no hardware experience beyond assembling a PC from parts, so the accessibility was what gave me confidence to start.

    A mini-PC would have been far more than needed, to the point it’s wasteful for this kind of work, and the better embedded options (I’m sure there are plenty, and cheaper) were just too intimidating or manual to have drawn me in.

  • Agree with the revolutionary access to simple computers for hobbyists.

    I haven’t used them much myself but now that I am thinking more about automation at home I’m realizing there are much cheaper and safer (lower current) options for things I want to achieve as compared to electronic or electromechanical control systems I am familiar with from industrial settings.

    I think Raspberry Pi played a big part in creating the environment where there was a market for all this other innovation.

  • deadmyk ( deadmyk@lemmy.zip ) 
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    4
    ·
    7 days ago

    when you gould get a decent tiny computer that is capable of real tasks for $60 it was great. $200 not so much. especially when you can get a used enterprise thin client for the same price

    • My first Raspberry Pi was the model 3B which my dad bought for 35 euros. I spent a week on that thing trying to get a desktop installed with Archlinux only to have it run like shit. Good times

  • zebidiah ( zebidiah@lemmy.ca ) 
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    1
    ·
    7 days ago

    It’s cool because it draws next to no power at all… Unless your specific use case needs to survive on a bare trickle of electricity there is no reason anyone should be buying a pi over an off-lease 1L mini-pc