Raspberry Pi Hits a Slight Manufacturing Delay
Raspberry Pi is seen a slight delay, as the wrong Ethernet jack was used in the manufacturing process.
The Raspberry Pi Foundation reports that it's experiencing a mild manufacturing "hiccup" causing a delay in shipping the first batch of boards.
The setback is due to an accidental substitution of an Ethernet jack in the factory. More specifically, the team calls for jacks with integrated magnetics in the schematics (which provides DC isolation and filters out noise), but instead the factory soldered in non-magnetic jacks. That means the incorrect Ethernet jacks have to be ripped out and replaced with the correct jack before the boards are sent out to users.
"We’ve known about this for four days now, but we haven’t been able to tell you about it because it meant we had to do some further tests to make sure that nothing else was affected," the Raspberry Pi blog states. "Happily, it’s a very minor problem to fix (desolder the dud jack/solder on a new one), and the factory is nearly done working on replacing them on the first set of boards."
While the team is pushing the first batch out now, later batches may see a slight delay. The Ethernet jacks they had in stock are now considered faulty, so the team has to hunt down and order a large quantity of the "correct" Ethernet jacks as quickly as possible. Element 14/Premier Farnell and RS Components are reportedly working hard to help the team gather the correct components and get the Raspberry Pi boards out fast.
"We are very, very sorry," the team writes. "We know you want your Raspberry Pi as soon as possible (and many of you are being inhumanly patient, having followed us since we launched this website eight months ago). We’ll keep you updated with how manufacture is moving."
The $35 Raspberry Pi "Model B" is board of choice to ship out to consumers first. It contains two USB ports, 256 MB of RAM, an Ethernet port and a 700 MHz Broadcom BCM2835 SoC. The Videocore 4 GPU within the SoC is roughly the equivalent to the original Xbox's level of performance, providing Open GL ES 2.0, hardware-accelerated OpenVG, and 1080p30 H.264 high-profile decode.
... holy crap seriously?
as Sony as found out with the ps3 (at least at launch) and with the vita
POWER ISNT AS IMPORTANT AS USAGE
seriously, wii sales are much bigger than the ps3 despite the ps3 being quite a bit more powerful than the wii.
... holy crap seriously?
as Sony as found out with the ps3 (at least at launch) and with the vita
POWER ISNT AS IMPORTANT AS USAGE
seriously, wii sales are much bigger than the ps3 despite the ps3 being quite a bit more powerful than the wii.
So around the level of a Geforce 3, for people who want a simpler hardware comparison. Not bad for something so small.
the wii has twice the power of the xbox, at least from what i understand.
you also have to take into account 5 years of advancement, and the fact that right now, i cant find a wii online for about 100~$ new.
most of its games are shovelware... i will admit that, but the truely good games on the wii are better than a majority of 360 or ps3 games, granted you have to like that style to begin with.
there is a certain graphical fidelity that is a requirement, more now than when the wii came out though... but nintendo and sony realized something big.
the wii could barely get a core game outside of first party to sell at all
the ps3 while looking nice, cant get everyone just by graphics.
the wiiu will hopefully be a success because a touch screen on a controller is an idea i had for a while... granted not a full tablet like the wiiu but a touch screen like i pod touch... the idea came from the game.com (o yea i had one) and dreamcast controller, as i think thats the best way for casual and core to mix. motion isnt here yet, and no mater what kinect does, it just isnt a game changer.
they sold the 360 and ps3 at 150-250$ loss innitialy, meaning that they have to sell about 13-22 to break even on the hardware sale... i dont know about you, but i know i haven't bought more than 10 games new per console and i bought them at launch...
the wii from day 1, turned a profit, every game sold gets them between 7 and 12$, over all i think that the wii was more profitable... considering that first party games sell like you cant imagine, and that all goes to nintendo.
Doesn't that make the boards 'refurbished' and they should be sold at a discount ?
Just kidddding :-)
Glad the caught it in time and take care of it.
Can't wait to get my hands on mine...
Linux *was* a good buying factor. Sorry, I have a bit of 'sour grapes', but I'm looking forward to the Raspberry Pi. ; )
Yay, for slowing the progression of gaming and graphics. My hat is off to the cheapskates who cannot afford a gaming rig, yet pay a premium for their bought games ($60).
I look forward to the excuses and things like "Oh, not everyone can afford $1000 upfront, one time, and another $200 every few years". My counter argument to that, is: Not everyone can afford to pay $300 for a shit console, every 6 years. Let's cater to the homeless, yeah?
Can imagine someone putting like 20 of these things inside an atx case. Seriously thinking about just saving up a few hundred and buying a handful of these. We sell used monitors at my work for like $20.00 - $30.00, i'd have no problem modding them into AIO computers, or turning our t.v.s into smart t.v.s.
Nintendo Wii's selling point was not the hardware but the innovative motion control that the Big Boys have copied.
As for the Raspberry, I applaud the developers to offer a great piece of hardware for learning purposes as well as other uses for a very reasonable price!