Cortex A15 Dual/Quad 1.2ghz+ Raspberry Pi 2 PLEASE!

[hajj_3]

Now that raspberry pi is out of the door and just the mass manufacturing of the cases left to happen what specs will the foundation be using for the next rpi?

Cortex A15 is the logical choice seeing as though it is much faster than previous versions.

I'm sure we'd all love a new version with dual/quad 1.2ghz+ cortex a15 with 2gb ddr3 and 32/64gb or so nand flash soldered on the board. This would then be a usable pc. You can't surf video streaming websites well with 256mb of ram that the rpi has. VGA support would be a nice addition too, maybe even a usb3 port.

I'm sure there are a lot of us willing to spend £45 on a rpi2.

[ghans]

The RPi isn't only cheap because the components were so cheap.
It's mainly because the devs didn`t took money for the design and didn't spend much on PR. (At least 1000 unpaid man-hours)
Those are definitely the more expensive things on the list of a profit-oriented company.

IMHO, as a charity , i hope very much that they see the stupidity in introducing artificial obsolescence by creating a new model every three months.

The things you propose aren't that cheap . Have a look at the BeagleBoard to see what i mean.

ghans

[Lob0426]

You are basically talking about a Panda Board. It does not run videos well either. This is because the browsers for ARM are not supporting hardware acceleration. The Panda Board ($187 ES) will play the videos ok with chromium browser.

ARM is just not supported well yet as a platform. This will change with all of the inexpensive devices coming out.

[plugwash]

Now that raspberry pi is out of the door and just the mass manufacturing of the cases left to happen

No there is a lot more to happen, the camera module, the display module, the preperation of documentation and teaching materials.

Furthermore introducing a higher spec Pi2 at this stage would fragment the userbase which would run counter to the foundation's misson.

[williamhbell]

The distributors are still catching up with the orders placed on the 29th of February. Perhaps there might be a model A in September or October, but this might become backlogged too.

Other than the additional boards and teaching materials plugwash mentions, there is a lot of work to do on the software side. Finally, designing a board to take a new chipset would take a large number of hours. We would do well to help to bring the Model B(/A) close to the original objectives first.

The mass production of injection molded cases is already underway,
https://www.modmypi.com/shop/raspberry-pi-cases

[Lob0426]

The Model "A" is the one that the foundation intends for school use. The Model "B" is more for the developers and hardware hacks. I personally think the schools will buy more of the B's. Now that they have met their $25 price for kids, I hope that by next year they may put some effort into a higher spec model for higher and advanced education. But these RasPi have really been a full time job for them, besides their real life full time jobs. I would expect them to take a break in there someplace.

[reiuyi]

Eben Upton mentions in several videos that software engineers (especially when they are not paid) and hobbyists are more motivated to develop software and games when a platform remains stable for a very long time (that is, months to years in electronic terms).

Would you spend 1000 hours developing software for a device that will become obsolete in 1 year? You wouldn't, and neither would anyone else. It is a good thing if the raspberry pi is a stable (non-fragmented) uniform platform that shares specifications across millions of devices for several years. People will invest their time, knowing that their efforts are relevant for many more years to come. We as consumers have become addicted to "the next big thing", not realizing how much you can still do with the resources that you have. Short product iteration time is relevant for companies that are in business for profit, not so for the customers.

Anyway, the purpose of the raspberry pi is to educate. Most parts of education up until university don't require constant innovation. My TI-83 from 1996 (16 years old!) served me perfectly through secondary school. So, as soon as Word-processing, spreadsheet, programming and other software has been developed for raspi, it may as well serve for decades before IT has progressed far enough for the python programming language to become obsolete. Really, I don't expect python to become obsolete any time soon ! Enjoy your raspberry pi and it'll serve you for several years!

[obarthelemy]

@OP: Sure. Please come back as soon as you've exhausted the hardware and software development learning you can do on the Pi. That's what the Pi is for.

[Vindicator]

Please just think of what you are asking.
1. Six years of no free time and expending the good will of every one around you that has anything to do with technology.
2. They have probably used up all their ata boys with their employers.
3 Hocked their homes to get the initial run of finished boards and who knows what to create the alpha and beta versions.
4. And most likely have cut into their retirements some to get this far this fast.
5. All with out any pay other than serving the cause they have chosen to pursue.
6. So I ask you to put a dollar tag on that and invest that amount towards a new Raspi 2 and I would not be surprised if they still turned you down.(unless the amount you donated was just outrageously absurd for them to actually take on the project)

[jamesh]

I think the a of the spec of the OP's request would cost more than £45. Although if it ran Linux it would be fully backwards compatible (and mostly forwards as well). Just faster with more memory, so the obsolescence argument isn't that valid.

[ghans]

IMHO when you release a new board with more RAM and a faster CPU , devs wil utilise the additional horsepower immediatly. Like Android apps that simply don't work because your device is "too old".
They will drop support for the old model because its easier to provide support for the new (less restrictions and workarounds to manage ) and their apps look "cooler" on the faster device.

I don't want to hear "Why don't you upgrade ?" every two years again.


ghans

[jamesh]

I disagree. Although devs can/will take advantage of more RAM or speed (which is less relevant with swap than in the BBC micro days where you simply couldn't run Model B software on a Model A), the main purpose of the device, to teach, remains the same. Python runs, C runs etc.

And of course, as an upgrade path, $35 every two years isn't a big stretch. You could re-equip a computer lab of 30 Raspi's for <=$1000 - the cost of one or two normal PC's.

[reiuyi]

I do actually agree with ghans. Sortware support for older hardware diminishes when the "next big thing" has been released with better or faster specifications. Having several active hardware releases fragments the market and frustrates developers. Have a chat with anyone that has created an Android application, and you'll learn how terrible it really is to support specialized functions across multiple devices. One of the things I often hear is the deep-rooted problem of sound in Android. A while back, it was announced that Apple is actually dropping support for their new OSX 10.8 ("Mountain Lion") for -older- macbooks.

The thing I'd like to bring forth with these examples is that having a limited number of stable hardware releases will make it easier to offer support and it'll be more appealing to write complicated software. Especially considering GPIOs, it's possible that future releases are in fact not entirely backwards compatible. For teaching purposes, python, perl, C, JAVA and any other scripting language will of course remain the same. I'd just like to emphasize that the raspi is being used for numerous hardware projects. The front-page is filled with hardware projects. Communities love a stable environment in which they can blossom.