This week, Avram Piltch talks about some of the best and most unknown aspects of the Raspberry Pi computer. The Raspberry Pi entered the market 8 years ago, but with a different purpose than most might think. It was originally intended for Cambridge University, with a planned production of about 1000 units. Today, the brand has sold 31 million units - far more than the organization ever expected to produce.
In those 8 years, there have been at least 18 models made available, with at least one specially produced model. In those models, the RAM has gone from 256MB on the original 1B to an optional 4GB on the 4B. The processing power has also increased significantly, from a single-core 700MHz processor on the original to the quad-core 1.5GHz processor on the current model.
Somehow, even with all of the processing power enhancements over the years, the Raspberry Pi has technically gotten less expensive. The selling price has remained $35, but when you compare the value of the dollar in 2012 versus 2020, the original model would have sold for almost $40 in today's dollars. That means that we have gotten years worth of hardware enhancements for less relative dollars than the original.
While the Raspberry Pi can be found in tons of applications, from web servers to robotics, there is one truly unique location for one of the computers: space. There are two "Astro Pis," which are specially modified Raspberry Pi B+ models (first generation). The computers had to be modified to deal with the oddities of space and to survive onboard the International Space Station. The European Space Agency runs contests to allow school children to have their code run on these computers.
There's a lot more to know about the Raspberry Pi, which can be found in Avram's article at Tom's Hardware.
