Two Stop Bits | Thinking more about this overnight. My thoughts converged on the loved/maligned ...

bmonkey325 298 days ago | parent

Thinking more about this overnight. My thoughts converged on the loved/maligned Raspberry Pi. It may not be a repairable device but simply a numbers game based production runs. 40 million units. A hobbyist/maker community adapting it to so many applications. C 64 sold 17 million, Apple II series 6 million and Atari 8bit was 3 million.

zxm 298 days ago
even if every pi disappeared overnight there are a dozen clones you could drop in as a replacement the day after. in 10-20 years time. you'll be able to find something that can run emulate the os or computer you want.
- bmonkey325 298 days ago
  Are there though? I’d call those other boards a pi-like but their software stacks are often abandoned shortly after they ship. Unlike the offline by default of the 8-bit era these are going to need updates and support in an ever hostile world - just my thoughts on the subject.
  Random : anyone else posting from mobile get their posts duplicated ?
  - zxm 298 days ago
    there are some shoddy clones out there that are abandoned a few months after launch and never get the patches they need. but there are respectable alternatives too. https://www.zdnet.com/article/best-raspberry-pi-alternative/
    - bmonkey325 297 days ago
      Fair enough. Lot of quality SBC boards in that lot. I bought a lot of junk during the dark times when Pi 4 was scarce. Now that Pi4 and Pi5 are ramping up production and available again its hard to choose a less mainstream board. My uncle sent me an N100 board to play with. FAST AF, but man howdy do I feel like it has a shelf life in years at best.