Pyra and Raspberry Pi?

[directive0]

I think Pyra should go the iRobot route; just sell a version of the Pyra with no CPU board for hacking.

I'm sure somebody will get a Pi working on it in time.

No extra development costs, no extra tooling. Just take a cpu board out and put it back on the shelf.

 

[PokeParadox]

I think Pyra should go the iRobot route; just sell a version of the Pyra with no CPU board for hacking.

I'm sure somebody will get a Pi working on it in time.

No extra development costs, no extra tooling. Just take a cpu board out and put it back on the shelf.

The price would prohibitive at first but potentially could be used to slowly drive price down?

 

[FlapJack]

I think Pyra should go the iRobot route; just sell a version of the Pyra with no CPU board for hacking.

I'm sure somebody will get a Pi working on it in time.

No extra development costs, no extra tooling. Just take a cpu board out and put it back on the shelf.

Okay, That sounds interesting. Maybe ED can get the price down for that type of stripped-down setup and maybe a Ben Heck or some hacker can work it out to interface a Raspberry Pi into a Pyra case without too much trouble. Maybe we could help by identifying what space will be available internally without a board and how the cutouts would work for the Pi's particular ports.

I'm convinced that people want a portable Pi. They will pay a LOT, even though it has lesser performance than the Pyra.

Still, it's an engineering hurdle that this team probably doesn't need. They've done tremendous work and they need to sell some Pyras....and they will.

 

[CapcomSuicide]

The pi emulator scene is really taking off. There are lots of pi zero handheld projects getting attention, and I feel a Pyra case, sceeen, battery and controls that could interface to a Zero would widen the market segment that Ed is selling too.

Moving lots of Pyra Piis could finance the work on handheld design too.

Pii software has so many developers working on it, plus new hardware revisions that are backwards compatible.

I am quite sure a handheld kit will be provided soon enough. Perhaps Ed could use all the experience of making Pyra cases and cash in on that, instead of letting someone else do the same.

Maybe even licence it out to someone willing to do a crowdsourcing project.

 

[Letalis Sonus]

and I feel a Pyra case, sceeen, battery and controls that could interface to a Zero would widen the market segment that Ed is selling too.

Not this again...

Forget it, it isn't even possible to get the screen to work, it simply lacks the required interfaces. Face it: The peripherals of those Broadcomm SoCs are obsolete as hell.

 

[Grench]

The pi emulator scene is really taking off.

Any emulator developed for the pi could, potentially with minor modifications or a recompile, run MUCH faster on the Pyra - and have better screen, controls, etc...

From what I can gather, the development and production of the Pyra case, keyboard, controls, screen and components are roughly 75% of the Pyra's costs. The SoC is important, yes, but it is a relatively small proportion of the package.

The SoC in the pi simply does not have the capability of operating the total hardware in the Pyra design. The Pyra has an eMMC plus three SD card slot interfaces plus USB OTG 3.0 plus two USB 2.0 plus eSATA plus MPI video plus HDMI video out plus WiFi plus 4G plus Blutooth, plus more. Although each of those may be piggy backed onto a pi, the collection of ALL of them at the same time simply won't work - at least not at any realistic combined speed.

A hypothetical pi version of a Pyra would price roughly the same as the Pyra does, but not be nearly as good as the Pyra. The pi crowd would be far better off purchasing a Pyra for mobile use and then using the pi for static placement 'internet of things' uses.