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More Pi just around the corner

I apologise for writing yet another column about the Raspberry Pi and single-board computers (SBCs) of its ilk but they do represent a new wave of interest within the ranks of electronics and computer enthusiasts.

Apparently the first "official" arrival of a Pi occurred during the past week or so and some others have been advised that they can now place their orders for fulfillment in around a month or so.

More interestingly, as was hinted by my last column on the subject, it seems that a growing number of competitors for the Pi are already coming out of the woodwork.

As I noted the last time, these competitors aren't simply straight rip-off clones, they're bigger, better, stronger, faster and marginally more expensive than the Pi.

Gone are the days when competing with a hot product (like the Apple II or IBM-PC) simply meant making a direct copy at a lower price.

The most recent announcement in the pi-fest of new offerings is the APC from VIA.

For the princely sum of $49, you get pretty much the same functionality as the Raspberry Pi -- but with more RAM and I/O as standard.

Like the Pi, it's based on an ARM processor and comes as a board -- no case is provided.

It looks to be a little bigger than the Pi, which may make it less suitable for some projects and it runs the Android mobile operating system -- albeit one that's been "tweaked" for better ergonomics when using a keyboard and mouse rather than a touch-screen.

I strongly suspect we'll soon see even more of these Pi-like SBCs being rolled out by a whole list of vendors, all eager to cash in on the massive demand for the Pi itself. Whether many will still be on sale in a year's time remains to be seen but ongoing availability is something to be considered by anyone contemplating using them for a commercial project.

I tend to think that most people will hang around and wait for a genuine Pi, in much the same way that most people opted to buy a genuine Apple II rather than a "Pine-Apple" or the dozens of other knock-offs that surfaced.

Now that we have the internet (something that wasn't around in the Apple and IBM-PC days, it will be very interesting to see just how the Pi/Pi-like community grows.

I recall back in the days of the first microcomputers -- at least once CP/M came along, crude BBSes using 300bps acoustically coupled modems were an amazing aid to creativity and the sharing of knowledge. Multiply that by three or four orders of magnitude and you've got the Net -- woohoo!

I expect big things of the Pi community and these little SBCs.

Now if they could only get mine to me before I succumb to the effects of old-age.

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