RaspberryPiBoard

This page collects information about Raspberry Pi Foundation's ultra-low-cost (~15UKP or 25USD) Linux computer for teaching computer programming to children.

The Raspberry Pi Foundation is a UK registered charity (Registration Number 1129409) which exists to promote the study of computer science and related topics, especially at school level, and to put the fun back into learning computing. We expect this computer to have many other applications both in the developed and the developing world.

Please note that the Raspberry Pi isn't released yet - this page is a community work in progress in preperation for the launch

 NEWS: =Events=
 * Want to stay informed? Announcements mailing list now active - sign up on the home page
 * Alpha boards are now in manufacture

Raspberry Pi Staff will be attending the following events:


 * Transfer Summit, Oxford - 7-8 September
 * Maker Faire, New York, 17 September

The following are general-interest industry events and are not an indication that Raspberry Pi will be attending, exhibiting or speaking at the event. For Raspberry Pi event and speaker schedule, please contact press@raspberrypi.org.


 * Over the Air 2011: September 30th & October 1st, Bletchley Park, UK
 * Computer Science Education Week: 4th-10th December 2011, USA
 * Linuxcon Brazil, November 2011, Brazil

=Provisional specification= The first product is about the size of a credit card, and is designed to plug into a TV or be combined with a touch screen for a low cost tablet. The expected price is $25 for a fully-configured system.


 * 700MHz Broadcom media processor featuring an ARM11 (ARM1176JZF-S) core, Broadcom GPU core, DSP core and support for Package-on-Package (PoP) RAM
 * 128MiB (Model A) or 256MiB of SDRAM (Model B), stacked on top of the CPU as a PoP device
 * OpenGL ES 2.0
 * 1080p30 H.264 high-profile decode
 * Composite and HDMI video output
 * One USB 2.0 port provided by the BCM2835
 * SD/MMC/SDIO memory card slot
 * General-purpose I/O (About 16 3v3) and various other interfaces, brought out to 1.27mm pin-strip
 * Optional integrated 2-port USB hub and 10/100 Ethernet controller (Model B)
 * Open software (Iceweasel, KOffice, Python)
 * Capability to support various expansion boards

=Availability=

Estimated availability (as of 1st August 2011) is end of November 2011. Initially, there will be shipping from the UK and possibly the US, but will probably expand with local distributors by the second quarter of 2012.

=Beginners guide=

You just got your new Raspberry Pi device, and now? See beginners guides.

=Accessories & Peripherals= Main article: RaspberryPiBoardVerifiedPeripherals

Case
A protective case is an often-cited required accessory. Cases are likely to be offered both directly from Raspberry Pi and from 3rd party companies such as Special Computing.

Power Adapters
Provisional information is that the boards will feature a Coax-style DC Jack connector accepting 6-20v (or possibly 5-16v)

Expansion boards
It is likely that expansion boards will be offered both by Raspberry Pi Foundation and by 3rd parties.

HDMI to VGA Adaptor
The Broadcom BCM2835 only provides HDMI output and composite output. It does not provide RGB or the other signals needed to by RGB, S-VIDEO or VGA connectors so additional componenty would be needed to generate these signals. Additional componentry would push the price beyond the $25 target and therefore won't happen.

A couple of options for VGA or component RGB outputs, bridging from either HDMI or the MIPI DSI interface:

Firstly, the following *might* work. Beagleboard people have reported various levels of success (mainly "issues"):

http://www.hdfury.com/

Something similar:

http://www.fit-pc.com/web/fit-pc2/accessories/fit-vga/

...it may need to be modified as described here:

http://blog.galemin.com/2011/03/dvi-d-to-vga-converter-for-beagleboard-xm/

Alternatively, it may be possible to design an expansion board that plugs into the LCD headers on the R.Pi. Here is something similar for Beagleboard:

http://boardzoo.com/product_info12.php

The following infos might be of some help: HDMI-Pinout and DVI-Pinout, but I personally doubt that you can convert it to (analogue) VGA without active components.

=Hardware Details= The first product is about the size of a credit card, and is designed to plug into a TV or be combined with a touch screen accessory for a low cost tablet. The product will be available in two configurations: Model A and Model B. The expected price is $25 for a fully-configured Model-A system and around $35 for a Model B.

Components
(PCB IDs are those of the Model B Alpha board)


 * SoC: Broadcom BCM2835 media processor system-on-chip featuring:
 * CPU core: ARM1176JZF-S ARM11 core clocked at 700MHz; ARM VFP.
 * GPU core: a Broadcom VideoCore GPU providing OpenGL ES 1.1, OpenGL ES 2.0, hardware-accelerated OpenVG 1.1, Open EGL, OpenMAX and 1080p30 H.264 high-profile decode. There are 24 GFLOPS of general purpose compute and a bunch of texture filtering and DMA infrastructure.  Eben worked on the architecture team for this and the Raspberry Pi team are looking at how they can make some of the proprietary features available to application programmers
 * DSP core: There is a DSP, but there isn't currently a public API (Liz thinks the BC team are keen to make one available at some point)
 * RAM: 128MiB (Model A) or 256MiB (Model B) of SDRAM. The RAM is physically stacked on top of the Broadcom media processor (package-on-package technology)
 * J1: DC Jack (6-20v input provisionally)
 * J2: UART serial console (debug)
 * J3: SD/MMC/SDIO memory card slot (underside)
 * J4: HDMI connector providing HDMI 1.3a out
 * J5 or J9: GPU JTAG (ARM11 pinout; no-fit on production boards)
 * J6: Audio connector: 3.5mm stereo jack
 * J7: Composite Video connector: RCA
 * J8: Either 1x USB 2.0 (Model A) or LAN9512 (Data Brief | Data Sheet) providing 10/100Mb Ethernet and 2x USB 2.0 (J10: Model B)
 * J10: 10/100Mb RJ45 Ethernet jack
 * J11, J14: 1.27mm header providing ~16 GPIOs at 3v3, I2C and SPI interfaces and ARM JTAG.
 * J12: 1.27mm header providing DSI interface
 * J13: 1.27mm header providing MIPI CSI-2 interface


 * Board size: Credit-card or smaller.
 * Weight: <40g? (Alpha board weighs ~55g )
 * Currently 6 layer PCB; target: 4 layer

Manual
Documentation will presumably be available when the product is release (current target ~November 2011)

Schematic / Layout

 * PCB mask
 * Prototype1 board

Clocking

 * Provisional main CPU clock speed is 700MHz
 * No data currently released on the GPU or other component clock speeds

Power management

 * Target power consumption is <1W (This is for the A version, no power consumed from the USB plug.)

Preliminary Alpha board power usage measurements. This is with graphics output on the HDMI port, no power from USB plugs.
 * Input 7.5V, ~180mA Linux running only with prompt.
 * Input 7.5V, ~300mA heavy graphics running on system.

Display Output Options
Standard video outputs include:
 * Composite video (NTSC and PAL) via an RCA plug. 3.5mm stereo jack for audio.
 * HDMI 1.3a standard output.

These would allow any kind of TV to be used. Computer monitors using DVI-D would also be supported with a simple HDMI-DVI cable.

VGA monitors would require either a composite or HDMI to VGA scan converter box. The SOC does not support any kind of analog component video, including VGA, since the SOC is designed for mobile phone use where this would not be a requirements.

DLP Pico projector
The boards have both Composite and HDMI outputs so should interface with a range of DLP and laser based Pico projectors on the market.

Interfacing to Raw LCD Panels
No data currently available.

If the touchscreen interface talks via USB, they choose Linux as an OS, and there's Linux support for the touchscreen, the answer would be "yes".

General Purpose Input/Output (GPIO), I2C, I2S, SPI
There are approximately 16 spare GPIOs, which are brought out to 1.27mm pin-strip. Voltage levels are 3v3. The connector choice is deliberately annoying to connect to directly; there is no over-voltage protection on the board so the intention is that people interested in serious interfacing will use an external board with buffers, level conversion and analog I/O rather than soldering directly onto the main board.

We also bring 2x I2C (3v3), I2S and an SPI (3v3) interface out to the same connector. We support one slave interface for I2C and one for SPI.

MIPI CSI-2 & DSI
We also bring out MIPI CSI-2 & DSI interfaces to a 1.27 mm pinstrip.

CEC
HDMI-CEC is supported by hardware but some driver work will be needed and currently isn't exposed into Linux userland.

Eben notes that he has seen CEC demos on the Broadcom SoC they are using.

=BootRom=

The boards do not include NAND or NOR storage - everything is on the SD card, which has a FAT32 partition with GPU firmware and a kernel image, and an EXT2 partition with the rootfs.

We're not currently using a bootloader - we actually boot via the GPU, which contains a proprietary RISC core (wacky architecture ;). The GPU mounts the SD card, loads GPU firmware and brings up display/video/3d, loads a kernel image, resets the SD card host and starts the ARM.

You could replace the kernel image with a bootloader image, and that would work fine.

=Code=

Code and binaries for Raspberry Pi will be available at various places from launch, including pre-built Linux distributions.

Source
=Compiler=

The Broadcom processor on Raspberry Pi contains an ARM v6 general purpose processor and a Broadcom VideoCore IV GPU. No data is currently available on other cores (if any) available in the BCM2835.

ARM
There is broad compiler support including gcc - please see ARM Compilers

The ARM is capable of around 500 BOGOMIPS, 5400 LINPACK KFLOPS with software floating point and 22000 KFLOPS with softfp hardware floating point.

GPU
The GPU provides APIs for Open GL ES 2.0, hardware-accelerated OpenVG, and 1080p30 H.264 high-profile decode.

The GPU is capable of 1Gpixel/s, 1.5Gtexel/s or 24 GFLOPs of general purpose compute and features a bunch of texture filtering and DMA infrastructure - the Raspberry Pi team are looking at how they can make this available to application programmers.

The GPU blob is an 18MB as an elf file, plus libraries. It does an awful lot.

DSP
There is a DSP, but there isn't currently a public API (Liz thinks the BC team are keen to make one available at some point).

=Development environments=

Main page: RaspberryPiBoardDistributions

Instead of just using compiler + editor, you can use complete image create "development tool chains" which integrate compiler, build system, packaging tools etc. in one tool chain.

Ubuntu is currently listed as the default distribution on the Raspberry Pi website, but the Ubuntu developers have now stated they will not be supporting the ARMv6 architecture, so Ubuntu is likely to be dropped.

Eben says (regarding default distribution): "Either Ubuntu or Fedora; the main point in Fedora’s favour is their ongoing support for ARMv6 architectures."

=Other software=

Flash
From Eben: "We'll have to take a look. We support hardware-accelerated OpenVG, and have had Flash Lite running incredibly fast. Personally, I'd like to get the official hardware-accelerated Flash 10 going on there, running against OpenGL ES 2.0, but that's something to think about after the launch."

=Software hints=

This section collects hints, tips & tricks for various software components.

=Graphics accelerator=

The GPU is a Broadcom VideoCore IV.

=Performance=

Performance Page

=FAQ=


 * For Raspberry Pi frequently asked questions (FAQ) see FAQ.
 * Raspberry Pi Forum FAQ: Forum FAQ

=News articles and blog posts about Raspberry Pi=

Articles

 * http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2011/aug/28/ict-changes-needed-national-curriculum?CMP=twt_gu - RaspberryPi background and interview with Eben. (Aug 28 2011)
 * http://journaltec.com/2011/08/04/raspberry-pi-interview-with-eben-upton.html - Email interview with Eben. (Aug 4 2011)
 * http://www.next-gen.biz/features/david-braben-raspberry-pi - David talks pi and computer education in the UK. (Aug 3 2011)
 * http://www.cabume.co.uk/hardware/cambridges-fifteen-quid-computer-set-for-q4-launch.html - Cambridge Business Media is chuffed that, among other things, we're based in Cambridge. (3 Aug 2011)
 * http://amplecan.com/archives/762 - Blog post from TheSynapseUK, who posts on the Raspberry Pi boards. This is particularly good on some of the stumbling blocks we have to overcome in schools beyond the curriculum, like all those ICT teachers who don't have any programming experience. (2 Aug 2011)
 * http://www.exanders.fr/raspberry-pi-lordinateur-a-17-euros-en-bonne-voie-de-concretisation/ - French article on the how far we've come on the project. (1 Aug 2011)
 * http://www.pvsm.ru/article/63919 - Russian article about the Raspi. I am charmed to discover that Google Translate says the English for the Russian version of Braben is Brabo. I think we should adopt Brabo as David's superhero name. (31 July 2011)
 * http://orvtech.com/general/raspberry-pi-servidor-casero-alpha/ - Piece in Spanish about the project and the board going alpha. Note shiny US quarter photoshopped over the official 20p piece photo! (30 July 2011)
 * http://www.greentablet.info/gadget-25-raspberry-minicomputer-now-in-alpha-production-stage.html - Another short news piece about the board going alpha. (30 July 2011)
 * Slashdot: Raspberry Pi $25 PC Goes Into Alpha Production (29 July 2011)
 * Geek.com: Raspberry Pi $25 PC goes into alpha production (28 July 2011)
 * HuffPost UK: Why Doesn't The UK Have Its Own Apple Inc? - article on the state of the UK computer industry, which interviews Eben and includes some uplifting material on Raspi. (28 July 2011)
 * Christian Science Monitor: Raspberry Pi: Rise of the $25 computer - David talks to the Christian Science Monitor about the educational implications of the project. (12 July 2011)
 * http://micromath.wordpress.com/2011/06/04/digital-illiteracy-and-raspberry-pi/ - Mathematics under the Microscope, a great maths teaching blog, on Raspi. There's an interesting follow-up post too - and if you have an interest in education, especially in the sciences, the whole blog is well worth your time. (4 June 2011)
 * http://www.linuxjournal.com/content/raspberry-pi-tiny-computer-runs-linux - Linux Journal is, perhaps not surprisingly, very pleased that the Raspi will be running Linux. (31 May 2011)
 * http://www.electronicsweekly.com/Articles/2011/05/26/51140/in-depth-raspberry-pi-the-computer-on-a-stick.htm - EW interviews Eben. (26 May 2011)
 * Computer World UK: As British as Raspberry Pi? (9 May 2011)
 * http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/2068735/uk-developer-creates-gbp15-kids - The Inquirer chats to David. (6 May 2011)
 * http://www.techeye.net/hardware/15-usb-pc-creator-david-braben-in-talks-with-government - TechEye talks to David (who talks a bit about his impressions of ICT teaching in the UK as well as about the device). (6 May 2011)
 * ARMDevices.net: $25 ARM Powered Desktop presented by Raspberry Pi Foundation (6 May 2011)

http://www.raspberrypi.org/wp-content/plugins/mingle-forum/feed.php?topic=70

Video

 * BBC iClick's Peter Price asks whether a £15 computer can solve the programming gap (6 minutes, 3 June 2011)
 * Raspberry Pi's David Braben talks to BBC's Rory Cellan-Jones (2:28 minutes, 5 May 2011)

Audio

 * Podcast of a phone interview with Eben about the project and the motivations behind it (15 minutes long.) (3 June 2011) Transcription here.

Photos

 * Press photos
 * PCB layout
 * Alpha prototype board, topside - Alpha prototypes are about 50% larger than the target credit-card size
 * Alpha prototype board, underside

Raspberry Pi wiki pages
 category = RaspberryPi 

Subpages


=Links=

Home page
raspberrypi.org (RaspberryPi home)
 * Using Google you can search raspberrypi.org (including Forum) using site:raspberrypi.org . The home page and forum each have their own search facilitiy also.

Contact and communication

 * Home page and blog
 * FAQ
 * Contact Raspberry Pi Foundation (info and press inquiries)
 * Twitter

Education & Training materials
Main page: RaspberryPiBoard/EducationalLinks


 * Hackety Hack
 * OpenSUSE Linux for Education (LiFE)
 * http://projectguts.org/

Programming
Raspberry Pi plans to support Python and C as primary teaching languages, but expect to have some sort of BASIC on there too. Perhaps even BBC BASIC or SuperBASIC depending on copyright issues.

Languages tested on Alpha board

 * Interp
 * Scala
 * Clojure
 * OCaml
 * gcc
 * g++
 * Python
 * Perl

Expected to work

 * Eclipse
 * Lazarus
 * (maybe) BoaConstructor
 * Anjuta for C/C++
 * Dev-C++
 * CodeBlocks
 * Lua
 * BBC BASIC
 * mdfs.net
 * ROOL wiki, forum threads: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5
 * Small Basic
 * Squeek implementation of Smalltalk
 * Processing

"See also: RaspberryPiBoard/EducationalLinks for education-friendly languages."

Graphical Programming

 * Gambas - possibly a good choice; easy like old visual basic
 * Scratch
 * Alice
 * Android App Inventor
 * Kodu
 * Star Logo

Robotics

 * Lego Mindstorms

Uncategorised

 * Sugar Learning Platform: An alternative to the Desktop metaphor of the GUI
 * Frink
 * GAViewer
 * GeoGebra
 * codecademy.com

See also Category:Education

Past events

 * Educating Programmers Summit - 25 August 2011

Compliancy
Products are RoHS and CE compliant. Please contact Raspberry Pi for details regarding WEEE in your country.

Shipping
Raspberry Pi will ship worldwide to the best of their ability (ie subject to UK export and local import laws).

Raspberry Pi devices will ship from the UK (and possibly US) and Raspberry Pi will be looking to sign up distribution partners in due course.

To have an idea of shipping cost why don't you look at the Royal Mail website: http://sg.royalmail.com/portal/rm/PriceFinder?catId=23500532&gear=pricingcalc&campaignid=pricefinder_redirect

Look for a package just bigger then 85mm x 55mm x 30mm, weight about 55 grams.

As an example: New Zealand, small package 100grams, air mail 5 days : £2.05

=Thanks=
 * The layout for this page is based on the excellent BeagleBoard page on this site.
 * Some of the text on this page has been adapted from contributions made by the contributors to the BeagleBoard page on this site.