Socket FM2 is (almost) there

[Jason1478963]

I looked at building a media PC for a while too. I ended up using one of the basement crunchers and added a 30 foot HDMI cable and used a Bluetooth keyboard to control it and VNC. I am now adding a 30 foot USB cable to connect a mouse and other useful devices near the TV. It makes a nice DVR with a network based tv tuner and windows 7 media center. It was cheaper then building a dedicated machine for me. It may also be worth looking into so you can crunch and keep the noise down

[Dirk Broer]

Considering that there are 400Watt fanless PSUs and SSDs, it should be possible to crunch with a AMD R-Series APU and hear -almost- nothing.
Combined with a passively cooled, low-profile HD 7670 it could be a real winner, both energy and noise wise.

[Jason1478963]

What is the deal with the RaspberryPI? Has anyone here tried or found interesting uses for them?

[NeoGen]

From what I remember reading about it that is a charity organization that makes some very cheap, and inexpensive tiny computers, little bigger than a credit card (but of course a bit thicker).
They have an ARM processor and something like 256Mb of RAM, run Linux and can be powered by AA batteries (or AC plug). By far NOT the most powerful thing out there but sufficient to plug to a monitor and have a very basic web browsing machine.
I think it's a great idea for underprivileged families and/or 3rd world countries where you don't have much access to technology, but I wouldn't be able to do anything with one myself.

[Dirk Broer]

If you want to crunch using ARM chips, this might be an option

[vaughan]

What is the deal with the RaspberryPI? Has anyone here tried or found interesting uses for them?

My son bought one but I don't think he's done anything with it yet. Full of ideas to use it as a system monitor but nothing usable at the moment.

[AMDave]

The key goal for the device is to get kids interested in coding ... like we used to for the Beeb micro etc. 25 years ago. (we still have one in working order)
This is happening even down to the primary school level.
Games appear to be a great driver if kids can write and change the code themselves.

Many other folks who have managed to grab one have already found that it works well as an XBMC media center, except for MPEG-2 (which is being fixed) and VC1 which is now available.
http://www.raspberrypi.org/

Clocks, autonomous speedboats, robot arms, night vision, pretty much anything you can dream up can be driven by the RaPI.
With a DC battery power source and because of its size and weight, designs are quite flexible.
Check out some of the YouTube videos.

I read the other day about a kid writing ASM code to get a mini LCD panel working.
That's pretty cool and is the perfect outcome for the goals of the RaspberryPI.
(I can't find the article again just now but if I come across it again I'll drop the reference in here)

[Jason1478963]

this is an interesting device with many people coming up with great ideas. one that I found interesting was the solar/energy monitoring. There was mention to putting this in a laptop where the motherboard has died. I'm not sure this is worth the time and effort it may take but it is an interesting idea. I like the idea of the media player as they could easily be added to the back of a TV.

[Dirk Broer]

You've probably seen this one already, where someone managed to put a RaspberryPI in a keyboard

[AMDave]

10 coolest uses for the Raspberry Pi
http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/eur...spberry-pi/505

Case mods
http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/8-inter...pi-case-ideas/

Security camera controller, Internet enabled power switch, rocrail controller, cluster, backup controller, +others
http://www.rpiforum.net/forum/forum/...rojects-ideas/

I haven't even read through the official community forums yet
http://www.raspberrypi.org/phpBB3/index.php

Summary of the ideas thread:
http://raspberrypihacks.com/raspberr...e-seen-so-far/

The Raspberry Pi latop you were talking about:
http://www.raspberrypi.org/phpBB3/vi...hp?f=63&t=6747