back to article Raspberry Pi grows the pie with new deal allowing custom recipes

The Raspberry Pi Foundation has decided the time is right to allow custom versions of its creation. Electronics retail and design outfit Element 14 has scored the gig as the sole, for now, official Pi customisation house. Under the deal, Element 14 will happily design and build custom Raspberry Pis that change the computer's …

  1. Your alien overlord - fear me

    So I can't just phone them up for a custom job just for me then? Pity.

  2. cbars Bronze badge

    So I can choose the exact makeup of my Pi?

    Apple, please

    1. Afernie
      Coat

      Re: So I can choose the exact makeup of my Pi?

      I'm afraid you can only order a minimum of 6 of that particular version. Still, they do each come with a stylish silver case:

      1. cbars Bronze badge

        Re: So I can choose the exact makeup of my Pi?

        Hmm... Apparently I needed the joke icon. I like pie. I own zero Cupertino products.

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Can I get the followings please?

    Quad-core 1.5 GHz Cortex-A53 & Quad-core 2.1 GHz Cortex-A57

    3 GB RAM

    Built in networking GSM / HSPA / LTE / Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac / Bluetooth v4.1, A2DP, LE, apt-X

    Accelerometer, gyro, proximity, compass, barometer, heart rate, SpO2

    with Super AMOLED capacitive touchscreen, 16M colors and fingerprint sensor.

    etc... etc...

    A f*cking removable battery and micro sd card slot is a must.

    is that how this works or am I being optimistic?

    EDIT: Sarcasm aside I love the Pi and can't wait to surprise my kids with my home made scary pumpkin.

    1. Tascam Holiday
      Joke

      Re: Raspberry Pi grows the pie with new deal allowing custom recipes

      That'll be the Raspberry i - the imaginary Raspberry Pi

  4. choleric

    But what will they be called?

    The Raspberry G - for heavyweight applications

    The Raspberry c - for systems designed to be embedded in experimental sheep traveling at high speed in a vacuum

    The Raspberry Planck - with a quantum coprocessor on board

    The Raspberry e - a cut down version of the Pi orders of magnitude faster

    1. Simon Harris

      Re: But what will they be called?

      The Raspberry loge(-1) for more complex systems.

  5. Will Godfrey Silver badge
    Happy

    Careful!

    Just don't get the American Pi. It only has three connectors, and one of those is a direct feed to the NSA.

    1. Dr. Mouse
      Joke

      Re: Careful!

      Not the first thing that came to mind for "American Pi"... What would one of the ports be for?

      1. hplasm
        Coat

        Re: Careful!

        "What would one of the ports be for?"

        A moisture sensor to keep an eye on the levee...

        - saves a drive, and Chevys drink gas.

      2. John Bailey

        Re: Careful!

        "Not the first thing that came to mind for "American Pi"... What would one of the ports be for?"

        Band camp use only.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Careful!

      The American Pi has a direct feed to a levee.

      Unfortunately, the levee is dry.

    3. captain veg Silver badge

      Re: Careful!

      I miss American Pi.

      -A.

  6. jzl

    Charity

    Isn't the Raspberry Pi Foundation supposed to be an educational charity? This seems to be some way from their original remit.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      WTF?

      Re: Charity

      You do know charities are supposed to raise funds for themselves?

      Sales are a perfectly legitimate way of raising funds.

      So again, what's the issue?

    2. John Bailey

      Re: Charity

      "Isn't the Raspberry Pi Foundation supposed to be an educational charity?"

      Yep.

      "This seems to be some way from their original remit."

      Indeed it does..

      Which is probably why they are not doing this.

      Element 14 are.

      1. James Hughes 1

        Re: Charity

        Covered in Eben's interview with Rory CJ.

        But in précis, Raspberry Pi trading is a fully owned subsidiary of the Raspberry Foundation, and as a charity, all profits go back in to the charity. It' where the Foundation get all the money for educational outreach they do, which is quite a lot, as well as support for OSS, teacher training etc.

  7. Haku
    Coat

    A jukebox version would be nice.

    They could call it the Raspberry Brillianty Energized Resounding Euphoric Tuneifyer.

    Or Raspberry Beret for short.

    1. allthecoolshortnamesweretaken

      Re: A jukebox version would be nice.

      The device formerly known as Raspberry...

      I can't help it, every time I hear 'raspberry' I think of this

  8. Tromos

    I'd only want 2, maybe 3, so can't make use of this service, but I suspect that what I'd like would sell many times the minimum quantity. Simply this - get all the connections on just one side. Doesn't matter if it is a little larger, the effective 'footprint' of the device will be smaller if USB, HDMI, power, etc. didn't all come out of different sides.

    1. werdsmith Silver badge

      But that one side would be longer. You would be making a trapezium shaped Pi.

      If they would do an updated version of their Compute Module with the V2 CPU and RAM then you would have all of that, just need to add an IO interface.

    2. thames

      A bigger board would be more expensive because even empty board space costs money. The designer put a lot of effort into minimising cost. Re-arranging the entire board would probably be a lot more work than the sort of customisation they are talking about.

      1. Dadmin
        WTF?

        Agreed! The pi is good as is, if you need less connectors hanging about, go get a Gumstix and be prepared to pay $200 a pop for them. Holy crap, this is the nicest system I've ever gathered together in a home cluster and I can't believe some of the petty complaints from what should be well knowledgeable people in the IT industry that can sort out all sorts of issues, hardware or otherwise. It's a HOBBY COMPUTER, idiots! Stop trying to shoehorn bullshit specs into a beautifully crafted and designed system. Actually, go out and build one of your own from the board up and then come back and try and sell it to us. Sounds like a good idea to me.

        Simply put, no one will accept this challenge and those who do are the sort to cobble together crap and call it ice cream and it'll be over $100 for the base system. Good luck, I'll keep my Raspberry Pi as is and as cheap. It does the job and then some.

  9. Spoobistle

    More versions

    One that aspiring musicians could play along to:

    The Raspberry Jam

    One that emitted a piercing noise on detecting nearby Apple devices:

    The Raspberry iScream

    One that monitored restaurant waiting staff overloads:

    The Raspberry TrayFull

    One that alerted you to toothed cutting devices on auction sites:

    The Raspberry SawBay

    ...I think it's lunch time now.

    1. Ugotta B. Kiddingme

      Re: More versions

      One that alerted you when available buxom lasses were in the vicinity

      The Raspberry Tart

  10. noboard

    crowdfunding

    Wouldn't kickstarter or similar be a good place to go with a potential design? Design the spec, get a price from Element14, start fundraiser on crowfunding site, if enough people want the design it gets made and everyone's happy.

    Thinking about it this may be something Element14 should look at themselves so one person isn't trying to post out 3k - 6k pi's

  11. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    PoE

    PoE please!

    1. future research

      Re: PoE

      https://www.pi-supply.com/product/pi-poe-switch-hat-power-over-ethernet-for-raspberry-pi/

  12. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    You know what I would like to see and I know others are doing similar systems but a modular Pi with different options for connectors and ability to upgrade. Like sata/mSata/micro dimm/bayonet bulb

  13. 45RPM Silver badge

    Please may I have a Mini ITX Pi, and two SATA connectors onboard. That would make a sweet homebuild RISC PC.

    1. thames

      Someone did a Mini-ITX adaptor board for the Raspberry Pi a couple of years ago. You bolt a Raspberry PI Model B onto it and plug it into the adaptor board, which also has a few additional peripherals integrated into it. There's also room to attach a 2.5" HDD.

      Since the Raspberry PI is a fraction of the size of a Mini-ITX board, the PI only takes up a corner of the Mini-ITX board.

      I've got a Mini-ITX, but to be honest when you look at the cost of Mini-ITX versus a Raspberry PI, I have to wonder how much longer the Mini-ITX (or Nano-ITX) will be around.

      1. Will Godfrey Silver badge
        Happy

        There is also a Pi based RISC OS laptop. I saw one running at the London RISC OS Show last Saturday - quite impressive.

      2. Ogi

        I think Mini-ITX will be around for a long as it provides all the I/O connectors it does, without having everything go through USB.

        I tried replacing some of my mini-itx systems with rasbPi's, but it didn't work out (specifically the file server. The early Pi just didn't have the grunt, the newer one does, but the USB kept conking out, giving out I/O errors once in a while, and the wifi card goes AWOL as well).

        Media centre didn't work out either, as indexing all my music and videos would cause it to run out of RAM (but I have not tried the newer one, perhaps that will have the power), but for small light services, management of other computers, X terminals/display PC's, really really useful little things.

        Not to mention RGB LED controllers (with presence sensing based on bluetooth address, so depending on who enters the room it sets their lighting preferences), and a lot of embedded stuff where a uC would be too fiddly or too restrictive to set up. A lovely little machine really, and a big thanks to the Pi Foundation for making it happen :-)

        I personally find the two systems complimentary, and will probably continue to use them both in tamdem going forward :)

  14. Christian Berger

    Put it into a "Nokia Communicator" case

    Complete with a wide screen LCD and a standard battery, as well as a "dumb phone" in the lid, so the Raspberry Pi can be in "suspend to RAM" when the case is closed.

POST COMMENT House rules

Not a member of The Register? Create a new account here.

  • Enter your comment

  • Add an icon

Anonymous cowards cannot choose their icon

Other stories you might like