On 25/06/19 7:36 AM, tim Rowledge wrote:
> Did anybody not see this? 
> https://www.raspberrypi.org/products/raspberry-pi-4-model-b/
> 
> It's made a bit of a splash today. I think it will make a pretty neat
> Squeak machine, especially for any sort of MC server setup etc. I'm
> anticipating about a doubling of performance over the 3B+ which would
> make for quite nice benchmarks. Dual 4K display capability should
> come in handy too.

I must confess I am more than a little disappointed with this RPi 4. It 
is now promoted as "your tiny, dual display, desktop computer" (!).  If 
it is a "desktop computer" where are the SATA [1] or PCIe/M.2 [2] 
interfaces? Instead, you get to drive 2 4K monitors. Why would one use 
such a board for a server or embed it in a moving robot?

The foundation has strayed away from its original intent to design and 
build affordable development boards to promote hands on computing 
amongst students [1]. Its main appeal was its openness (global access), 
low-cost (i.e. every student could have one or more) and low-power 
(battery powered) and wireless connectivity (wifi/BT). With RPi 4, the 
power hogs in GPU and Ethernet have become worse.

I find the emergence of boards with Micro Python or Lua out of the box 
is more inline with the original RPi mission. The gap between Arduinos 
and the old RPis are being filled in by these boards.

[1] https://www.raspberrypi.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=143938
[2] https://www.raspberrypi.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=230240
[3] https://youtu.be/6xFzVuxldqs (Eben Upton TEDx talk, 2012)

Regards .. Subbu