Comment Re:just want I wanted! (Score 1) 307
From what I can see, Raspberry Pi's goal was to be this generations BBC Micro, nothing else. Something that is cheap to hack on
You're evidently not *that* familiar with the BBC Micro then. It may have been a great computer in many respects (particularly the Model B), but it was never, *ever* "cheap". Quite the opposite, it always had a reputation as an expensive machine that was mainly owned by schools and kids with well-off Mummies and Daddies.
The ZX81 cost £70 (or £50 in kit form) when launched in 1981. Multiply that by around 3.5 times for today's prices.
The cheaper Model A cost £235 when it came out a few months later, but went up almost immediately to £299. And that still only had 16K- not enough to even use the more demanding graphics modes- and lacked a lot of the Model B's ports. The 32K Model B (which far outsold the Model A and is the one everyone remembers) jumped from £335 to £399, and that was its regular price for most of its life. And remember that *didn't* include the disk drives and nice RGB monitor that every school seemed to have. (Even at a conservative guess I'd assume those came close to doubling the price, if not completely rushing past it (no, monitors and disk drives were *not* cheap). Even £650 at today's prices is over £2000!
So, no. The Raspberry Pi may have the educational aims of the BBC, but the "hackability" and cheapness is more akin to the Sinclair machines (ZX80, ZX81, ZX Spectrum) that most people could afford for all their limitations. And even *those* are expensive if you compare their price in real terms to what you can get a Raspberry Pi for these days!