Saturday, June 13, 2015

CHIP, the $9 computer

CHIP is a proposed $9 computer that officially beats the famed Raspberry Pi as one of the world’s cheapest and smallest computers, at only 1.5-by-2.3 inches. A Kickstarter campaign recently was launched and already has gone well above its $50,000 goal (at more than $1.4 million as I write this).

The small wonder runs on a Debian Linux-based OS CHIP, is fully open source and is powered with a 3,000 mAH battery. It has a 1GHz Allwinner A13 processor, 512 MB of DDR3 RAM, 4GB of built-in eMMC NAND Flash storage, a fullsized USB 2.0 port, a micro USB port with OTG (also used as the 5V DC power input for battery charging) and supports 802.11 b/g/n Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 4.0. There is a 1/8- inch audio jack with a microphone that doubles as a composite video-out. It also has an output for composite monitors, but you’ll need to use an adapter if you want to use VGA or HDMI.

With CHIP, you can access the Internet with the Chromium browser, do your work in LibreOffice (including Word documents, spreadsheets and presentations), listen to music and play compatible games. Plus, if you want to learn to code, it comes preloaded with Scratch, an easy-to-learn language that teaches the basics of programming by making stories, games and animations. In comparison, the similar and latest Raspberry Pi 2 released earlier this year costs $35. Visit Kickstarter.com to see the reality of CHIP.

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