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@gigabecquerel@chaos.social

Post #374265

2026-02-22 11:32 UTC

Raspberry Pis really come with their own flavor of computer sickness, don't they. I pulled one from the scrap pile at work and since then I've been thinking about what to do with it! Many fun ideas, but the second I think about them in any way I realize that this can be done better and cheaper with either a microcontroller or a cheap (or often times free!) old computer.

Replies (6)

  • @gigabecquerel idk, i think old computers and rpis have a similar degree of reliability problems, just in different ways. at least rpis have energy efficiency and being silent going for them (that said i try to use literally any other SBC instead)

    Open ##1873692

  • @wolf480pl@mstdn.io 2026-02-22 11:35

    @gigabecquerel I think one of the main niches where they make sense is when you need a unix system with GPIOs

    Open ##1873693

  • @attoparsec@clacks.link 2026-02-22 11:39

    @gigabecquerel Yeah, I've only bothered a couple times, when it's the relatively rare case of needing real processing power in a small package. That said, having a full dev environment onboard sure is nice!

    Open ##1873702

  • @fesix@chaos.social 2026-02-22 12:40

    @gigabecquerel at home we have a little Lenovo Thinkcentre, not that much more expensive used than an Rpi, doesn’t really need much more power but is a full sized PC.

    Open ##1873703

  • @juhele@cztwitter.cz 2026-02-22 12:59

    @gigabecquerel Raspberry has one advantage compared to old PC - I have never seen old PC to automatically reboot and start to fully operational mode after power outage - Raspi did this many times without any problem... Second thing is a form factor and power consumption.... Plus, it was easy to connect custom hardware buttons / switches via GPIO. But I agree in some cases much more simple MCU like Arduino can be better solution.

    Open ##1873705

  • @jarthur@mastodon.world 2026-02-22 13:22

    @gigabecquerel I have one at home and one at work each running Folding@Home and I am objectively aware of how inefficient that is but something deep inside of me is compelling me to do it. It is wasteful (of a small amount of electricity) but it would somehow -feel- more wasteful to just have both Pis sit unused in a drawer. Per watt, I have many, many times more compute available in my (mostly idle) Mac Studio on my desk right now... and yet!

    Open ##1873706