I suggest you get a jetson nano instead if youre doing robotics or anything serious with an RPI.
If you just want a cheap computer, you're probably better off with a second hand laptop, probably cheaper too
rbanffy•35m ago
I've been making clusters from decommissioned thin clients, but they are mostly for the sake of managing clusters, not any useful compute. The workloads are Hercules emulating a VM/370 with or without MVS, and various SimH emulations of vintage computers of various sizes.
justin66•54m ago
Why would anyone buy a Pi when they could simply burgle the home of a friend or neighbor and steal their computer?
hn3ufz62f7•44m ago
Swapped a Pi for a used Dell micro in my closet rack and the thing I didn't expect to miss was GPIO, had to add a cheap Pico for the fan and sensors.
rbanffy•34m ago
If the Dell is old enough, you can use a printer port for some GPIO. Pretty trivial to use.
iamnothere•23m ago
There are now cheap PCIe cards that provide 40-pin GPIO headers, check eBay. You might need an M.2 to PCIe riser if you don’t have a PCIe slot.
noahnathan25•40m ago
You could just use an old second-hand phone for under $60. You’d get a built-in battery, much more RAM, and a screen included. For the output, just use a $3 ESP32 connected over Wi-Fi or USB. Seems like a much better deal for a lot of projects.
static_motion•23m ago
It's amazing how much they've lost the tinkerer audience over the last few years. Unless you really need the GPIO, there are far better and cheaper alternatives for a low power computer.
RugnirViking•58m ago
I suggest you get a jetson nano instead if youre doing robotics or anything serious with an RPI.
If you just want a cheap computer, you're probably better off with a second hand laptop, probably cheaper too
rbanffy•35m ago