Raspberry Pi is actively preventing enthusiasts from upgrading soldered memory to a larger configuration even when the replacement chip is technically compatible. The company says the restriction is intended to discourage unofficial high-capacity resales.
  • TootSweet@lemmy.worldEnglish
    46·
    2 days ago

    The behaviour is particularly interesting because physically replacing the memory on a Raspberry Pi is already well outside the scope of an ordinary upgrade.

    I mean… aren’t hackers the target audience for Raspberry Pis?

    Yeah, if the reasoning they give isn’t just straight bullshit, then I guess I don’t want to see them drown in support tickets. But it also seems like this move runs pretty counter to the whole point of the Raspberry Pi.

    (Plus, can’t resellers buy 2GB models, redo some of the screen printing, and sell them as 8GB models without even trying to upgrade the RAM to 8GB? That seems at least as bad as getting a Raspberry Pi with a dodgy 8GB RAM chip.)

    • floofloof@lemmy.caEnglish
      23·
      2 days ago

      I mean… aren’t hackers the target audience for Raspberry Pis?

      They used to be. But for the last few years it has looked less and less like that.

    • atomicbocks@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      4·
      2 days ago

      For what it’s worth the original point of the Pi was to recreate the experience of the Commodore 64 or BBC Micro where they came with huge manuals with ample examples and were more or less bare hardware for cheap. Taking that metaphor all the way is how we got the 400 and 500.