Skip to footer

DIY-focused C.H.I.P. microcomputer costs just $9

C.H.I.P. joins the handful of bare-bones, pocket-sized computers, but at a price that's hard to beat.

|
Next Thing Co./Kickstarter
CHIP - The World's First Nine Dollar Computer

The seriously streamlined C.H.I.P. is a $9 microcomputer that can help you build your own machine along with an array of other nifty projects.

The company behind C.H.I.P., Next Big Thing Co., recently turned to Kickstarter to fund the new DIY computer. With 25 days to go, the fundraiser already has gathered 15 times more than its original $50,000 goal.

C.H.I.P. (which might be an acronym, but the company has yet to say what it stands for) is an open-source device that has a 1GHz processor, 512MB of RAM, and 4GB of storage that runs on Linux-based operating systems.

Many do-it-yourself computer fans have compared this $9 computer to the Raspberry Pi, which kicked off this modern microcomputer trend. When the $35 Raspberry Pi 2 was released in February, DIYers applauded the affordable and versatile microcomputer. The two are quite similar, but vary in several important ways. One of the main features reviewers appreciated is that C.H.I.P. has built-in Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 4.0, unlike the Raspberry Pi 2. The microcomputer also has the capability of connecting a wireless keyboard or mouse, which is helpful with C.H.I.P.’s smaller size and limited options for ports. While The Raspberry Pi 2 sports four USB ports, C.H.I.P. only has one.

"Out of the box, C.H.I.P. can connect over composite video, so you can use an old TV or a tiny screen you have," Dave Rauchwerk, one of Next Thing Co.'s founders, says in a video for MAKE. DIYers can also purchase a VGA adaptor ($19) or HDMI adaptor ($24) to hook up to more modern monitors. In addition to the ability to surf the Web or play video games, add-on software such as LibreOffice lets users edit spreadsheets, create word documents, or generate presentations. 

"What we're doing is taking technology from tablets from a few years ago and making it palatable and smoothing over the rough parts so that [people] like us can use it for projects,” Mr. Rauchwerk told Ars Technica. "The thing that's really exciting is that if we as a community can agree on a chip to support and a platform and some software we can make sure that a $9 computer is a thing."

Another product that has been viewed as a stand out is the $50 Pocket C.H.I.P. The “hacker Game Boy” allows for a C.H.I.P. to be snapped directly into the device for immediate use and is a portable accessory for C.H.I.P. that doesn't require all the plugins. The pocket-sized personal digital assistant has a 4.3-inch touchscreen, QWERTY keyboard, and battery that lasts up to five hours. While Next Big Thing has dabbled in microcomputer technology for some time, the company realized the parts required to build a computer from scratch needed to be more affordable. The company's previous Kickstarter project, the OTTO camera, was designed to work with Raspberry Pi to create a "hackable GIF camera" that sold for $249.

The Kickstarter campaign for C.H.I.P. will end on June 6th at 11:06 am Eastern time. 

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.
editor@csmonitor.com
Subscribe
Mark Sappenfield
Editor

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

Subscribe to insightful journalism

QR Code to DIY-focused C.H.I.P. microcomputer costs just $9
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/Technology/2015/0512/DIY-focused-C.H.I.P.-microcomputer-costs-just-9
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe