300Mhz SGI o2: ~650 Vax MIPS
Rpi 3: ~6000 Vax MIPS
You might think the Pi would lag on FP but...
o2: 131MFlops
Rpi 3: ~180 MFlops
So basically a Pi is better than an o2. And it's the size of a credit card.
And mostly used for toy projects.
Yeah, definitely :) It was kind of a bittersweet moment when I realized that all the gear I lusted after as a youth can now be outperformed on basically every axis by something that costs less than $40 (if you can find one!) and comparatively sips power. So if I could get a case that scratched the nostalgia itch a bit while having modern compute innards, that'd be grand. (Also, I suspect most of us are more nostalgic for the hardware than irix 6.2 or solaris 2.6 or whatever similar vintages of proprietary unix.)
> So basically a Pi is better than an o2. And it's the size of a credit card.
From HW capabilities, maybe (don't know how I/O compares), but from SW point of view PI is much worse. There is so much bloat in today's SW.
I agree that there is a good market in serving NoaCAwDIs like us. There are definitely a few products available in this niche already, e.g.
https://boingboing.net/2016/09/07/retroconnector-makes-tiny-...
https://shop.minimuseum.com/products/first-super-computer?va...
For instance the Pi-dp11 (and 8)[0]
I'd certainly pay money for a Packard Bell Legend or early-90's IBM case.
[1] as one such Nerd of a Certain Age with Disposable Income, my plea would be for an sgi o2 or sun ipx or similar, haha