Used thin purchaser PCs are an unsexy, readily obtainable Raspberry Pi different

Enlarge / This ThinkCentre. M90n-1 Nano from 2019, passively cooled with a huge heatsink, was $145 when the writer final looked on eBay. It’s not a Raspberry Pi, and it seems to be like Batman’s reception desk system, however it can do the work. (credit: Andrew. Cunningham)

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“Raspberry Pi boards are laborious to get, probably additionally next year,” says. Andreas Spiess, single-board fanatic and YouTuber, in his distinctive Swiss accent. He’s not. wrong. Spiess says he and his fellow Pi devotees need “a technique to survive” with no new boards, so he suggests looking in one of the least captivating, most ignored areas of computing: used, corporate-minded thin client PCs

Andreas. Spiess’ suggestion to “survive” the Raspberry Pi shortage: low cost thin clients.

Spiess’ Pi replacements, steered and refined by many of his YouTube commenters and Patreon subscribers, are Fujitsu Futros, Lenovo ThinkCentres, and different small structures (some or all of which may be semantically regarded “thick clients” or in simple terms “mini PCs,” depending on your tastes and retro-grouch sensibilities). They’re the model of structures you can simply discover used on eBay, refurbished on Amazon Renewed, or by means of different enterprise and IT asset disposition sources. They’re commonly in good shape, given their use and atmosphere. And in comparison to single-board fanatic systems, many. more are being made and replaced each year

They’ve. always been there, of course, however it makes more sense to take one other look at them now. “Back to the future,” as Spiess puts it (in an analogy we’re not fullyyt definite works)

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