Who Wants a $9 Computer? Meet C.H.I.P. By Next Thing Co.

By Nathan Kirsch

Have you been searching high and low for a $9 computer? We just heard about a new Kickstarter project for a tiny computer called C.H.I.P. that was went online this week and is already meet and exceeded their fundraising goal. C.H.I.P. was designed by a group of hardware lovers at Next Thing Co that is based in Oakland, California. Next Thing Co has been hacking and prototyping on Raspberry Pi for some time, but it appears that they The device has a number of attractive properties, not least its price it claims to be “The World’s First Nine Dollar Computer”. It runs Linux and the makers will ship it with Debian installed alongside “dozens of applications and tools”.

Chip Computer

C.H.I.P. boasts a 1GHz Allwinner A13 (ARM) processor, 512MB of DDR3 RAM, and 4GB of eMMC storage. It is said to be more powerful than a Raspberry Pi B+ and equal to the BeagleBone Black in clock speed, RAM, and storage. Not bad, plus you get 802.11n wireless and Bluetooth 4.0 out of the box. Next Thing Co. hopes to upgrade the processor from the Allwinner A13 to the Allwinner R8 later this month.

chip-apps

C.H.I.P. is powerful enough to run LibreOffice, surf the web, handle programming tasks and play basic games like all the DOS game titles you grew up with when you were a kid! C.H.I.P. will come with dozens of apps preinstalled and will have access to thousands of free applications from the open source community.

CHIP Versions

Out of the box C.H.I.P can connect over composite video, but there are add-on ‘shields’ that you can purchase to allow for different video output configurations. Next Thing Co. has designed VGA and HDMI shields that you can purchased for $9 and $15, respectively.

C.H.I.P. Specifications:

  • 1GHz Allwinner A13 processor with integrated Mali400 GPU (ARM Architecture)
  • 512MB of DDR3 RAM
  • 4GB of eMMC NAND Flash Storage built-in
  • A full-sized USB 2.0 port
  • A micro USB port with OTG – Also used as the 5V DC power input for battery charging
  • A 1/8″ audio jack with a microphone that doubles as a composite video-out
  • Built-in 802.11 b/g/n Wi-Fi
  • Bluetooth 4.0
  • Debian Linux based OS