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> Why would they step away from this?

There's a lot more supply in the $35 SBC market than when they started.

Sure, but not many have gobs of documentation, regularly updated OS distros, and a rabid community of coders, makers, educators, etc. That Raspi B you bought five years ago is still supported by the latest Raspbian releases. Not many other boards will have that kind of long-term support.

Until there's a (well adopted) common platform standard for these ARM-based boards, the Raspberry Pi Foundation must continue to develop their hardware. Unless... perhaps Eben and Co could work on that standard, and its adoption, as part of their goals.

The problem is that the entire ARM economy tends to have rather spotty support as a whole. There are mountains of proprietary peripherals baked into the chips, so you can't just pick and choose better supported options like you can on PCs with removable parts.

And while a chip manufacturer may make a handful of refreshes, most ARM platforms tend to only last a few years before being completely abandoned in favor of new ones. I am frankly amazed they can still get the BCM2835.

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