Re: Note : Pi 2 Zero W Now RIP-OFF Price on Amazon
Michael J. Mahon <[email protected]>
| Newsgroups | comp.sys.raspberry-pi,comp.os.linux.misc |
|---|---|
| Message-ID | <[email protected]> |
rbowman <[email protected]> wrote: > On Thu, 06 Aug 2026 11:12:09 +0200, s|b wrote: > >> On Wed, 5 Aug 2026 19:49:58 +0100, The Natural Philosopher wrote: >> >>> PSUs are generic But Pi zeros are unobtanium right now, except at silly >>> money >>> >>> I can wait. I think I have a spare one somewhere >> >> 'unobtanium', I love it when I learn a new word/expression. If I could >> only remember it, so I can use it myself some day. (-: > > The word has a long history. There is a nuance. 'Vaproware' is a product > that is announced but doesn't exist. The prime example is when Osborne > announced the successor to the Osborne 1, killing the sales of the > existing product without having the replacement in hand. Intel's 432 and > Microsoft's Xenix may fall into that category. > > 'Unobtanium' is a device that exists but you can't buy at the present > time. The Zero is a current example. In the early '80s vendors were > quoting similar lead times of over a year on commodity chips. That, in > part, impacted IBM's PC design. > It does indeed have a long history. The original (and most common) usage is as an unavailable part which renders a whole unavailable, as, for example: “We could fix it if we had a blastercock stabilizer, but they’re made of unobtanium.” The valuable material extracted from the world of Avatar was “unobtainium”—a nice geek callout which apparently levitated. -- -michael - NadaNet 3.1 and AppleCrate II: http://michaeljmahon.com