jgharston wrote:

BartC wrote:

Once you've added a monitor, keyboard, mouse, memory (and a PSU?),
it won't be far from the cost of a netbook.

But the whole point is that most people *already* *have* a spare
keyboard, mouse

spare USB keyboard+mouse quite likely I suppose

monitor 'cos we never got around to throwing them
away.

Having an unused HDMI capable monitor is less likely, but a TV with HDMI
or composite input quite likely, perhaps an old monitor with DVI input
which would work with a suitable cable

along with half a dozen plug-in PSUs.

The Pi can be powered by microUSB (think most new mobile chargers except
apple) or by "raw" 5V supply soldered to the I/O connector

If you've ever had a camera, PDA, MP3, wotnot that uses SD cards, you're
likely to have some older/smaller cards kicking around.

With suitable cable I suppose xbox/ps3 gamepads can be connected too.

On 05/03/2012 09:16, Dave Liquorice wrote:
On Mon, 05 Mar 2012 02:01:03 +0000, John Rumm wrote:

Media streamer would be one obvious one.

That's the one that fairly quickly entered my head with it having
ethernet and HDMI.


So just imagine someone distributes a standardised firmware build to
install the media functionality, say XBMC. Hundreds study the commands
to upload this firmware to their device, like the many that are expert
at jailbreaking iPods. The software, is now loaded - it's like a games
console. No more may be done with the device, just consume the media it
now shows.

Where's the educational programming fun in that?

Meanwhile, on the other side of the street, dad A is peeved with son B
because a dodgy 'instructables.com' power supply connected to the Pi has
blown to smithereens the HDMI port of the family TV set....

--
Adrian C

BartC wrote:

maybe they don't need 1080p mpeg decoding support, and
they could have saved a few quid of licensing to these Broadcom people
or whoever supplies that technology.

The ARM, RAM and GPU are within a single Broadcom "SoC", the main Pi
designer works for Broadcom developing GPUs, I think this has already
"saved" them a lot, their human costs have been in time, rather than
pounds, but I'm still surprised they can produce it for £22.

On 05/03/2012 10:10, jgharston wrote:
John Rumm wrote:
The stumbling block there however would seem to be how to get the
teachers up to speed.

Employ some computing science teachers instead of typing instructors.

Easily said... but there are not many of those about.

--
Cheers,

John.

/================================================== ===============\
| Internode Ltd - http://www.internode.co.uk |
|-----------------------------------------------------------------|
| John Rumm - john(at)internode(dot)co(dot)uk |
\================================================= ================/

On 05/03/2012 02:49, Rod Speed wrote:
Tim Streater wrote
wrote
Bob Eager wrote:
Bob Eager wrote

Since the Raspberry Pi will be with us soon-ish (well, about six
weeks I am told, for mine) does anyone have any interesting ideas
about what they might do with it/them?

I've heard of car computers, TV boxes, PBCes as ideas...

I remember a similar looking dev board that came out back around
1981 .. it had a built in Hexadecimal keypad... you do a whole days
worth of coding and get a stepper motor to revolve or a set of LED's
chase a traffic light sequence.

The issue was none of the students could be arsed to do this more
than once .... then would rather play with the Commodore pet.

I think that is the problem with Dev board approach, it provides so
little for your effort when you can instead just go use a PC and gui.

I hope the pi doesn't go the way of the Newton. Lots sold in the lead
up to release date and soon after, then next to nothing. I think what
you're describing above will be a problem. The notion that all these
schoolchildren were just waiting for a cheap board to program at the
bit level is a bit silly, in the same league as when years ago they
expected that all women would learn to become car mechanics.

No. I expect some teenagers will get the pi and do some stuff with it. When I was 15 I had a few relays I scrounged
off my brother, who was in the navy, and doing some primitive binary logic with them. I could have done with something
like the pi being available then. Or relays for a penny instead of five bob each.

If people are expecting that lots of pis will be used in this way, why weren't these people already doing it - using
the Arduino?

Mind you, if "computer classes" at schools consists of them being
forced to learn about ****ing Windows and being bored learning to use
Word and Excel, then that is a waste that could usefully be stopped.
[1]

I'd be interested to see what folks think it could be used for, though.

[1] They need a lesson to understand what an OS is, and that there are
others besides Windows. They need two more lessons to understand what
Word and Excel are, and a quick overview of what they do and what they
might be used for. And that there are other programs which perform the
same sort of function. That's it.

Dunno, that gets into the whole area of what schools should be teaching.

You can make a case that if you want people to be able to use
particularly Excel to do useful stuff for themselves, even just at
home etc, they need to do a lot more with it than you propose.

And if you want them to be able to do more than just trivial documents at
work, they certainly need more than you propose with Word too.

A bit more than a couple of weeks, perhaps - but certainly not years of it.

After all, what sense does it make that kids leave school after doing the
full time at school, without being able to use something as common as
Word for the sort of thing Word gets used for at work by so many ?

You mean writing one page letters, three page memos, and documents that
might use high tech capabilities like auto numbering! ;-)

Corse you can certainly make a case that say those who plan to
become plumbers, hair dressers, mechanics etc dont need that,
so you can certainly make a case for being selective about who
needs that in school, but its going to far to claim that no one does.

With what the Pi can do its more complicated. You can certainly
make a case for at least some school kids being able to do stuff
like that, if only to provide something that might lite the fire of
some potential engineers etc.

Certainly it makes no sense to try and ram it down the throats of most kids tho.

Anything you stick on a school curriculum you in effect "ram down the
throats" of the kids... things like the Pi just make it cheaper and at
least make it possible for just about any parent to also "buy what they
use at school" should schools choose to adopt them.

However, I expect it being mainly taken up by the self selecting group
that are already into such things.

But then you can also make a case for teaching quite a bit of DIY in schools
too when so many chose to do stuff like that after they have finished school too.

and in fact, some schools do. There is a local one here that teaches
building, plumbing, wiring skills etc, and even has outdoor "pens" so
that the trainees can get a feel f what it is like to work in real world
conditions for some of these tasks.


--
Cheers,

John.

/================================================== ===============\
| Internode Ltd - http://www.internode.co.uk |
|-----------------------------------------------------------------|
| John Rumm - john(at)internode(dot)co(dot)uk |
\================================================= ================/

On Mon, 5 Mar 2012 00:55:44 -0000, "BartC" wrote:



"Bob Eager" wrote in message
...
Since the Raspberry Pi will be with us soon-ish (well, about six weeks I
am told, for mine) does anyone have any interesting ideas about what they
might do with it/them?

I'm not quite sure what the purpose of this machine is. Low cost? Once
you've added a monitor, keyboard, mouse, memory (and a PSU?), it won't be
far from the cost of a netbook. (Edit: just seen that it plugs into a TV.
Still, you need a spare TV...)

And what's special about it that it took six years to develop? (I used to
build prototype computer boards in a week or so.)

Perhaps it was the software? There's been loads of discussion about
the hardware but very little on the software, assuming that there is
any?
--
(\__/) M.
(='.'=) If a man stands in a forest and no woman is around
(")_(") is he still wrong?

On 05/03/2012 10:52, Adrian C wrote:
On 05/03/2012 09:16, Dave Liquorice wrote:
On Mon, 05 Mar 2012 02:01:03 +0000, John Rumm wrote:

Media streamer would be one obvious one.

That's the one that fairly quickly entered my head with it having
ethernet and HDMI.


So just imagine someone distributes a standardised firmware build to
install the media functionality, say XBMC. Hundreds study the commands
to upload this firmware to their device, like the many that are expert
at jailbreaking iPods. The software, is now loaded - it's like a games
console. No more may be done with the device, just consume the media it
now shows.

Where's the educational programming fun in that?

Actually there is a fair bit to be picked up from just getting desired
functionality into something...

However, a good many folks will be buying them because thet are a cheap
way to do "something specific" rather than because the want to learn
about it as an end in itself etc.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the street, dad A is peeved with son B
because a dodgy 'instructables.com' power supply connected to the Pi has
blown to smithereens the HDMI port of the family TV set....

That should be a learning experience as well ;-)


--
Cheers,

John.

/================================================== ===============\
| Internode Ltd - http://www.internode.co.uk |
|-----------------------------------------------------------------|
| John Rumm - john(at)internode(dot)co(dot)uk |
\================================================= ================/

Andy Burns wrote:
jgharston wrote:

BartC wrote:

Once you've added a monitor, keyboard, mouse, memory (and a PSU?),
it won't be far from the cost of a netbook.

But the whole point is that most people *already* *have* a spare
keyboard, mouse

spare USB keyboard+mouse quite likely I suppose


and about 20 quid if not.

monitor 'cos we never got around to throwing them
away.

Having an unused HDMI capable monitor is less likely, but a TV with HDMI
or composite input quite likely, perhaps an old monitor with DVI input
which would work with a suitable cable

I wouldn't use a monitor anyway - since its got a fully capable X server
and networking on it, not hard to control it from an existing PC.. it
would be, like a router, a useful 'smart box' to do stuff at much lower
power on a 24x7 basis. Like my existing server. Only it has no disk
apart from a flash drive so its not useful as a storage box.





along with half a dozen plug-in PSUs.

The Pi can be powered by microUSB (think most new mobile chargers except
apple) or by "raw" 5V supply soldered to the I/O connector

If you've ever had a camera, PDA, MP3, wotnot that uses SD cards, you're
likely to have some older/smaller cards kicking around.

With suitable cable I suppose xbox/ps3 gamepads can be connected too.


--
To people who know nothing, anything is possible.
To people who know too much, it is a sad fact
that they know how little is really possible -
and how hard it is to achieve it.

BartC wrote:
"Clive George" wrote in message
o.uk...
On 05/03/2012 00:55, BartC wrote:


"Bob Eager" wrote in message
...
Since the Raspberry Pi will be with us soon-ish (well, about six
weeks I
am told, for mine) does anyone have any interesting ideas about what
they
might do with it/them?

I'm not quite sure what the purpose of this machine is. Low cost? Once
you've added a monitor, keyboard, mouse, memory (and a PSU?), it won't
be far from the cost of a netbook. (Edit: just seen that it plugs into a
TV. Still, you need a spare TV...)

How about for applications where you don't need a monitor, keyboard,
mouse, extra memory? Think automation, control, robots, etc.

Sure. But then maybe they don't need 1080p mpeg decoding support, and
they could have saved a few quid of licensing to these Broadcom people
or whoever supplies that technology. And I would have thought there are
enough control boards out there for this sort of stuff (where you use a
normal PC for developing the software then just download it).

Broadcomm are chip suppliers and designers based in Cambridge and supply
video and audio playback chips, as well as Bluetooth chippery.

The decoding's in the firmware, and the GPU and CPU are on one chip to
save time, space and money. It seems almost like something a couple of
Broadcomm engineers started playing with and then the project grew,
taking in the local University computer department.

Mainly, the whole thing is a hack of a Broadcomm media playback chip,
for which full documentation is available freely on the net.

I understand this is mainly for kids but are there really many children
now without access to a computer?

Not many, but most of them only have access to a fully built, locked
down PC system based on Windows and MS Office, and probably something
like an XBox and their smartphone, which are even more tightly locked
down. You can't learn many of the basics from a computer that you're not
even allowed to try and program at any low level.

This comes as standard with a BIOS, some connectivity to eternal stuff,
and that's your lot. Add input from a USB keyboard, output to a TV set
and an SD card, and you're able to start writing assembly code. Put a
compiler on the card, and you're writing higher level language.

Or you can download Linux onto the SD card, and you're off with a small,
cheap computer that it doesn't matter if you break. Unplug the card, and
you're back to a motherboard with a bit of RAM.

I can think of quite a few uses for one of these that a PC is overkill
for, especially at the price being charged, and all of them have been
mentioned by others in this thread.


--
Tciao for Now!

John.

In message , Rick
writes
On 04/03/2012 10:10 PM, Bob Eager wrote:
On Sun, 04 Mar 2012 22:09:32 +0000, Bob Eager wrote:

Since the Raspberry Pi will be with us soon-ish (well, about six weeks I
am told, for mine) does anyone have any interesting ideas about what
they might do with it/them?

I've heard of car computers, TV boxes, PBCes as ideas...

PBC = PBX



I remember a similar looking dev board that came out back around 1981
.. it had a built in Hexadecimal keypad... you do a whole days worth of
coding and get a stepper motor to revolve or a set of LED's chase a
traffic light sequence.
The issue was none of the students could be arsed to do this more than
once .... then would rather play with the Commodore pet.

I think that is the problem with Dev board approach, it provides so
little for your effort when you can instead just go use a PC and gui.



Though of course the Raspbery Pi can have a GUI,

--
Chris French

Rod Speed wrote:


It certainly doesnt make any sense to be teaching plumbers pure maths unless they want to do that.


Actually EVERYBODY ought to have if not the facility to use it, a
basic *understanding* of pure maths philosophy and science.

Buy that I don't mean following the reasoning, just understanding where
it fits in the general pool of knowledge.

Then I could dispense with the signature below.


I had to plough through Penrose twice before I realised WTF he was
actually doing...and that it was in principle, simple ..though the
actual mechanics of manipulating abstract algebras, I will take on trust.




--
To people who know nothing, anything is possible.
To people who know too much, it is a sad fact
that they know how little is really possible -
and how hard it is to achieve it.

Mark wrote:
On Mon, 5 Mar 2012 00:55:44 -0000, "BartC" wrote:


"Bob Eager" wrote in message
...
Since the Raspberry Pi will be with us soon-ish (well, about six weeks I
am told, for mine) does anyone have any interesting ideas about what they
might do with it/them?
I'm not quite sure what the purpose of this machine is. Low cost? Once
you've added a monitor, keyboard, mouse, memory (and a PSU?), it won't be
far from the cost of a netbook. (Edit: just seen that it plugs into a TV.
Still, you need a spare TV...)

And what's special about it that it took six years to develop? (I used to
build prototype computer boards in a week or so.)

Perhaps it was the software? There's been loads of discussion about
the hardware but very little on the software, assuming that there is
any?

well its a not quite bog standard Linux port.
Give the power ram and disk, that means its about equivalent to a small
fondleslab style computer, minus the IO hardware.


--
To people who know nothing, anything is possible.
To people who know too much, it is a sad fact
that they know how little is really possible -
and how hard it is to achieve it.

John Williamson wrote:

Mainly, the whole thing is a hack of a Broadcomm media playback chip,
for which full documentation is available freely on the net.

s/full/partial

While it's good to get *any* docs published by Broadcom without an NDA,
there's barely any info on the GPU ...

chris French wrote:
In message , Rick
writes
On 04/03/2012 10:10 PM, Bob Eager wrote:
On Sun, 04 Mar 2012 22:09:32 +0000, Bob Eager wrote:

Since the Raspberry Pi will be with us soon-ish (well, about six
weeks I
am told, for mine) does anyone have any interesting ideas about what
they might do with it/them?

I've heard of car computers, TV boxes, PBCes as ideas...

PBC = PBX



I remember a similar looking dev board that came out back around 1981
.. it had a built in Hexadecimal keypad... you do a whole days worth
of coding and get a stepper motor to revolve or a set of LED's chase a
traffic light sequence.
The issue was none of the students could be arsed to do this more than
once .... then would rather play with the Commodore pet.

I think that is the problem with Dev board approach, it provides so
little for your effort when you can instead just go use a PC and gui.



Though of course the Raspbery Pi can have a GUI,

or not. I have two servers here that are entirely headless..one is
actually physically here, teh other is a bit of a machine somewhere in
maidenhead. Not that I care, since I can NFS mount its drives, use
webmin to manage it or ssh, and apart from some speed issues, its
generally 'part of my setup' .

You only need ONE display and keyboard in a network of machines. Once
they are set up, anyway.

Stick a PI on my network, give me an hour to install Linux and set up
some logins, and then it will never need the screen and keyboard again.

Unless it failed to boot.

And a spare flash card would probably solve that.


I see intrepid geeks puting them in all sorts of things - I have a
hankering for a weather station. Or maybe a sound processing unit. Does
it come with a sound chip?



--
To people who know nothing, anything is possible.
To people who know too much, it is a sad fact
that they know how little is really possible -
and how hard it is to achieve it.

The Natural Philosopher wrote:

I have a hankering for a weather station. Or maybe a sound processing
unit. Does it come with a sound chip?

Yes, output to 1/8" jack (or over HDMI) but no input without e.g. using USB.

On 05/03/2012 10:57, Tim Streater wrote:
In article ,
Bernard Peek wrote:

On 04/03/12 23:43, Tim Streater wrote:

[1] They need a lesson to understand what an OS is, and that there are
others besides Windows. They need two more lessons to understand what
Word and Excel are, and a quick overview of what they do and what they
might be used for. And that there are other programs which perform the
same sort of function. That's it.

It depends on what age they start at. My beef is that the reason why
sixteen year olds need lessons in word-processing is that they didn't
get those lessons at age eight when they would have been more
appropriate.

Why do they need lessons on the detail of word processors at all? On how
to add a footer or change the font? You'll teach them how to do that
with Word 2007 or something, next thing you know is that MS has changed
the front end completely. So all that teaching suddenly was a waste of
time.

They need to know what a word processor is. They need to know that you
*can* add a footer (and to know what a footer is) or change the font for
a paragraph or that you can justify the text. The detail of how it's
done, they can learn for themselves at home. They need to know that
there are other word processors than Word, too. It's the *concepts* that
matter, and the stimulation of their natural curiosity.


Children usually gasp when they discover that Excel knows the day of the
week you were born on

On Mon, 05 Mar 2012 10:10:36 +0000 (GMT), "Dave Liquorice"
wrote:

On Sun, 04 Mar 2012 23:43:39 +0000, Tim Streater wrote:

The notion that all these schoolchildren were just waiting for a cheap
board to program at the bit level is a bit silly, in the same league as
when years ago they expected that all women would learn to become car
mechanics.

Down to bit level or even machine code I agree but a *very* broad
understanding understanding of how a PC works

If people are expecting that lots of pis will be used in this way, why
weren't these people already doing it - using the Arduino?

That is an interesting one. The lad has a Lego NXT set, he's built a
couple of things from the book and done the programs for them but
that's about it.

Cool. We had a very old version of this but it was quite limited and
only worked on Win95. I can't really be bothered to set it up again
since they would lose interest rapidly.

He's recently found a couple of mods for the Minecraft game, he's
attempted to build a 10 bit computer in it, got as far as a handful
of registers and an adder all built with basic logic gates. OK he
found how to construct a latch and 2 bit adder with carry in/out from
the web rather than work it out from first principles but bunging
those modules together to make a 10 bit functional unit he did.
Another mod for Minecraft provides a simple programming language that
can control objects in the Minecraft world. He's designed,
constructed and programmed a 3D printer with that! OK it's only a 4 x
4 x 4 matrix but it does what it is supposed to do.

My youngest is quite into Minecraft but hasn't quite achieved all that
yet.

So why has the NXT essentially sat in its box? When I was his age I
would have killed for an NXT set. Is it the physical building of a
machine? It's very quick to "build" and change stuff in the virtual
Minecraft world both the "machine" and program that controls it.

+1

Mind you, if "computer classes" at schools consists of them being forced
to learn about ****ing Windows and being bored learning to use Word and
Excel, then that is a waste that could usefully be stopped.

Word and Excel do need to be taught, a school leaver these days needs
to be reasonably proficent or they are a rung or three down the
employabilty ladder. Being able to change font/size, understand
header/footer, insert something from excel or an image etc. Just the
basic elements that enables them to produce decent output, this also
extends into pretty much all the other subjects as well, use of
computers to produce work, reports or present experimental results is
everywhere.

Wordprocessing and spreadheet concepts should be taught but it *must*
not be confined to Microsoft (or any other vendor). I won't have a
copy of Office 2007 or later in the house and I get very fed up when
the kids bring home stuff in propriatory formats.

Some one said a plumber doesn't need computing skills, not directly
for plumbing maybe but these days running a business completely with
pen and paper is almost impossible(*).

What is missing from the curriculem is anything about PC hardware,
the internal OS workings or application programming.

Absolutely. OTOH very few kids seem to be interested nowadays. I
guess computers are no longer an exciting novelty and just an ordinary
household appliance.

A lesson or
three with some old hardware to examine, doesn't have to be
functional just so the pupils know what a motherboard is what it
does, what a hard drive is and what it looks like inside etc. That
would reduce the fear that most people have when it comes to almost
all technology. The basics of how a PC boots and runs in "black box"
form, the layers within the OS and how they fit togther to produce
what people see and use and some simple programming.
The last is probably the hardest, what do you get pupils to program?

It's very difficult with a "21st century" attention span. However my
youngest is interested so I have ordered him a RP but I don't know
what we'll use it for yet.
--
(\__/) M.
(='.'=) If a man stands in a forest and no woman is around
(")_(") is he still wrong?

On 05/03/2012 11:47, Owain wrote:
On Mar 5, 11:23 am, John Rumm wrote:
You mean writing one page letters, three page memos, and documents that
might use high tech capabilities like auto numbering! ;-)

Auto numbering in Word is not high tech.

At least, certainly not well-implemented high tech.

Did you miss the smiley? ;-)

In fact, for all its popularity, word is actually a fairly poor tool for
complex documents IME.

WordPerfect is much better, but still[1] limited when dealing with
things like cross references between documents.

[1] Having said that, I have not used it seriously for a number of
years, so don't know if it has been developed any further.

Which is a major reason why the legal world stuck with WordPerfect for
so long. WordPerfect could auto-number to your heart's desire.

IIRC Microsoft's own legal department used it for years (possibly still
do) - support for "table of authorities" was one killer reason IIRC.


--
Cheers,

John.

/================================================== ===============\
| Internode Ltd - http://www.internode.co.uk |
|-----------------------------------------------------------------|
| John Rumm - john(at)internode(dot)co(dot)uk |
\================================================= ================/

Dave Liquorice wrote:
Word and Excel do need to be taught,

No, word processing and spreadsheets. You don't teach somebody
to drive a Ford Focus, you teach them how to drive a car.

JGH

BartC wrote:
(where you use a normal PC for developing the software then
just download it).

Upload it.

JGH

On 05/03/12 10:10, jgharston wrote:
John Rumm wrote:
The stumbling block there however would seem to be how to get the
teachers up to speed.

Employ some computing science teachers instead of typing instructors.

There are some people who went from the software industry into teaching
but there aren't enough of them. There are far more teachers who have
been handed the brown and smelly end of the stick. Pretty much without
exception they would like to teach something more exciting than how to
format a paragraph in Word. But we aren't suddenly going to hire another
20,000 experienced IT professionals as teachers even if there were that
many able and willing to do the job.

So we have the situation that we have.


--
Bernard Peek

On Mon, 05 Mar 2012 12:15:50 +0000, Tim Streater
wrote:

In article ,
The Natural Philosopher wrote:

Andy Burns wrote:

Having an unused HDMI capable monitor is less likely, but a TV with HDMI
or composite input quite likely, perhaps an old monitor with DVI input
which would work with a suitable cable

I wouldn't use a monitor anyway - since its got a fully capable X server
and networking on it, not hard to control it from an existing PC.. it
would be, like a router, a useful 'smart box' to do stuff at much lower
power on a 24x7 basis. Like my existing server. Only it has no disk
apart from a flash drive so its not useful as a storage box.

Can you plug in a USB drive and so have a cheap network storage device?
After all my Netgear is a linux box.

I thought it came with linux on the card, btw.

AFAIK It doesn't come with a card. You can buy an "accessory pack"
with a SD card but I'm sure it's supplied empty.
--
(\__/) M.
(='.'=) If a man stands in a forest and no woman is around
(")_(") is he still wrong?

On 05/03/12 10:57, Tim Streater wrote:

Why do they need lessons on the detail of word processors at all? On how
to add a footer or change the font? You'll teach them how to do that
with Word 2007 or something, next thing you know is that MS has changed
the front end completely. So all that teaching suddenly was a waste of
time.

They are going to need it to do work in other subjects.


They need to know what a word processor is. They need to know that you
*can* add a footer (and to know what a footer is) or change the font for
a paragraph or that you can justify the text. The detail of how it's
done, they can learn for themselves at home. They need to know that
there are other word processors than Word, too. It's the *concepts* that
matter, and the stimulation of their natural curiosity.

Most people can't learn concepts without a practical example in front of
them. Some people can start from an abstract theory and apply it. By far
the majority of people can't easily do that, and certainly not at the
age when pupils need to learn this stuff.



--
Bernard Peek

Bernard Peek wrote:
But we aren't suddenly going to hire another
20,000 experienced IT professionals as teachers even if there were that
many able and willing to do the job.

Unfortunately, I'm one of those IT professionals who wouldn't go
back into teaching even if you threatened to shoot me.

JGH

On 05/03/2012 10:44, BartC wrote:
"Clive George" wrote in message
o.uk...
On 05/03/2012 00:55, BartC wrote:


"Bob Eager" wrote in message
...
Since the Raspberry Pi will be with us soon-ish (well, about six
weeks I
am told, for mine) does anyone have any interesting ideas about what
they
might do with it/them?

I'm not quite sure what the purpose of this machine is. Low cost? Once
you've added a monitor, keyboard, mouse, memory (and a PSU?), it won't
be far from the cost of a netbook. (Edit: just seen that it plugs into a
TV. Still, you need a spare TV...)

How about for applications where you don't need a monitor, keyboard,
mouse, extra memory? Think automation, control, robots, etc.

Sure. But then maybe they don't need 1080p mpeg decoding support, and

Part of the exercise here seems to be getting an adequate platform
standardised, and low enough in price. Not sure using a lower price SoC
would have made it much cheaper, but it would have had a big negative
impact on its high end graphics capabilities and hence potential uses.

they could have saved a few quid of licensing to these Broadcom people
or whoever supplies that technology. And I would have thought there are
enough control boards out there for this sort of stuff (where you use a
normal PC for developing the software then just download it).

True, but there is an element of you will want to use what you have and
what you are familiar with...

I understand this is mainly for kids but are there really many children
now without access to a computer?

In answer to the first bit, I don't think it is "mainly for kids"... and
to the second, yes a fair number don't have their own.

And what's special about it that it took six years to develop? (I used
to build prototype computer boards in a week or so.)

The cost is probably what's special about it. There's a lot of work in
there, probably a significant amount being negotiation rather than
simply technical.

Maybe.

It has gone through a number of iterations of concept as well it seems.


--
Cheers,

John.

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"The Natural Philosopher" wrote in message
...

I wouldn't use a monitor anyway - since its got a fully capable X server
and networking on it, not hard to control it from an existing PC.. it
would be, like a router, a useful 'smart box' to do stuff at much lower
power on a 24x7 basis. Like my existing server. Only it has no disk apart
from a flash drive so its not useful as a storage box.

It has SD card and USB so storage is not a problem.
I intend to make a low power mail server and NAS if I can get one.
I think a 32G SD card and a couple of 64G sticks will be fine.

The USB sticks will be much quicker than the SD card so I may just use the
sticks.

On 05/03/2012 10:23, BartC wrote:
"The Natural Philosopher" wrote in message
...
BartC wrote:


"Bob Eager" wrote in message
...
Since the Raspberry Pi will be with us soon-ish (well, about six
weeks I
am told, for mine) does anyone have any interesting ideas about what
they
might do with it/them?

And what's special about it that it took six years to develop? (I
used to
build prototype computer boards in a week or so.)

It isn't a computer board. Its custom chips. On a board.

How many chips have you ever designed?

One. (A simple graphics controller in the 80s, which I then prototyped with
some 120 TTLs and some RAM. But I wasn't happy about it as a product and it
wasn't committed to a gate array chip.)

In this case, they don't seem to be creating anything new, just combining
existing technologies (ARM processor, Broadcom video, Linux OS and so on).
Six years just seems a long time (admittedly some of that will be
organising
large-scale production).

Six years is a long time, and I expect if you started with a spec for
what it is now, and said "go build this", it would be much quicker.
However part of the exercise was defining the problem they were trying
to solve in the first place, not just finding the solution.


--
Cheers,

John.

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dennis@home wrote:

I think a 32G SD card and a couple of 64G sticks will be fine.
The USB sticks will be much quicker than the SD card so I may just use
the sticks.

I think you'll need a small SD card to boot it, clearly it doesn't have
a BIOS to allow "conventional" USB booting, AIUI it's the GPU that
performs the bootstrap from SD and then hands over to the ARM ...

On 05/03/12 12:28, jgharston wrote:
Bernard Peek wrote:
But we aren't suddenly going to hire another
20,000 experienced IT professionals as teachers even if there were that
many able and willing to do the job.

Unfortunately, I'm one of those IT professionals who wouldn't go
back into teaching even if you threatened to shoot me.

But could you spare a couple of hours to bring an existing teacher up to
speed?



--
Bernard Peek

On Mon, 05 Mar 2012 12:03:14 +0000, Andy Burns wrote:

Does it come with a sound chip?

Yes, output to 1/8" jack (or over HDMI) but no input without e.g. using
USB.

Ooo. Just thought of another use with the addition of a USB DSAT or
DDTV dongle. An off air digital radio receiver so one doesn't need
the telly on. Controlable over its ethernet port via a web interface
(one assumes the linux it comes with has a web server?). This could
be expanded to an internet radio as well if one wasn't worried about
gobbling up (possibly expensive) internet bandwidth.

--
Cheers
Dave.

On Monday, 5 March 2012 12:39:45 UTC, Bernard Peek wrote:
On 05/03/12 12:28, jgharston wrote:
Bernard Peek wrote:
But we aren't suddenly going to hire another
20,000 experienced IT professionals as teachers even if there were that
many able and willing to do the job.

Unfortunately, I'm one of those IT professionals who wouldn't go
back into teaching even if you threatened to shoot me.

But could you spare a couple of hours to bring an existing teacher up to
speed?



--
Bernard Peek


My wife is one of those IT teachers. I'm sure she wouldn't mind me passing on that she has a degree in Geography, A levels in Maths, Geography and Economics and only a passing interest in computers. She can't program a computer (never been near it) and has only ended up as a teacher in the IT department because after her various maternity leave's there were some gaps in the IT department (but not the geography one which she left before giving birth).

She is a good teacher - in that she can teach well - but her expertise in IT is limited, and when she gets stuck with aspects of Word / Excel / Access / etc she asks me!

I'm sure several of her colleagues in the department have a similar background too.

Matt

Dave Liquorice wrote:
On Mon, 05 Mar 2012 12:03:14 +0000, Andy Burns wrote:

Does it come with a sound chip?
Yes, output to 1/8" jack (or over HDMI) but no input without e.g. using
USB.

Ooo. Just thought of another use with the addition of a USB DSAT or
DDTV dongle. An off air digital radio receiver so one doesn't need
the telly on. Controlable over its ethernet port via a web interface
(one assumes the linux it comes with has a web server?). This could
be expanded to an internet radio as well if one wasn't worried about
gobbling up (possibly expensive) internet bandwidth.

no FLASH plugins - so no web radio IIRC.

Cos most Beeb content is flash,. Makes a good ON AIR RX with a dongle
tho. Has it got sound?


And TV.

Except you need a [more expensive than a TV] monitor..



--
To people who know nothing, anything is possible.
To people who know too much, it is a sad fact
that they know how little is really possible -
and how hard it is to achieve it.

On 05/03/2012 12:28, jgharston wrote:
Bernard Peek wrote:
But we aren't suddenly going to hire another
20,000 experienced IT professionals as teachers even if there were that
many able and willing to do the job.

Unfortunately, I'm one of those IT professionals who wouldn't go
back into teaching even if you threatened to shoot me.

Although, while I would not want to try and teach kids directly (unless
they were a self selecting group who wanted to learn this sort of
stuff), I might be prepared to teach the teachers.

--
Cheers,

John.

/================================================== ===============\
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\================================================= ================/

On Mon, 05 Mar 2012 10:57:25 +0000, Tim Streater wrote:

In article ,
Bernard Peek wrote:

On 04/03/12 23:43, Tim Streater wrote:

[1] They need a lesson to understand what an OS is, and that there
are others besides Windows. They need two more lessons to understand
what Word and Excel are, and a quick overview of what they do and
what they might be used for. And that there are other programs which
perform the same sort of function. That's it.

It depends on what age they start at. My beef is that the reason why
sixteen year olds need lessons in word-processing is that they didn't
get those lessons at age eight when they would have been more
appropriate.

Why do they need lessons on the detail of word processors at all? On how
to add a footer or change the font? You'll teach them how to do that
with Word 2007 or something, next thing you know is that MS has changed
the front end completely. So all that teaching suddenly was a waste of
time.

They need to know what a word processor is. They need to know that you
*can* add a footer (and to know what a footer is) or change the font for
a paragraph or that you can justify the text. The detail of how it's
done, they can learn for themselves at home. They need to know that
there are other word processors than Word, too. It's the *concepts* that
matter, and the stimulation of their natural curiosity.

And some schools don't even use Word in the first place. There is no
requirement to do so.



--
Use the BIG mirror service in the UK:
http://www.mirrorservice.org

*lightning protection* - a w_tom conductor

Andy Burns wrote:

jgharston wrote:

BartC wrote:

Once you've added a monitor, keyboard, mouse, memory (and a PSU?),
it won't be far from the cost of a netbook.

But the whole point is that most people *already* *have* a spare
keyboard, mouse

spare USB keyboard+mouse quite likely I suppose

monitor 'cos we never got around to throwing them
away.

Having an unused HDMI capable monitor is less likely, but a TV with HDMI
or composite input quite likely, perhaps an old monitor with DVI input
which would work with a suitable cable


Don't overlook DVI which is signal compatible and you can get small
adaptors.

--
Tim Watts

On 05/03/12 12:57, Dave Liquorice wrote:
On Mon, 5 Mar 2012 04:18:33 -0800 (PST), jgharston wrote:

Word and Excel do need to be taught,

No, word processing and spreadsheets. You don't teach somebody
to drive a Ford Focus, you teach them how to drive a car.

True enough, but AFAIK there is no "generic" word processor or
spreadsheet out there so you have to choose something and, although
it pains me to say it, Word and Excel are the defacto standards out
there.

Some schools are using Open/Libre Office for word-processing and
spreadsheets, but there is still no usable alternative to MS Access.


--
Bernard Peek

The Natural Philosopher wrote:

Dave Liquorice wrote:

Just thought of another use with the addition of a USB DSAT or
DDTV dongle. An off air digital radio receiver so one doesn't need
the telly on. Controlable over its ethernet port via a web interface
(one assumes the linux it comes with has a web server?).

Even if it didn't, getting a web server on it would be easy.

This could be expanded to an internet radio as well if one wasn't
worried about gobbling up (possibly expensive) internet bandwidth.

no FLASH plugins - so no web radio IIRC.

My AV receiver can pull in internet streams in AAC format, as can
various web-radios, here are playlists that "point" to BBC radio streams
courtesy of Micheal Chare ...

BBC 1 http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/listen/live/r1_aaclca.pls
BBC 1Xtra http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/listen/live/r1x_aaclca.pls
BBC 2 http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/listen/live/r2_aaclca.pls
BBC 3 http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/listen/live/r3_aaclca.pls
BBC 4 http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/listen/live/r4_aaclca.pls
BBC 4 Extra http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/listen/live/r7_aaclca.pls
BBC 5 Live http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/listen/live/r5l_aaclca.pls
BBC 5 Live Sports Extra http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/list/live/r5l_aaclca.pls
BBC 6 http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/listen/live/r6_aaclca.pls

VLC plays them without issue

On 05/03/2012 10:57, Tim Streater wrote:

They need to know what a word processor is. They need to know that you
*can* add a footer (and to know what a footer is) or change the font for
a paragraph or that you can justify the text. The detail of how it's
done, they can learn for themselves at home. They need to know that
there are other word processors than Word, too. It's the *concepts* that
matter, and the stimulation of their natural curiosity.


I'd dumb it down further, just have a course in using a PC keyboard,
mouse and GUI. No particular application or OS.

Series of eight 1 hour lessons.

lesson #1. How to hold and move a mouse.

lesson #2 to 6, How to select something and drag it, moving it elsewhere.

lesson #7. How to Cut, Copy, Paste, Delete, Backspace, Minimise,
Maximise, The Task Bar / Panels, Window Focus, Select One item, Select a
choice, Select All, Esc, Ctrl-Z, F1, Ctrl-Alt-Del, Login, Start, Shutdown.

lesson #8. How to store a file in a folder so later it can be found


Someone should make an addictive 'angry birds' game where these IT life
skills can be practiced.....

--
Adrian C

"Adrian C" wrote in message
...
On 05/03/2012 10:57, Tim Streater wrote:

They need to know what a word processor is. They need to know that you
*can* add a footer (and to know what a footer is) or change the font for
a paragraph or that you can justify the text. The detail of how it's
done, they can learn for themselves at home. They need to know that
there are other word processors than Word, too. It's the *concepts* that
matter, and the stimulation of their natural curiosity.


I'd dumb it down further, just have a course in using a PC keyboard, mouse
and GUI. No particular application or OS.

Series of eight 1 hour lessons.

lesson #1. How to hold and move a mouse.

lesson #2 to 6, How to select something and drag it, moving it elsewhere.

I've seen 4- and 5-year-olds learn all those on their own. In less than 6
hours too.

lesson #7. How to Cut, Copy, Paste, Delete, Backspace, Minimise,
Maximise, The Task Bar / Panels, Window Focus, Select One item, Select a
choice, Select All, Esc, Ctrl-Z, F1, Ctrl-Alt-Del, Login, Start, Shutdown.

lesson #8. How to store a file in a folder so later it can be found

And I've seen adults have trouble with some of those (myself included).

--
Bartc

Adrian C wrote:

I'd dumb it down further, just have a course in using a PC keyboard,
mouse and GUI. No particular application or OS.

Series of eight 1 hour lessons.

lesson #1. How to hold and move a mouse.

lesson #2 to 6, How to select something and drag it, moving it elsewhere.

lesson #7. How to Cut, Copy, Paste, Delete, Backspace, Minimise,
Maximise, The Task Bar / Panels, Window Focus, Select One item, Select a
choice, Select All, Esc, Ctrl-Z, F1, Ctrl-Alt-Del, Login, Start, Shutdown.

lesson #8. How to store a file in a folder so later it can be found

I year or two back I attended an evening class in digital photo
processing, using Paintshop Pro. Sadly, quite a number of the
participants would have benefited from first attending the course
you outline above.

Chris
--
Chris J Dixon Nottingham UK


Have dancing shoes, will ceilidh.