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 Posted: Jan 26, 2012 - 09:18 PM |
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Joined: Jun 19, 2002
Posts: 950
Location: SF Bay area
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Quote:
Quote:
We want to see it being used... to learn programming.
IIRC, the competition is:
1. One Laptop Per Child (OLPC), approx. 100USD netbook
2. Genesi/Freescale Efika MX, 129USD nettop, 199USD netbook
Neither of those is specifically aimed at "teaching programming", are they? Whatever that means? They're more general purpose web-browsing, data holding, communications PCs, just like most wintel machines have become...
Although I think that if you want to teach programming, the thing to do is to sneak a programming environment onto the computers that someone already owns. Like their TV, or their cellphone, or (god forbid) their PC! |
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Posted: Jan 26, 2012 - 09:40 PM |
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Joined: Mar 07, 2001
Posts: 2376
Location: Stockholm, Sweden
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It is not intended to be a "geek toy". It is intended to be a cheap PC for schools that can't afford to pay hundreds of dollars for a full PC.
Hope they can afford the television they need to display anything.
And the keyboard and power supply.
And a preprogrammed SD card (or a PC and an IT education so they can follow the pretty complex instructions for setting up the card initially.)
A cute toy (for geeks), but a $35 PC? LOL |
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/Jesper
http://www.yampp.com
The quick black AVR jumped over the lazy PIC.
What boots up, must come down.
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Posted: Jan 27, 2012 - 12:02 AM |
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Joined: Jan 09, 2007
Posts: 1860
Location: Arlington, Texas, U.S.A.
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westfw wrote:
Neither of those is specifically aimed at "teaching programming", are they?
Python: http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Pippy.
There are other offerings available. Found via OLPCorps Learning Guide (a PDF) on page 7, VIII. Full List of Activities & Resources.
With it unlocked, a OLPC can offer other tools; ref. http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Software_components.
Looks like OLPC has the tools in its box to enable a student to explore at their pace and initiative.
Start'em young!
IMO, Genesi Efika MX is a reduced price netbook or nettop; it does not have a software security lock.
westfw wrote:
Although I think that if you want to teach programming, the thing to do is to sneak a programming environment onto the computers that someone already owns. Like their TV, or their cellphone, or (god forbid) their PC!
The TV is a way via the set-top converter box (an embedded computer). With vendor permission, can provide resources for user programming outside a security wall. The "problem" is these are low margin products so there would have to be a holistic initiative to provide the necessary resources. An easier avenue appears via gaming consoles; software development environments have been created on these. |
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Posted: Jan 27, 2012 - 12:26 AM |
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Joined: Aug 13, 2006
Posts: 6695
Location: Bellingham, WA - USA
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Quote:
DuinoMite
Well, this was so cute I had to order one, and got an email about 12 minutes later saying it was on its way. More later. |
_________________
Chuck Baird
"It's better to catch the trapeze than test the safety net" -- RPi book
http://www.cbaird.org
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Posted: Jan 27, 2012 - 05:56 AM |
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Joined: Nov 17, 2004
Posts: 13819
Location: Vancouver, BC
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Quote:
Hope they can afford the television they need to display anything.
And the keyboard and power supply.
But you need those for any PC, don't you? The point is that the Pi, TV or monitor, keyboard and power supply is still less than buying a PC. And likely they already have TVs that will work. |
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Regards,
Steve A.
The Board helps those that help themselves.
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Posted: Jan 27, 2012 - 09:30 AM |
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Joined: Jul 18, 2005
Posts: 62230
Location: (using avr-gcc in) Finchingfield, Essex, England
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We once tried to sell a PC that plugged into your TV set:
http://www.old-computers.com/museum/com ... 1&c=85
But I never mention my involvement with this on my CV - it'd just be too embarrassing - the thing crashed and burned. ('course it was competing with the Atari St and the Amiga at the time!) |
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Posted: Jan 27, 2012 - 09:52 AM |
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Joined: Mar 07, 2001
Posts: 2376
Location: Stockholm, Sweden
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Koshchi wrote:
Quote:
Hope they can afford the television they need to display anything.
And the keyboard and power supply.
But you need those for any PC, don't you? The point is that the Pi, TV or monitor, keyboard and power supply is still less than buying a PC. And likely they already have TVs that will work.
No, the point is that the Pi is NOT a $35 PC or computer. As it is, it's a $35 totally useless PCB.
Making it a computer takes a bit more.
It IS of course a lot cheaper than a regular PC.
I'm not sure kids have their own HDMI-in TV these days, maybe they do, but I remember the days of TV-out computers in the '70 and '80'ies and using your parent's TV set at best broadcast time was not popular. Luckily a small TV are cheaper these days.
But don't forget to add that to the $35. |
_________________
/Jesper
http://www.yampp.com
The quick black AVR jumped over the lazy PIC.
What boots up, must come down.
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Posted: Jan 27, 2012 - 11:02 AM |
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Joined: Jul 18, 2005
Posts: 62230
Location: (using avr-gcc in) Finchingfield, Essex, England
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Quote:
It IS of course a lot cheaper than a regular PC.
And my point above is that actually it isn't. You can buy a motherboard including a processor (Atom) for under $50. If it's a "PC" you want then why not buy the real thing? If you want OpenOffice or Firefox or VLC or whatever for it you just download the prebuild .deb from the Ubuntu repository. If you wanted those things on your ARM11 based "PC" you are going to have to pull a lot of source (not just the apps but all the libs) and build all those things for yourself.
Or do Raspberry have plans like Debian and Canonical to employ package maintainers and prebuild all these things then provide some kind of .deb or .rpm package format for the users? (they are going to have to if this is aimed at kids learning computers - they won't be able to build X from source - I've done it several times - it took several weeks and it was a nightmare!!) |
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Posted: Jan 27, 2012 - 03:51 PM |
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Joined: Jan 09, 2007
Posts: 1860
Location: Arlington, Texas, U.S.A.
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fyi,
Debian 6 on ARM (arch = armel = ARMv4 = ARM7TDMI, ARM9TDMI) is complete (kernels, deb packages, installer, source).
It should run on an ARM11 once someone creates a kernel, and ideally an installer or at least a disk image, for the specific computer.
Debian 7 is in testing for armel and it may be in testing (currently in unstable) sometime soon for armhf (hardware floating point) = ARMv7 = Cortex.
There are some armhf kernels and one complete disk image of Debian armhf exists for Genesi/Freescale Efika MX (and maybe TI Pandaboard and BeagleBoard).
Parallel ARM paths on Ubuntu.
build X from source - Debian's buildd machines are Efika MXs and i.MX53 QuickStarts so thankfully the build is already done; the TI OMAP X server is built.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raspberry_Pi shows Debian on it. |
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Posted: Jan 27, 2012 - 04:21 PM |
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Joined: Nov 17, 2004
Posts: 13819
Location: Vancouver, BC
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Quote:
As it is, it's a $35 totally useless PCB.
Bullshit.
Quote:
Or do Raspberry have plans like Debian and Canonical to employ package maintainers and prebuild all these things then provide some kind of .deb or .rpm package format for the users?
Yes. |
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Regards,
Steve A.
The Board helps those that help themselves.
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Posted: Jan 28, 2012 - 12:11 AM |
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Joined: Mar 07, 2001
Posts: 2376
Location: Stockholm, Sweden
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Koshchi wrote:
Quote:
As it is, it's a $35 totally useless PCB.
Bullshit.
Really? So what can you use the PCB for? Learning programming by staring intently at it and imagining code?
As I said, the PCB is, just as the Cray XMP motherboard, by itself, useless. |
_________________
/Jesper
http://www.yampp.com
The quick black AVR jumped over the lazy PIC.
What boots up, must come down.
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Posted: Jan 28, 2012 - 11:19 PM |
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Joined: Jun 19, 2002
Posts: 950
Location: SF Bay area
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at $35, it's more expensive than the "two generations old" PCs that you could pluck for free from many "1st world" dumpsters and eWaste sites. Not counting practical details like cleanup, shipping, power budget, and obsolete software, and continued maintenance.
There's long been a paradox about used computers. In theory there are enough "waste computers" that could serve a lot of people who can't afford new computers. In reality those are the people least equipped to deal with the issues of obsolete systems. You or I might rescue and old P2 W98 system and use it to run old AVR development software ("It has a parallel port! this is great!") and be perfectly happy. But it won't run a modern OS or web browser, can't play video worth crap, doesn't have a "obsolete computers for dummies" on sale at the local book store, and isn't covered by the adult education classes. So it's just trash  |
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Posted: Jan 29, 2012 - 01:35 AM |
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Joined: Nov 17, 2004
Posts: 13819
Location: Vancouver, BC
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Quote:
As I said, the PCB is, just as the Cray XMP motherboard, by itself, useless.
This just shows how asinine your argument is. |
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Regards,
Steve A.
The Board helps those that help themselves.
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Posted: Jan 29, 2012 - 11:06 AM |
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Joined: Mar 07, 2001
Posts: 2376
Location: Stockholm, Sweden
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Koshchi wrote:
Quote:
As I said, the PCB is, just as the Cray XMP motherboard, by itself, useless.
This just shows how asinine your argument is.
It is? You still haven't suggested a use of the PCB, worth $35. |
_________________
/Jesper
http://www.yampp.com
The quick black AVR jumped over the lazy PIC.
What boots up, must come down.
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Posted: Jan 31, 2012 - 10:16 AM |
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Joined: Jul 18, 2005
Posts: 62230
Location: (using avr-gcc in) Finchingfield, Essex, England
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condemned wrote:
The Raspberry-Pi is to be my Christmas present; I suspect Santa might be running late.
I've also been following them for the last few months, and given the background of the foundation's board members, I really, really doubt that it's a wind-up. In fact, I predict that the first Raspberry Pi's will be delivered before the end of January 2012. If they're not, I'll eat my words!
Are you ready for a word sandwich?
And if the "store" on the Raspberry site switches to listing electronics rather than keyboard stickers before midnight I'll eat MY words  |
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Posted: Jan 31, 2012 - 12:01 PM |
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Joined: Sep 04, 2007
Posts: 356
Location: Oxford (England)
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clawson wrote:
Are you ready for a word sandwich?
I have my salt and pepper ready
'still hoping that today's the day though! |
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Posted: Jan 31, 2012 - 07:19 PM |
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Joined: Jul 18, 2005
Posts: 62230
Location: (using avr-gcc in) Finchingfield, Essex, England
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Posted: Jan 31, 2012 - 07:21 PM |
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Joined: Aug 13, 2006
Posts: 6695
Location: Bellingham, WA - USA
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Quote:
Would that be 1st Feb then?
Probably March 14 (pi day). |
_________________
Chuck Baird
"It's better to catch the trapeze than test the safety net" -- RPi book
http://www.cbaird.org
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Posted: Jan 31, 2012 - 08:35 PM |
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Joined: Sep 20, 2003
Posts: 4061
Location: Surrey, England
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Posted: Jan 31, 2012 - 08:36 PM |
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Joined: Jan 03, 2006
Posts: 4410
Location: Hemel Hemsptead, UK
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