Raspberry Pi

[Dagenham Rover]

I remember seeing a thread on here about this pc its now on sale £22

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2012/feb/29/raspberry-pi-computer-sale-british

[Rios]

It's sold out already.  I've been checking the RPi website religiously for the last month or so waiting for them to start shipping... and they did the first 10,000 in hours.  You can register now for the next lot which are on back-order but they've signed up two distributors (who's websites did a VSC under the strain!) so they should be more readily available in the next fortnight.

[Sheepskin Stu]

It's sold out already.  I've been checking the RPi website religiously for the last month or so waiting for them to start shipping... and they did the first 10,000 in hours.  You can register now for the next lot which are on back-order but they've signed up two distributors (who's websites did a VSC under the strain!) so they should be more readily available in the next fortnight.

Is it true you can run HD video through them?

[Rios]

Yes you can with restrictions.  It's got a single core 700Mhz processor and only 256Mb ram.  However, like a mobile phone it's more than capable if that's all it's doing.  Starting sticking heavily compressed and encoded mkv files through it though and it'll probably end in stutters.

Make sure you get the \"Model B\" version though as it has ethernet and a second USB port.  You also have to be aware that it is a bare-bones (ie circuit board) unit and it isn't 386 based... meaning no Windows of any sort!  However there's already a version of Linux ready to go and Android won't be far behind it.  When it becomes more generally available I'll be buying a handful of them as they're so low powered (you use a phone usb charger!) that I could run 30 or 40 of them for the same power consumption as my home server.

[Sheepskin Stu]

Yes you can with restrictions.  It's got a single core 700Mhz processor and only 256Mb ram.  However, like a mobile phone it's more than capable if that's all it's doing.  Starting sticking heavily compressed and encoded mkv files through it though and it'll probably end in stutters.

Make sure you get the \"Model B\" version though as it has ethernet and a second USB port.  You also have to be aware that it is a bare-bones (ie circuit board) unit and it isn't 386 based... meaning no Windows of any sort!  However there's already a version of Linux ready to go and Android won't be far behind it.  When it becomes more generally available I'll be buying a handful of them as they're so low powered (you use a phone usb charger!) that I could run 30 or 40 of them for the same power consumption as my home server.

That's very interesting. Thanks for the info.

They appear to be targetting schools to get kids programming but how do you see more general consumers using them?

[Rios]

They're targetting the 80's generation who grew up using the first home computers.  Lot's of people played games on Speccy's and C64's but there was a large number of people who learnt to program on them.  Strangely Microsoft was a big part of that as they started off selling Basic and other languages rather than OS's and Office.  It's easy to forget that every single computer in the 80's came with a programming language as standard.

School's are one of the targets because most of today's kids have little concept of programming, electronics or constructing your own stuff like kids in the 70's and 80's did.  That's why the UK was one of the hotbeds of computer programming and engineering.  The processors in every single phone came out of this.  That's what they're trying to stimulate again as the UK has always been a nation of inventors.

Of course enthusiasts (geeks!) like myself will use them as webservers, fileservers or media streamers, etc but they could be used to play video or internet browsing, etc.  It should be able to do most basic tasks and I get the feeling that the main stumbling block will be peoples relucatance and ignorance of Linux rather than the hardware limitations.

[Sheepskin Stu]

They're targetting the 80's generation who grew up using the first home computers.  Lot's of people played games on Speccy's and C64's but there was a large number of people who learnt to program on them.  Strangely Microsoft was a big part of that as they started off selling Basic and other languages rather than OS's and Office.  It's easy to forget that every single computer in the 80's came with a programming language as standard.

School's are one of the targets because most of today's kids have little concept of programming, electronics or constructing your own stuff like kids in the 70's and 80's did.  That's why the UK was one of the hotbeds of computer programming and engineering.  The processors in every single phone came out of this.  That's what they're trying to stimulate again as the UK has always been a nation of inventors.

Of course enthusiasts (geeks!) like myself will use them as webservers, fileservers or media streamers, etc but they could be used to play video or internet browsing, etc.  It should be able to do most basic tasks and I get the feeling that the main stumbling block will be peoples relucatance and ignorance of Linux rather than the hardware limitations.

I got a Spectrum 48k in 1985 and it was the best thing ever. Didn't need anything else until I got an Amiga in 1991 and that was a huge leap forward. Some great memories there.

Has someone designed a case for the Pi yet?

[Rios]

I had an Acorn Electron and then an Amiga in '89.  Windows PC's are a poor substitution for those growing up to learn anything on.  I'm eternally grateful that I grew up in the era I did.

No official cases yet.  Think a few people have bodged together there own, but with Raspberry Pi being a charity and the goodwill that the community seems to have for it, it seems that no-one wants to be clod-hopping in to exploit the project.  I can live without cases for the time being.

[Rios]

Has someone designed a case for the Pi yet?

As if by magic...  http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=290677470826#description

Some of the questions and answers are very funny!

[Dagenham Rover]

Q:  Ive heard Jamie Oliver maybe throwing his weight behind a similar campaign, the Pukka Pi is sure to be a huge hit.