Minimal Computing (anyone using "Raspberry Pi"?)

[jamesqf]

Originally Posted by Arragonis

On our day computers had 1K of memory, if you were lucky, and only a pretend keyboard.

I was describing the first computer I OWNED, not the first I used. Ever use a card punch to write programs?

[Arragonis]

Originally Posted by jamesqf

I was describing the first computer I OWNED, not the first I used. Ever use a card punch to write programs?

No, we used paper tape in the early days of Uni and later magnetic tape at Leyland (Trucks - i.e. the bit of British Leyland than made money instead of losing it ). I have to say I don't pine for those days.

Originally Posted by Old Tele man

...sounds like somebody had one of the original SINCLAIR microcomputers.

Yep - they bombed in the US big style but sold well here and (oddly) very well in Spain of all places. I switched to a BBC Micro instead and learned to love Assembler - and then into the world of IBM-clone-greyness which has provided a living ever since.

I do miss the Beeb though.

[Arragonis]

Naw - thats Z80, I'm a sixty-fiver.

[Varn]

Neat little computer. What didn't seem obvious is the input and display options. I have no interest in using a touch screen. My wifes phone has that, screen is too small for me to see easy and it seems very inefficient to type on. Maybe I could get used to it.

At home we use a 10 year old office desk top running Ubuntu. Works pretty well. Would barely run anything and was slow running nearly everything. I doubt if it efficient but it is obsolete for what it was purchased for. Yet works great for what it is being used for now. We have one computer that runs DOS, It drives a visual fields processor and does fine.

My first experience with digital circuits was in 70 or 71. I was a trained repairman for the digital and analog circuits in tape recorders for recording voice and digital data for the army's division of NSA.

I got my first computer in the mid 70's It had 4kb of memory and a tape drive. I still use a lens calculation program that I wrote for it back then. It runs on basica. Would take 10 minutes to load it on tape but is an icon on my windows desktop and loads nearly instantly. I probably run the program once a month. If I were to ever totally redo the calculator I would make it in a spread sheet. At the time I didn't even know what a spreadsheet was. The original TI computer is in the back of a closet right now in the original box.

Most of my computing time is record keeping for my business, I would say about half of my computing power is sucked up by anti virus/malware software. I don't have time to fix any broken office machine I depend on the machines to run so I can do my work.

Something like these compact machines running efficient operating systems/software would probably suit me well for home use, thanks for posting the info.

[Arragonis]

Originally Posted by Varn

Neat little computer. What didn't seem obvious is the input and display options.

For input the PI has 2 USB ports, which I use for a keyboard and a mouse but you can plug in a port and extend this if you wish. For output it has an RCA (i.e. old style TV) connector and a HDMI interface which allows it to plug into most TVs available today. I use a cheap (£7) HDMI to VGA adaptor to use mine on a computer monitor.

It also has a LAN connector and Audio - this is the diagram at the site.



Power comes from a Micro USB port, a lot of mobile phone adaptors work - my work Samsung Galaxy S2 works fine.

There are some cases available including a cardboard box, a cigarette packet and lego - all plans are on line.

Originally Posted by Varn

At home we use a 10 year old office desk top running Ubuntu. Works pretty well.

I use Ubuntu on a netbook which is about 8-10x as fast as the machine I used 10 years ago but its still slow.

The PI can run Debian or Fedora (there are distros linked to by the website) from an SD card. I have an 8GB one with Debian on it.

The PI is probably not a computer to use for business critical or mission critical tasks, although some users have that in mind. It is a hobbyist thing so far.

[euromodder]

Originally Posted by jamesqf

Minimal? Guess it depends on your definition. 700 Mhz processor, 256 MB RAM, SD chip "disk" which are up to what, 32 GB these days?

128 and 64 GB are available in retail.

[Varn]

One heck of a machine. Hope the software folks are writing code to fit it.

Seeing this is like a glimpse into the future. I look at my 10 pound machines using 60-100+ watts of power and then multiply it by the number of machines that I run and multiply that by 100 million or a billion other machines and I think about amount of power we are using. Now divide it by 10 or 20 with using this type of machine.

Even if this technology allows another billion users to come on line the power consumption is still lower than what it is today. Capitalism at it's finest.

Originally Posted by Arragonis

For input the PI has 2 USB ports, which I use for a keyboard and a mouse but you can plug in a port and extend this if you wish. For output it has an RCA (i.e. old style TV) connector and a HDMI interface which allows it to plug into most TVs available today. I use a cheap (£7) HDMI to VGA adaptor to use mine on a computer monitor.

It also has a LAN connector and Audio - this is the diagram at the site.



Power comes from a Micro USB port, a lot of mobile phone adaptors work - my work Samsung Galaxy S2 works fine.

There are some cases available including a cardboard box, a cigarette packet and lego - all plans are on line.



I use Ubuntu on a netbook which is about 8-10x as fast as the machine I used 10 years ago but its still slow.

The PI can run Debian or Fedora (there are distros linked to by the website) from an SD card. I have an 8GB one with Debian on it.

The PI is probably not a computer to use for business critical or mission critical tasks, although some users have that in mind. It is a hobbyist thing so far.

[Arragonis]

Originally Posted by euromodder

128 and 64 GB are available in retail.

If you do dip into the PI, be careful of the SD Cards because quite a few don't work properly. There is a forum sticky on the site which has a list of ones which people have reported DO work.

Originally Posted by Varn

One heck of a machine. Hope the software folks are writing code to fit it...

Originally it was aimed at getting kids into coding so the software that is available (there is none on it, you have to download it and put it onto the SD card) include simple tools such as Scratch (cartoon game maker) and Python - the latter can be used to write pretty much anything you want to and it is dead quick and easy to learn - even on Windows or Linux. I recommend Geany as the editor.

Obviously the "raw program ore" of C and C++ are available too. Some brave souls have ported .NET (Mono) too.

The core chip inside it is the same as your mobile phone - an ARM. It is quite an old version and it is packaged as part of a larger chip which also supplies the graphics and sound capabilities.

There is a YouTube channel - Raspberry PI tutorials. The guy got DOOM to run at more or less full speed, it did take 6 hours to compile though

[cfg83]

Hello -

Homebrew enthusiast modifies Raspberry Pi to control beer fermentation | Geek.com

As the art of brewing your own beer becomes increasingly popular, it’s no surprise to see that the geeks of the world have rushed to apply their ample knowledge of electronics to making the process easier. A prime example of this is a project by a Dutch homebrew enthusiast named Elco Jacobs. Jacobs uses a modified version of the ever-popular Raspberry Pi computer to both control and provide information during the critical fermentation process of his beer.

CarloSW2

[Arragonis]

Excuse me, I have a new project...