Minimal Computing (anyone using "Raspberry Pi"?)

[Arragonis]

Originally Posted by freebeard

Palm Pilot =/= Newton

Epiphany Is a Fast, Modern Browser for the Raspberry Pi

True

[Arragonis]

Pi2 has arrived and tapping this on it using Epiphany which seems to be the new default browser.

Ordered an Motorola Atrix dock to make it into a laptop which involves a bit of hacking but will be fun.

I'll recycle my old B+ into a retro gaming cabinet project I think - I have an old joystick from the 80s about and some push buttons.

EDIT - I'm intending to follow this guide

http://www.iliketomakestuff.com/rasp...arcade-part-1/

Although the Retropie website has been down all weekend.

[freebeard]

Xenon Flashes Can Make New Raspberry Pi 2 Freeze and Reboot - Slashdot

[Smurf]

As a kid, I was interested in computers. Never got too deep into it, messing around with DOS (and much later HTML) was the extent of my knowledge. My older cousin has done well for himself in the IT field, so everyone thought that's what I should do also.

Each time I tried to get a "formal education" on computers, I was dragged into the depths of binary hell. For someone 15-25 years old, in this world, it takes approximately 3.2 seconds to lose interest. Just as driving styles change over age, so do interests. [Side note: Maybe people should start college at age 25, when they have more idea of who they are in a REAL world...]

Enter the Raspberry Pi. It uses things this generation is accustomed to (HDMI, Ethernet, USB, even touchscreens) in a way that makes us think deeper than just loading Angry Birds on a Chinese tablet. In my case, it re-opens a door that I regrettably closed long ago. And this isn't some long monotonous course or lecture, this is something you pay a mere 35 bucks and do what YOU want.

[Arragonis]

@Smurf - nice write up! Agreed throwing the basic (as in bare metal) bits at beginners is dumb - you have to be really into it to get any benefit. Much better to start at a higher level and then suggest that people learn under the hood afterwards.

I started my interest here (when BBC Horizon did real science) :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HW5Fvk8FNOQ

Combined with one afternoon when a teacher filled in a session teaching us number bases - including base 2, "binary, what computers use...".

For everyone the Pi part is based on Python being the key language - there is an excellent starter course on it here

Preface

Downloadable as a PDF too.

[Arragonis]

Originally Posted by freebeard

Xenon Flashes Can Make New Raspberry Pi 2 Freeze and Reboot - Slashdot

Xenon Death Flash: a free physics lesson | Raspberry Pi

If you own a Raspberry Pi 2, congratulations: you’re also the proud owner of an elegant demonstration of the photoelectric effect!

At the weekend, Peter Onion, a veteran of our forums and of Raspberry Jams in Cambridge, Bletchley and surrounding areas (visible, costumed, in the background of this photo at the Christmas CamJam), discovered what we think might be the most adorable bug we’ve ever come across.

The Raspberry Pi 2 is camera-shy.

[freebeard]

It's right up there with using CMOS memory (with the backing scrapped off) to make a video digitizer and dropping a laser scanner into the ImageWriter printer to make it an input device.

[Arragonis]

The input here being rebo....

[Arragonis]

I managed to track down an old Motorola Atrix Dock at the weekend. Why is this significant ? Because you can build a PI Laptop with it and some cheap-ish cables available on Amazon or Fleabay.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5UTBUhf4Wec

A year or so ago you could pick one up on clearance for about $50 or less (£30) as the original phone was discontinued and someone at Motorola over estimated the demand.

But since the idea of making a PI laptop out of it has come about they seem to have gone up in price - wonder why

That tapped the price I paid (~£60) is more or less what I would pay for a cheap LCD style TV with a HDMI input, but the lapdock also includes a keyboard and touchpad.

The dock arrived and looks nice, the cables should be here tomorrow hopefully.

[CliffordHolt]

Glad you got it working - I haven't used Roadkill but it sounds OK, I used WinDD but you have to be careful because it will write over anything - including your system partition.