Pi in the sky. ?

[anywebsite 10]

My phone uses the Android OS, not Linux, unless Android is Linux based?

 

Yes, Android is Linux distribution. This is similar type of hardware to what you'd find in a low end Android phone, minus the screen, case & phone parts.

Edited December 25, 2011 by anywebsite

[anywebsite 10]

Anyway, this looks great. A credit card sized silent PC for £22, uses next to no power. What's not to like about it? I'll buy at least one.

Edited December 25, 2011 by anywebsite

[Resident 1,185]

Having watched the video on the BBC blog I get what he means by these type of skills aren't taught in ICT anymore. I was doing my GCSEs in the late 90s and as he quite rightly said it was all about using office software rather than programming etc.

 

In the year that I started my GCSEs there was a GCSE offered "Programming & Electronics" which there were finite spaces available and there were student turned down because there were too many wanting it. Yet the following year it was dropped as an option. A decision I fail to see why it was taken given the popularity of the course.

 

Further down the line I took IT in college and looking at the prospectus I saw that there was a programming element listed, which I thought was great, until it turned out to be a 2 week module using pascal and then it was back to the office-based stuff for the rest of the course.

[upinwath 10]

I can see potential for this in poorer countries.

The LAN version could allow networked computers into a lot of classrooms.

[swarfendor437 14]

Wrong. Mac OS X is not Linux based, neither is iOS.

 

Mac OS X is a Unix as is Linux.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mac_OS_X

 

Have to disagree on the last statement that Linux is unix - it isn't hence GNU/Linux - GNU is Not Unix. Microsoft gives substantial money to a right-wing Economic Organisation that instructed an independent IT specialist to go over UNIX and Linux code to see if the former had been integrated at all - when he reported he could find no similarities he was asked to look again! (from an article in Linux User and Developer a while back).

[karl101 10]

I can see potential for this in poorer countries.

The LAN version could allow networked computers into a lot of classrooms.

 

Sod the poorer countries, I want to see this as being as revolutionary as the BBC Micro or Sinclair Spectrum. The BBC Micro especially introduced school kids to programming and consequently created a massive UK wide programming industry, even in Sheffield (remember Manic Miner on the spectrum?).

 

Programming and Development in the UK is in decline, this is a creative and profit making industry, but the current IT education is just teaching how to be consumers.

 

K.

[swarfendor437 14]

Sod the poorer countries, I want to see this as being as revolutionary as the BBC Micro or Sinclair Spectrum. The BBC Micro especially introduced school kids to programming and consequently created a massive UK wide programming industry, even in Sheffield (remember Manic Miner on the spectrum?).

 

Programming and Development in the UK is in decline, this is a creative and profit making industry, but the current IT education is just teaching how to be consumers.

 

K.

 

Hear, hear to that - the whole thing was ably written about in one of the major PC Publications I have lying around somewhere - its not the complete answer but a start - Education Policy is out of date, there is little promotion of the Math required - another reason why there was a significant drop in Computer Engineering course attendees - when they (students) discovered they needed to know higher maths they dropped out like flies - their needs to be industry input, government rethink (education policy instead of shovelling desktop applications as IT and making IT have meaningful links with other curriculum subjects to tie it all together - oh and not forgetting the Exam Boards!).

[nubile 10]

Sod the poorer countries, I want to see this as being as revolutionary as the BBC Micro or Sinclair Spectrum. The BBC Micro especially introduced school kids to programming and consequently created a massive UK wide programming industry, even in Sheffield (remember Manic Miner on the spectrum?).

 

Programming and Development in the UK is in decline, this is a creative and profit making industry, but the current IT education is just teaching how to be consumers.

 

K.

 

But this is just a tiny usb device, no monitor, no mouse, no keyboard.

I told you i don't get it.

[Sid Umpley 10]

it has USB for a keyboard, hdmi and composite video out so can cope with a keyboard easy enough and a variety of different displays.

 

are you seeing a computer as something you use to DO things? if so then your never going to "get" this.

 

the Pi will do plenty of stuff. if will play hd video, it can be used to learn to program it can run an amazing amount of free software and best of all. its pocket sized and costs less than a xbox game. this little thing is the sort of thing that the people who wrote windows/osx/android etc would have loved to have had when they where younger.

[Phanerothyme 12]

The Raspberry Pi trumps a lot of the other picocomputers because it has USB and video out, something things like the Picotux lack - they must be controlled via a client on the same network.

 

But like compuspud says, Pi has been a long time coming, and is eagerly anticipated. The only shortcoming I can see is (unless they've changed the spec) that it can't draw enough power over the lan to operate and will need its own power supply.

[nubile 10]

 

are you seeing a computer as something you use to DO things? if so then your never going to "get" this.

 

 

 

Sort of, but that's besides the point, if this is just a new tool for people already interested in coding anyway, is that what it is. ?

 

I think.

[upinwath 10]

Apart from the potential educational advantages in poorer countries (sod the posters who don't like that), I can see a load of potential uses for control of whatever or internet anywhere a TV is knocking about. It may well have potential as a cheap media player as well.